I recently posted about how I booked two business class award tickets to Hong Kong using Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles on China Airlines along with the Chase 25% transfer bonus (see this post). Now, I’ve booked our return flights back to the USA in business class using Lufthansa miles. Yay!
Is Lufthansa Underrated for Asia Redemptions?
As I mentioned in my previous post, finding business class award availability for 2 or more people to/from Asia is extremely difficult. Cathay Pacific is still very stingy with award space, and EVA Air only sees to release one seat per flight to partner airlines.
But, aside from the consistency of China Airlines’ award space on Flying Blue, Asiana has decent business class award space on select days of the week between LAX and SFO to Seoul. And, Lufthansa seems to have some of the lowest partner award prices for those Asiana flights out of all the Star Alliance carriers. A one-way award ticket in business class is 71,000 miles plus fees of $100-$250 between the West Coast and Asia. That award price not only includes the flight to or from Seoul, but also connecting flights to other Asia destinations.
I’ve found availability for 2-4 business class seats on these Asiana flights.
One-way economy tickets are bookable with Lufthansa miles for 40,000 miles each way. Both Asiana and EVA Air have 3+ award seats for these routes. EVA Air flies to/from non-West Coast cities for that price, including Chicago and Houston.
Why Lufthansa is a PITA
There is a reason everyone isn’t always booking with Lufthansa miles. Several reasons, actually.
- Lufthansa doesn’t partner with the major banks like Chase, Citi, Amex or Capital One. So, you can’t transfer those points into Lufthansa’s Miles and More program. Marriott is the only transfer partner, plus there is a Barclay credit card for Lufthansa.
- You can’t search for award availability using Lufthansa miles unless you have 7000 or more miles in your account. Also, award flights in Lufthansa program to/from Asia don’t appear to be showing in the point.me tool.
- Miles expire after 36 months.
- Lufthansa’s award search tool isn’t great. If there is no award availability for your search, you have to start all over.
- You can’t book mixed cabin awards online (ie. one leg in business, one leg in economy).
- In the USA currently, you can’t combine miles with family members.
- You can only transfer 35k miles per year to another member at 10 Euros per 1000 miles, and you can only do it in the Lufthansa app.
- Lufthansa passes along high fees/taxes on its own flights.
My Booking Experience
My husband and I both signed up for the Barclays Lufthansa Miles and More credit card a few months ago when the welcome bonus was 100,000 miles. Unfortunately, the bonus is back down to 50,000 miles at the moment. But, we had a combined total of 200,000 miles.
I saw award space online for multiple business class seats online with Asiana Airlines, but only for the long segment between Seoul and LAX/SFO. Separately, I could see that there was economy class award space on flights between Hong Kong and Seoul. So, I decided to call Lufthansa and see if they could ticket a mixed cabin award for the same 71,000 miles.
To my surprise, I had no trouble getting through the 1-800 customer service line. But, I had to give the rep my PIN number, which I had never created. So, I had to wait for an email from Lufthansa for that, which took about 30 minutes. Once I got that fixed, I called back, and the rep had no trouble handling my request. I then asked the rep to do the same routing for my daughter’s ticket through my husband’s Miles and More account. It worked!
I read on FlyerTalk that I could download the Asiana app in order to pick our seats (the website won’t work for that). So, a few minutes after booking our flights, I was able to assign our seats in the app.
Final Thoughts
My daughter and I are flying to and from Asia in business class seats using miles and points. I’m happy to have found a good use for my stash of Lufthansa Miles. While using Lufthansa Miles and More program has its drawbacks, booking our award tickets over the phone wasn’t too painful. ICYMI, you can earn Lufthansa miles from a special promotion this month with Booking.com (see Leana’s post from yesterday).
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
Thank you
Hi Nancy, what was the offer a few months back that we could pre register for some future card with the promise of some extra bonus? It was not for Lufthansa card, was it? Thank you in advance.
@Boris That offer was for an elevated bonus on the Amex TAP Air Portugal card (for 65k, but now the public offering is down to 50k).
Any idea if Lufthansa has better award access than Aeroplan or other programs?
@Chistian I don’t think it has better access, but it does seem to have earlier access based on the timing of when Lufthansa opens its calendar of bookings. Aeroplan is behind it by a few days and United is behind it by a month. Those business awards can be snatched up before they even get a chance to go on United’s site.
Persistence!
@PT Yes, that’s a necessary trait for this hobby!
That’s incredible! What a good use of Lufthansa miles.
@Leana I’m happy with the redemption and glad it was no big deal for the phone rep to combine the 2 segments for one price. Now I just need to figure out what I’ll do with the rest of the Lufthansa miles balance in each account.