Originally Posted by
UA-NYC
I actively tracked a bunch of LX flights for my trip a couple weeks ago - despite there being plenty of F seats for sale, no F award seats ever came available. Seems like they're gone for non-M&M members.
LH F, you can't get in advance, but at least they will still open up close to flight time.
Yes, you can get them in advance but they are rare and so few that they are taken the minute they are put out there. But LH F is very easy to get on all routes as long as you book (or change the booking) within that 14 day window
***just these last 10 days I took the LH 380 and the 747-8 in F but had to wait for them to open (and most flights usually do)
The people posting that say LX or SQ or whoever MUST make a certain number of award seats avail have NO IDEA what they are talking about. They post these comments as if they have actually read the Star Alliance member contracts, etc (which is ridiculous). The fact is any member can not only restrict award availability, but they have the right to zero it out completely if they want to (as you can see since both LX and SQ have done just that w awards in F. The reason LX did it (according to a letter sent to one of their HHONORS members and an interview that the President of LX gave was they want their F cabin to be more exclusive, and not filled with "mileage millionaires" from "America". If this makes good business sense for them, then no other *A member is going to tell them otherwise. Regardless of what I've read here as well, the airlines only pay each other "hundreds" of dollars for these F seats so it's not worth it to many of them to allow greater availability. Airlines like UA litterally can't give away their F seats (if they could, you would never see a non rev in F) so it makes more sense for airlines like UA to open more seats then an airline like LX (who just pulled all if their non M&M award avail from stock.