skywalkerLAX

Morning all !

Just a question regarding the FlySmart awards:

They are not refundable against 40USD like regular awards of course, but what happens in the case I dont use the return leg of that flight ?

Do LH reimburses me for the taxes on the return that wont be used?

Thanks, :-:

Flying Lawyer

I do not think so. To my recollection it is stipulated in the T&C that only the taxes of fully unused tickets can be refunded.

Yemona

I am quite sure they will do. Please try and let us know!

rorschi

Be aware that LH could claim the difference for the fare (an oneway-award costs 3/4 of the "full price"). So I don't recommend to claim back the taxes for any ticket (paid or with miles...) which was only partly used.

Let sleeping dogs lie

Yemona

We talk about the RT only Fly smart award here - not a standard award.

skywalkerLAX

Wasnt there a lawsuit recently that they are not allowed to do that

IŽm not that current with it...

Since these are not my miles that I are burning with the FlySmart stuff IŽm quiet in a mood to waste some of them otherwise they expire on DEC31 anyways... But the regular one way is just 140 EUR so if I have to pay tax for return it s not worth it because these are about 90,- EUR

rorschi

I know. But LH would not really like the idea that travellers "misuse" flysmart-awards (15'000 miles) for oneway-flights which would cost 22'500 miles (0,75* the full award price).

Of course most of use "misused" cheap r/t-tickets for oneway-flights, but I would just not claim the taxes back. As I said: Let sleeping dogs lie!

jog

Lufthansa reimburses the taxes on a FlySmart award without problems if you ask for it. I did so in August when I had to fly back a day earlier than I was booked. They refused by all means to rebook the flight even against a charge. So I booked a new return flight in T (which was still available) and claimed the taxes for the unused return sector of the award ticket.

alex2612

Does anyone have experience of booking award Fly smart flights during the high season? I am planning to make a return flight in Europe (MUC-Kiev-MUC) in early May. The LH M&M support team cannot not guarantee that there will be seats left for the award flight.
I am interested in any experience that members had.
Thanx a lot.

totti

First of all welcome to FT alex2612!

For sure M&M won't guarantee that you will be able to book an award flight using fly smart. That's the purpose of fly smart awards: you get a heavy discount mileage-wise for booking on short notice for seats LH would otherwise probably not be able to sell but on the reverse side you won't get a seat if booking situation is good form LH's point of view.

I did some flights using fly smart awards (I know that it is a waste of miles from a certain perspective but sometimes it can make sense) Last time I had a FRA - BIO - FRA flight booked for me and my wife during high season. There were boths, flights in C and Y cabin available.

In my experience it is no problem to grab a fly smart award on european flights if there is more than one flight per day to the destination you want to go to. You won't probably be able to get a seat in Y but in C (as they just need to move the curtain but can charge you a higher amount of miles).

AFAIK there are two flights a day on MUC-KBP so you might be lucky and get a fly smart award. But if you need to fly on a certain day and time you'd better book a flight by paying. Again, there is no guarantee that you'll get an award using fly smart.

Hope that helps.
Greetings
totti

szg

It make sence, booking a fly smart award and it is not a waste of miles. Because of the discount from 50% and getting a "cheap" flight in the next days, I think it is a good deal.

weero

I used it twice in an "emergency" when my friend suddenly had to go from ZRH to FLR and and revenue flights were way high.
Same for a short trip to France. The combination of SEN and FlySmart was excellent as she could go on the plane the next morning.
ZRH-FCO in summer however never, ever worked for me. Not as a standard award nor as FlySmart .. so be prepared.

I'd recommend to make a dummy booking for say 3 people to that destination for the dates you want and if it works, you might be lucky .

Oh, forgot HAM-MAN on New Year's Eve also worked like a charm at no notice but a day .

olm022

Hey alex2612,

I have had a very similar problem juts a week ago. I needed to fly FRA-KBP and then LWO-TXL on March 15 - April 1. Well, LH played a very bad joke or smth. A day before the 14-day advance purchase requirements rule, "magically" FRA-KBP (and also VIE-KBP, LJU-KBP, WAW-KBP, WAW-KBP, DUS-KBP) award seats both in Y and C disappeared. I tried to do the dummy booking for the period throughout the end of March, and not a single award seat to/from KBP was/is available.

Having called to LH, I got a standard "you can book the seats if they are available, blah blah blah". Some even said, that because LWO-TXL via VIE on OS was not an eticket (yeah, right....), the system would not allow the booking (how lame!!!).

My speculations is that it might be the fact that LH planned to introduce an evening flight FRA-KBP in March (in February, it had already been possible to book it as FlySmart), but decided not to increase the frequency and had to accommodate the people who had already booked the evening flight.

For the past three years, I have not had an problems booking flights to KBP via/ex FRA/MUC. But this time... Well, at least I am getting a very good mileage out of the flight I had bought...

Dennis

How do you do that?
Online, you´ll get only flights two days in advance!

sentom

not only online, hotline can only do awards two days in advance too. fly smart can only be booked online though anyway...