LTN Phobia

I have just found a flight I wanted on LH M&M and I remembered I had a stash of A3 miles that I have been meaning to spend.

The flight is LH metal, and there are definitely redemption seats available (Business Flex rate on M&M), however, A3 won't find a business class seat, only economy class, on the particular flight.

I had to use M&M to book it in case the availability disappears, so it's sorted now but I'm wondering about what happened here.

I have noticed that there is no drop-down to choose the cabin on A3 for Star Alliance redemption flights at the moment, although I'm pretty sure there used to be one. Should I have been able to select the cabin on the redemption booking page?

Alternatively, is there a possibility that LH is restricting availability to A3 or some others?

Any info would be gratefully received. Thanks!

DELLAS

Almost certain LH and some others are restricting award seats for A3 and some other Star carriers. I have seen a few examples of this in recent months.

LTN Phobia

Interesting. I wonder if only Fly Smart availability is being shared with some others?

Air Rarotonga

Thats really no new news...

The availability for LH MAM members ist much higher than for the *A partners... It has to do nothing with LH MAM Fly Smart availability...

Use the NH tool to find out *A award availability on LH&co... UA is a strategic partner of LH and could have better availability than other *A airlines on LH&co.

LTN Phobia

I knew they were restricting certain cabins before but it's become much worse.

I don't need to use the NH tool as I use my LH M&M account and SQ PPS to search for availability (I used to use NH to search in the past but I'm not keen on its interface) although it's possible I'm seeing more than the 'standard' when I come to think of it because I think LH give SEN extra availability. For some reason I thought it was Y only but maybe not.

SQ seem to have pretty good access to LH group flights in premium classes.

Saying all that, strangely though, A3 found more availability in Y on LH than M&M (LH) itself did. Not that it was any use but I thought it was quite curious.

Is there any pattern to LH group flights in J or F becoming available on A3, e.g. certain categories or certain number of days before the flight etc.? It will save me bothering looking on both (or 3!) programmes if there is a pattern.

The point of this is that I have a stash of A3 balance that continues to grow, and I want to use them but it's not so easy because of restricted availability of LH Group (I suspect a few others as well) flights.

cfischer

If AC and NH show availability that's a pretty good indication it is available to other *A members as well.

irishguy28

If availability on every partner was supposed to be equal for all partners, then they may as well abolish all frequent flyer programmes and bring in a single Star Alliance FFP to replace the individual airlines'competing programmes.

Yes, the ST airlines are "partners", but they also compete. Most airlines run their FFP to make profit so no airline is, in an extreme example, going to stand by and watch their award seats predominantly end up booked in a rival programme where that redemption may be something of a bargain compared to their own.

I am surprised at how frequently it comes up all across FT that people expect to see the same availability across all their programmes of interest; the programmes are all different, with different qualification targets and different mileage earning rates.

So the expectation that redemptions should be equal across the board, when there is such a variation in earning and burning rates is, I think, somewhat naive.

LTN Phobia

I did not say they should be equal at all. I think some people are reading far too much into what I am saying or interpreting it incorrectly.

On the contrary it benefits me that those seats aren't available to A3 members because without much of a doubt the availability of reward seats for me with M&M would have been reduced and in many ways I'd happily have all premium seats restricted to the members of their own scheme (e.g. J seats would be easier to get on A3/OA with M&B also).

However, I have not seen this level of variability with OW except for some schemes with specially reduced redemption levels (e.g. AA Saver Award not being bookable with non-AA OW) so it does make me rather curious to see one programme with very generous premium availability with others not having any seat to offer at all.

frenchft

Maybe I'm wrong but I feel that booking LH with A3 last minute is always great in C and F.
I have been able to book with A3 Europe > Asia for 75K and an average 250 / 300 euros taxes for LH F awards and found that the availability in F and C is better than before with LH.
But I really feel that the worst regarding availability are LX and SQ.
Both never open F to A3 and for LX availability in C long haul is almost inexistent.

Air Rarotonga

Why do you expect that LX will open it's F-cl award availability for A3 M+B miles, if it's even officially blocked for LX MAM members (except SEN/HON)?

frenchft

frenchft

irishguy28

Well, to be fair, A3 offers LX and SQ customers no F or longhaul C availability either - so you can't really grumble too much!!

Jma12

You can now book SQ 787 in J with A3 miles for intra Asia

frenchft

I have booked 4 or 5 one way in the last year IST - SIN in C with SQ with A3 miles