As shown in the immediate preceding post, patience, flexibility, multiple searches with various parameters (departure time, EU departure point) are required. If you cant get direct, adjust your departure city to somewhere else near and try. Keep digging!

No doubt true. But sadly MUC (or FRA) is a very considerable distance far from my departure point - which, I thought I had mentioned, is CPT.

And just to be clear, my goal is not to score any LH F award available within a x mile radius for the sake of travelling on LH in F. I just want to be able to book the same award seats that numerous other FFPs within *A can access. With Lifemiles that is apparently too much to ask.

Guess I'll just have to throw myself on the tender mercies of OW and slum it in BA F. Far from ideal, I know - but in the circumstances what can one do? :o

LH don't fly F to/from CPT though?

They do - CPT/MUC using an A346. It's seasonal though. The economy awards on this flight do show on Lifemiles.

then adjust your arrival point and try! e.g. txl or ham...you never know what married segment logic might be in play.

Thanks. My objective was CPT/LHR. I did a fair bit of mucking about with the options and at one stage got shown a routing with 4 legs including F on the JNB/FRA leg.

But the point of my original post was not to say there is never F available on any LH flights to/from ZA. It was to point out that a route that:
a) previously showed F availability on Lifemiles and
b) currently shows F availability on the search engines of UA, AC and NH (inside the 14 day window),
now never shows F availability.

When you talk about the married segment logic I take it you are implying that Lifemiles applies a logic different from that applied by the other FFPs - otherwise how would that explain the different availability on Lifemiles vs. the othe three?

is LH F availability using LM different than using UA?

Most definitely.

hmm. Yet the bloggers pimp the LM mile sales endlessly

If your tolerance for BS is low, you'd be better off looking elsewhere than LM. Their phone agents are useless for anything other than canceling a ticket. Their website is unpredictable and sometimes doesn't work. They block award space until practically the last-minute for any award ticket that is going to cost them more to book on the back-end. And, everything with a complex booking via e-mail is a "YMMV experience".

That said, just recall that I prefaced what I said with "If your tolerance for BS is low". There are some benefits that obviously warrant them to be considered a viable option. You just have to be EXTREMELY FLEXIBLE and concede that there will be bookings that you could easily make with UA that you will not be able to make easily or at all with LM.

my tolerance for BS is low enough that I couldn't deal with KE's phone booking process for partner/skyteam awards (prior to their recent roll out of online booking).

mechanics of booking
 

I have a general question about booking. I've never booked with LM before. If this is already answered in another thread, please point me to it.

I see LH F award availability on Jan 24, FRA>IAD. I need to go MAD>FRA, and then FRA>IAD. When I search for MAD>IAD, it gives me Avianca through BOG. Not interested in that.

Question: How do I actually get it to show me MAD>FRA>IAD so I can book it online? Or do I have to phone for this?

Thank you.

Send screenshots of the flights available + phone number + scan of passport to [email protected] with CC: [email protected]

If your itinerary qualifies (eg. no stopovers/extreme layovers), they'll book it for you and ask to call them to make the payment... or they may call.

Sometimes they respond within hours.

1. screenshot mehod + patience + luck
2. LCC + LH award
3. tinker with departure time
the rest of the underhanded options.....not safe for public exposure