Using Continental Miles for Lufthansa first class
 

I just booked 3 tickets using my miles:

MAY 3
HOUSTON > FRANKFURT > ADDIS ABABA > FRANKFURT > HOUSTON - the frankfurt houston sectors are on Continental not lufthansa - even though i prefer Lufthansa first.

SEPT. 15
HOUSTON > DEL > FRANKFURT > GENEVA > HOUSTON

SEPT. 30
HOUSTON > DEL > FRANKFURT > GENEVA > HOUSTON

On my May 3 trip i can't get houston to frankfurt on lufthansa 1st only on continental - i thought that was a big odd.

Then i booked the Sept. 15 same problem - i can't do houston > frankfurt >delhi on lufthansa first - i have to do houston > new wark > delhi

same prob. on Sept. 30 as well.

What gives? Why can't we book Lufthansa first using our continental miles?

Have you booked online or with an agent? AFAIK, for first you need to call if booking a reward with OP miles.

The other reason might be that LH does not have XF seats available for the day you travel (you can check with the ANA tool for this).

i called the agent - asked for +/- 5 days both ways for all 3 tickets!

LH highly restricts F reward seats for *A members outside their FFP. It is still possible; you just need to be quite flexible with dates and creative with routes. It used to be easier when they had 16F seats on their 747's, but they are taking those down to 8 now.

Using the ANA tool gives you a good view on what *A reward seats are available, and the enhanced CO site (in previews now) is showing decent promise of delivering the same.


SunLover

I'm actually surprised you found any premium award availability on CO on HOU-FRA. In general, CO is much stingier on releasing premium awards and your odds are usually much, much better securing F awards on LH.

For your September trip, I would keep looking on ANA or Aeroplan. LH is likely to open up more awards as you get closer to your travel dates, say within a month or two of your travel, although you might have to consider connecting through ORD or also looking for the nonstop from DFW or even MIA. Flexibility on dates and routing is the key. You can't just call up and expect to get the exact routing you want on the dates you want. Keep looking and stay flexible, and I assume you'll find some F awards on LH to FRA.

You absolutely CAN book LH F with CO miles. I recently flew JFK-MUC in LH F, I have a MUC-JFK LH F trip in a few months and I managed to book two trips in LX F as well. You just have to check the availability and not leave it up to the largely lazy and incompetent agents. LH actually has pretty good availability to partners. Just keep in mind if it's their A380 there will be no F availability opened up to partners.

I have a slightly different question. I want to book a reward flight to Europe (DME). Is it possible to fly coach on domestic route and business on international flight? How much it will cost in miles? continental.com does not show such possibility.

Thanks!

I found plenty of F options JFK-FRA/MUC and vv on the A343/6 along with the 747 (even at 8 seats)...this was a month or so ago for July travel. IMO LH and OZ are the best at releasing C/F.

I flew IAH - FRA last year this time in F on CO Rewards. I tried doing the same this year, same time frame, and couldn't find any availability. I seem to remember (someone cited on here) that LH was going to start overhauling their F cabins on the 747s (Which is what IAH-FRA typically is) in April this year and as such were pulling * Rewards for the immediate future for F on the 747.

I flew JFK-MUC-DME on LH recently. In J I believe N.America-Europe is 100k miles. That would put you on LH longhaul J for the TATL, then intra-euro J for the germany-DME leg.

Yes, it's possible. It will cost the same number of miles as a trip entirely in business/first class.

Among *A members TG is also very good about making their C/F inventory available for reward redemption. ^ LAX-BKK can be difficult since it is the only US flight; so the trick becomes getting connecting flights to other destinations in the TG route network.


SunLover

As several have pointed out you can certainly book partner F awards by phone. The latest CO preview site is testing this feature now too:
This capability to scheduled to go out to the main site on May 7.

Important point.

Before the new preview site came up I spent hours online looking for C reward tickets on the return part of a recent US-MCT trip. I called CO and, after some back and forth, the agent asked if I wanted to check F. Sure. The exact flights I wanted, MCT-AUH-FRA (LH F) - ORD -LGA (UA F) were all available in F .Mrs. ralfp was booked on those flights on a $ ticket, otherwise I would have continued on LH F to JFK (A380 I think).

The FRA-ORD part ended up on LH because of a medical diversion to IST.

Now why LX did not have not (and rarely, if ever, has) any availability on DXB-MCT (an A330-300 with something like 30 people on it) in any class is beyond me.

Were you using the ANA tool? It shows all 3 classes side-by-side so it's easy to see the F awards, when available. Just pick out all your flights and dictate to the CO phone agent. Sadly, with the LH 747s now reduced to 8 seats in F, those will probably start to get harder to score. :td:

I don't think LH would have let you have an F reward seat on the A380 just yet. :(