oliver2002

LH cuts down their schedule to a bare minimum between xmas and new years to match demand...@:-)

ASUDan130

Ok great so getting an award T-14 should be a piece of cake. Maybe I can be the only one in the cabin and have the FCT to myself!

TheBOSman

There's still a few people flying on those days in F . I've had the LH F cabin to myself (A380 no less), but I believe the fewest passengers I've personally seen in the FCT at one time is 6. Not that it is ever really crowded at all in any sense of the term.

babiko

Does Uniteds new website have anything to do with LH F availability. When the old website pulls up for example it shows plenty of availability of F and C on the IAD to FRA route, and literally right when the new site pulls up the availability disappears.

Khaleesi

Yes, I've been eyeing that flight and it is definitely one of my backup plans, if LH first isn't available. Really, that should be my Plan A, since nonstops are great. But I've never flown international First before, only biz, so I figured this might be a good trip for soaking up a little luxury.

Wow, that's kind of amazing! BTW, since you seem to be the expert on LH awards -- do you happen to know what time of day LH releases their F awards to partners? I know it's 14 days out, but I'm wondering if that starts at midnight in Germany, midnight in the origin city of the flight, departure time for the flight, or what.

JohnRain

Is ExpertFlyer also useful if you're looking to book an F award ticket through the M&M website? I understand that EF gives you more information than M&M because of the loads, but in the end you still have to check the M&M site on a daily basis to see if an award seat became available, or am I missing something?

TheBOSman

You really should start lower on the totem pole, jumping right up to LH F will spoil a lot of other flights for you .

I wouldn't go so far as to say "expert" although I have booked a couple of LH F awards . I have no clue exactly what time of day LH releases the awards unfortunately though.

It can be, as it certainly helps to know that a flight is F0 or F1 or F2. When that happens, there is likely no chance of LH releasing another award, although M&M F awards are available in advance of the 14-15 day from departure window as well. I don't "think" (could be wrong) that LH specifically releases extra F awards to M&M at 14-15 days from departure, just simply that they open some of the availability up to partner FFPs. As a note, the day I had the A380 F to myself, the A330 flight from the outstation to MUC (I was flying from the outstation into FRA) was F0, and had been for 2-3 weeks prior to departure, so flight loads can vary wildly by day of departure, week of departure (e.g. one Tuesday could be wide open but the following Tuesday could be sold out), origin/destination, and even whether to/from FRA or MUC. EF would help navigate through that set of factors to pinpoint higher likelihood days of LH releasing awards when there is currently none.

JohnRain

Excellent explanation, thanks TheBOSman for taking the time to reply in such detail.

Khaleesi

Hmm, so I signed up for ExpertFlyer and cross-referenced a few dates, and it kinda seems like LH has thrown some of that logic out of the window.

Consider, for instance, that Aeroplan and United are showing award availability in LH First on October 4 for IAD-MUC-VIE. This is despite the fact that ExpertFlyer says there are only three F seats available for that IAD-MUC flight (LH415) on Oct4.

But then when I look at the same itinerary the three days later (10/7), ExpertFlyer says there are six seats available in First for LH415 -- but neither Aeroplan nor United has it as an available award option.

And then there are other days (like 10/5) where there seven seats in F available, and while United does have Saver F available, Aeroplan has no F awards available. Likewise, Aeroplan isn't showing F award availability for the IAD-FRA-VIE itinerary on any of these dates, even though ExpertFlyer is showing mostly-unoccupied F seats on several of those dates for the IAD-FRA leg (sometimes United is showing F awards, though).

Anyway, I'm sure it's all based on quirky algorithms. I think my new strategy for booking my award travel (likely for Oct 13) is basically gonna boil down to: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

TheBOSman

It isn't a hard and fast system for sure. Also, on that F6 day, those 2 seats taken may have indeed been awards snapped up right at T-14 days when the cabin was originally F8, and LH doesn't update anywhere near instantly, nor does it want to release more than 1-2 awards at a time. It will let them accumulate if the cabin is not sold at all (I've seen 5 LH F award seats via UA Mileage Plus on the same BOS-FRA flight as an example within 3-4 days of departure), but rarely releases more than 1-2 at a time. Simply, if it is F6, I would expect at least one more award seat to be made available between now and departure, but not necessarily that it is available right now.

You're also looking at a day of the week issue, I sense (again, could be wrong), but Sundays might be a slow day for last-minute F sales, while Wednesday may be a busier day for last-minute F sales.

The major assist for EF for me is seeing which days are NOT likely, and knowing not to expect awards to become available and to pursue alternate options, and seeing which flights are F7 or F8, which are basically locks to have at least one award seat released at some point. The F3-F6 range is a bit more nebulous, and route/day dependent as to whether or not an award will be released. I would feel confident an F6 route would get an award release, but it might come as late as 3-4 days prior to departure.

So, in short, check frequently, and have a backup plan. BOS-FRA/MUC is normally quite available, and similarly EWR-FRA/MUC. JFK-FRA/MUC can be good as well, and has the extra bonus of some time at the LH F lounge at JFK, I believe the only outstation with a separate, LH-operated F lounge above business and Senator.

oliver2002

LH runs periodic revenue recalculations based on certain algorithms. These happen on a weekly basis till T-14d, and then daily till the day of departure. The weekly runs are done at midnight of the point of departure.

So if there is space, ie the flight is undersold, LH will release inventory into the I/O bucket and switch them for sale by certain office IDs (like UA MP or AC AP), but after clearing any waitlist(s). So if someone is in line for that elusive O seat via an M&M evoucher or MP GPU, they will get it first. That is often the reason you don't see F2 going into O. Another factor to consider is any possible oversell in Y/E/C which will inhibit C/F inventory being released because they need to seats

TheBOSman

But never AV LM .

Thanks for the information, midnight had some place in my head related to this but I wasn't remotely sure. The real key to look at is probably A, anything in A is quite likely to get released to an award at some point before departure. A availability also indicates to me that it is unlikely there are waitlisters, as most likely they would have been cleared. But, as always, it is an inexact science, even for the people in Cologne who have access to heaps more information than almost all of us!

oliver2002

It's an exact science, programmed by RM sitting in FRA HQ for European departures and in CHI United HQ for N.American departures. UA has the control over those, aided by a few LH staff on deputation to Chicago.
LH uses the Altea RM module where you make a few settings based on logic. It's in transparent to us, but when see the screen you go 'aaahhhh!'

TheBOSman

I meant inexact in the sense of how many to release and the logic involved, as there can always be the random last minute purchase of seating and certainly nobody at UA or LH wants to block that. The inputs are the inexact part, the process should be (and is) quite exact to reduce errors and other costs. If it was a totally exact science, there would be a few people with RM resumes seeking new employment as they got completely replaced by an algorithm.

But, for the rest of us with less access, we just try to get lucky mostly .

Khaleesi

Ooh, so here's another thing I just learned: there's a lot of phantom Lufthansa award space that partner sites display, even though it is not actually bookable.

See, for instance:
http://thepointsguy.com/2013/03/the-...how-to-fix-it/
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...tner-airlines/
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...nited-com.html


Sounds like this has been a problem for a long time, for Aeroplan and especially for United.

Anyway, this is exactly what happened to me yesterday. When I went to Aeroplan to book the Lufthansa IAD-MUC-VIE itinerary I had been eyeing, I got an error message because the MUC-VIE portion turned out to be phantom inventory. Very frustrating! Fortunately I was able to find an alternate flight, but it means I'll have a longer layover. (Not a terrible fate, of course, since I'll just head to the FCL.)

It's surprising, though, that this issue has never been fixed. When I called Aeroplan customer service they immediately asked "oh, is the missing flight on Lufthansa? Yeah, that has been happening for years, it shows flights that aren't actually available, sorry. Keep checking back, it might become available later."

This definitely explains why I saw so much more availability on United. It was probably just a lot of phantom award space -- even more of it than Aeroplan was showing, apparently.