Availability in F
Sep 8, 2018, 6:09 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2002
Location: St Louis, MO
Programs: AA L.T. PLT
Posts: 3,294
Availability in F
It used to be that two weeks out or less that you could find a decent amount F awards to FRA or MUC from the U.S. I'm seeing almost zero seats from pretty much everywhere. Did I miss the memo and has that availability dried up?
Thanks
Thanks
Sep 9, 2018, 6:32 am
#3
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: BOS
Programs: AA EXP, DL PM, Hyatt Diamond
Posts: 2,028
I’ve been looking for FRA-BOS in F for months now for May 2018 travel. It never opened up when the booking window opened and hasn’t opened since. In fact, the only day that did open for +/- 7 days of intended travel was on a Wednesday. Given I am looking for Sunday, that was not particularly helpful.
Sep 9, 2018, 7:14 am
#4
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: AGH
Posts: 5,979
I was able to book BOS-FRA with SK EuroBonus in July without too much trouble. Actually BOS has quite a lot of open award space while surprisingly NYC was hard to come by. I flew Tuesday and Wednesday.
Anyhow, I had to book HAM-BOS-HAM as married segments since the individual legs HAM-FRA and FRA-BOS were not available. Didn’t matter to much as I had to fly in from CPH anyway.
Anyhow, I had to book HAM-BOS-HAM as married segments since the individual legs HAM-FRA and FRA-BOS were not available. Didn’t matter to much as I had to fly in from CPH anyway.
Sep 9, 2018, 8:02 am
#5
Join Date: Oct 2004
Programs: LH HON
Posts: 3,421
I’ve been looking for FRA-BOS in F for months now for May 2018 travel. It never opened up when the booking window opened and hasn’t opened since. In fact, the only day that did open for +/- 7 days of intended travel was on a Wednesday. Given I am looking for Sunday, that was not particularly helpful.
Sep 9, 2018, 8:40 am
#6
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: USA, France
Programs: LH HON*****, AF/KL Gold; HHilton Diamond; Marriott Gold; IHG Platinium; Avis PresClub
Posts: 934
I’ve been looking for FRA-BOS in F for months now for May 2018 travel. It never opened up when the booking window opened and hasn’t opened since. In fact, the only day that did open for +/- 7 days of intended travel was on a Wednesday. Given I am looking for Sunday, that was not particularly helpful.
Sep 9, 2018, 12:49 pm
#8
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Stoke on Trent, UK (MAN ), BUE, BKK, DBV
Programs: LH HON***,UA,BA.EK Gold,AV.
Posts: 11,646
Priority for LH is paid tickets, their revenue management is quite sophisticated, the RM bot expects to sell the seats, therefore no award tickets.
Sep 9, 2018, 12:51 pm
#9
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: USA, France
Programs: LH HON*****, AF/KL Gold; HHilton Diamond; Marriott Gold; IHG Platinium; Avis PresClub
Posts: 934
It is quiet simple why one only may find availabilities on Wednesday. Firstly Midweek are the low demand days. Secondly LH believes / hopes that they can sell F the other days (and don't have to give it away for "free").
Sep 9, 2018, 1:04 pm
#10
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: BOS
Programs: AA EXP, DL PM, Hyatt Diamond
Posts: 2,028
I am not stupid, and I understand why Wednesday would show up rather than a Sunday. That said, award space even a year ago was nowhere near as tight, with nearly every day available on FRA-BOS. This is a mix of losing F capacity as well as more ‘sophisticated’ RM. Either way, its disappointing for me.
Sep 9, 2018, 11:13 pm
#11
Suspended
Join Date: Sep 2014
Programs: AC SE100K-1MM, NH, DL, AA, BA, Global Entry/Nexus, APEC..
Posts: 18,877
Then, as perfectly noted by other posters here, LH and most airlines would rather sell seats for actual cash. After that, LH may prefer to hold inventory maybe for certain members, or bid upgrades.
Many airlines are eliminating F cabins, others are ordering new aircraft without F cabins. I don't know if LH's overall F inventory fluctuates but all of the partner airlines have to make a percentage of seats (value) available to the alliance partners for redemption. I'm quite sure there is no rule that says when or exactly which dates.
Others may know more but I would gently suggest that it doesn't really matter what was. What matters is what we can find when we want to fly and how flexible we are.
Happy travels.
Sep 10, 2018, 12:47 am
#12
Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: Chicago, USA
Programs: M&M FTL
Posts: 29
What others said. I had the same problem looking for F last summer. Managed to snatch a seat out of ORD via Lifemiles. I think ORD is honestly one of your better bets, especially when they have two flights to FRA from like June-Sept. West coast and IAH almost impossible.... Just keep looking (patiently) it can take a while to find one.
Sep 10, 2018, 12:50 am
#13
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Canada, USA, Europe
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 31,452
I’ve been looking for FRA-BOS in F for months now for May 2018 travel. It never opened up when the booking window opened and hasn’t opened since. In fact, the only day that did open for +/- 7 days of intended travel was on a Wednesday. Given I am looking for Sunday, that was not particularly helpful.
Sep 10, 2018, 10:26 am
#14
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2002
Location: St Louis, MO
Programs: AA L.T. PLT
Posts: 3,294
Thanks everyone for the feedback and suggestions.
Does a list exist or would someone know which US cites LH flies out of to either MUC or FRA that still have F seats? I'm pretty flexibilbe for departure points. Be it BOS, ORD or even YUL (Montreal)
Thanks
Does a list exist or would someone know which US cites LH flies out of to either MUC or FRA that still have F seats? I'm pretty flexibilbe for departure points. Be it BOS, ORD or even YUL (Montreal)
Thanks