billp

My wife and I would like to fly in November from BER to BKK and return in March in J this coming winter. I have 150,000 miles left in my Miles & More (having just burned up 142,000 on a BER-BKK round trip). So I have sufficient miles available, but my wife only has 50,000 in her account.

What�s the best strategy? (a) use my miles for my seat and pay cash for hers; (b) use up her 50,000 and pay the balance in cash (is this possible � if so, how do you book it?); or (c) use her miles for an economy booking and then upgrade for cash (is the upgrade a sure thing?).

Can anyone advise me?

oliver2002

I would set up a pool so both your accounts are linked and can be used to book awards. Cash+miles gives a terrible value. I would suggest 'buying' the 84000 miles using

- a newspaper/magazine subscription directly at M&M or via Payback:
e.g. 42000 miles for one year FAZ (600€): https://www.miles-and-more.com/de/de...miles_faz.html
or 26000 miles for six month WamS (378€): https://www.miles-and-more.com/de/de...miles_asv.html

- buying the miles via bundle & go: https://www.miles-and-more.com/de/de...otion_937.html

billp

Thanks! It looks like Bundle & Go is the solution. €1750 for 100,000 miles.

lxfc

Since your return flight is in March, I would suggest buying only BER-BKK for now with the miles you already have.

Several times a year, you can get 30% more points on the Bundle offer, so you would be able to buy 130k miles for 1750� instead. This increases your �/mile ratio.

Once the offer comes in, get the miles then buy your return. This works well modulo availability, but since you have quite a bit of time ahead of you, and BKK availability isn�t too hard to find, it�s doable.

billp

I recently flew BER to BKK in J on LH and returned on Austrian. It was like day and night. The seat, service and food on the OS flight on a B777 were superior in every way.
So I�m now in the process of booking a return to BKK November to March and I�m tempted to make it Austrian all the way. But I see that LH is bringing back their A380 on that route and I seem to remember that in the past J in LH on the A380 was kinda wonderful.
Anyone got any observations or info to help me decide?

sw1x

While opinions on the tolerability of LH J are divided, it generally is a very consistent product (excluding the newly added A350s and B787s that were originally designated for other airlines and arguably offer a better hard product than LH‘s original own current J). So LH J on the A380 is unlikely to differ significantly from your previous experience apart from being a different plane model. I find the A380 has a feeling of calmness inflight - but it‘s a bit mitigated by the sheer size of the J cabin with little perceived privacy desite being quite roomy. I thus prefer 748 UD, which is not an option here as I understand it.

chris63

OS all the way, LH J is sub par in every respect & A380 does not make up for it

ArnoldB

C on the A380 isn't really any different afaik. So go OS all the way. They have a further improved food&beverage service as well since mid-June I think, which is now again more or less back to the pre-Covid levels with "chef on board", starter and dessert trolleys, full coffee speciality service etc.

billp

Thanks for the guidance. We did rush ahead and buy the 100k miles because we wanted to get the flights locked in and not have to worry about them while in Southeast Asia.
But, what a sh*t show LH IT is! We could not accomplish the Bundle & Go on my wife’s Mac. First of all it’s cleverly hidden in some recess on the website, and when we finally found it and tried to buy the miles, we could only reach a page with “Unable to authenticate” covering up the login page. We tried 5 times to get through this glitch before we gave up. However I was able to buy the 100k miles on my iPad. Then it took me more than 5 tries to set up the pooling, and when I finally did it, the promised confirmation email never came. We finally were able to confirm it on the app on my wife’s iPhone. All’s well that ends well I guess but this cost us about 2 hours of internet hell and frustration.
I seem to remember similar frustrations when I booked the previous reward flights. Not what I would expect from a major German corporation.

lxfc

Sounds a like a generic day in the LHG IT realm glad you got it to work in the end!

gojko88

That was literally never the case, it's your rose-tinted aviation enthusiast subconscious speaking If anything, I've always found the A380 slightly worse in J vs. other aircraft because the huge cabin has the privacy of a railway wagon. Yes, the level of noise is lower, but that's something you can achieve with a decent pair of earphones as well.

chris63

I�m told that large cabin makes up for the noise the engines & A388 do not ?

Maybe the OP�s issue will be finding 2 award seats on OS, they can sell the seats because on that routing they are the best on LHG in J

leosantos

Got to say the A380 in business was my worst experience in the last ten years. Who on earth has 2 2 2 config thats fully open ? No privacy with this cabin config and any window seat you have to climb over the person next to you to get out. Dont waste your money on this totally out dated offering.

billp

I�ve been going crazy trying to book a return flight in Business on Austrian with miles from BER to BKK outgoing on 28 November 23, return on 5 March 24. On the milesandmore website it only offers Economy and Premium Economy on Lufthansa on 28.11, no Austrian or Swiss options and no Business. On the Lufthansa and Austrian apps it shows availability in Business on that date but no option to pay with miles. I even went to the Lufthansa office at the airport and no one was able to help me.
In April I was able to book an LH J flight to BKK and an OS J flight return using miles for June, no problem. The milesandmore website offered me the full range of options on LH, OS and LX.
Is it because I�m trying to book too early? I would like to get these dates nailed down because other bookings are involved.

cfischer

Not every flight can be booked on miles in every cabin . If you have very specific dates you need then you are not in a good spot. Might want to consider buying PE and upgrading to J?