BlueNordicSky

The concept is easy, but there are few cases where it's a bit more opaque. If your flights are mainly long haul in business/first (I guess M&M's target market for HON) then it's simple. So far I have two cases where I can't be quite sure:

1) Upgraded tickets. I had a LX class T ticket that I upgraded with cash and it turned into D. Full status/select miles, but not sure about HON miles.
2) "Certain airlines". If the flight code is LH/LX but operated by a partner airline such as LO/2L/WK. I have received full status/select miles, but again not sure about HON, especially when there have been times I have been burned by such flights.

chris63

oliver2002

1. Upgraded with cash or online bidding before checkin and susquently stickered ticket with a new fare class counts as HON circle. Reseating into business at the airport against cash or upgrades with miles/evouchers don't count.
2. Wetlease ops with a regular Lufthansa, Lufthansa Private Jet, Adria Airways, Air Dolomiti, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Croatia Airlines, Eurowings, LOT Polish Airlines, Luxair & SWISS flight counts for HON Circle. EDW/WK doesn't count if it also has a 3 digit WK flight number. 2L is a wetlease partner.

Vixit

BlueNordicSky

Thanks for the clarification! So it seems like a pretty good mileage run deal to find a cheap LX economy light ticket that can be upgraded immediately on booking to D class. It's far cheaper than buying a D ticket directly, and essentially the same ticket. Too bad that no longer applies for award miles...

Thinking about it now, would this imply that HON miles can be derived from Select miles, as in the only difference is that from Select miles one should subtract miles from tickets booked in economy?

BlueNordicSky

I flew LX8246 to PMI in July 2017 (WK flight) and received no status miles. Booking class Q, I only received 750 award miles (no +25% bonus either). I'm not sure if I would have been entitled to those status miles, but fortunately they weren't critical to renewing my status. The weirdest part was that this was a LX ticket, operated by WK, but actually operated by LX again - it was a LX plane and LX crew. It was like flying LX except you had to pay for drinks.

chris63

Viennafly

The cash-upgrade that you can immediately do after booking a cheap LX eco ticket only result in upgrades to booking class P, not to D though. Still not a bad deal. I do this quite often for GVA-ZRH-AMS roundtrips. Here two examples:
1. Eco classic fare (booking class K for all segments) for 201.05 CHF, upgrade for 72 CHF for each way to booking class P): total: 345.05 CHF (3126 instead of 628 status miles) (booking whole trip in P class to begin with would have been 419 CHF)
2. But careful: For another trip, booking class V was the cheapest available for the return segments (AMS-ZRH-GVA), upgrade was also 72 CHF, but only books into P class. Therefore, not a large gain in status miles (AMS-ZRH earn you 750+188 miles in both V and P; ZRH-GVA earn 500+125 in P, as opposed to 250+63 in V, i.e. only 312 miles more for 72 CHF upgrade costs, which is not a good deal in terms status mile costs)

Some of the more expensive booking classes, upgrade to C/D/J with cash on LX. I just found one example from my own flights: I upgraded a U-fare (LIS-GVA) for 188 CHF and this was going to booking class J (i.e. +1875 status miles).

Raul_R

I checked, but business class will then booked into P only.

BlueNordicSky

As soon as you use the upgrade option when booking with LX, it does show you the new booking class. At least, mine immediately said D, not P or Z. My ticket and boarding pass all said D, and I got the full 2000+25% status miles. So I assume that actually is D, and hopefully won't get downgraded to P for HON miles consideration.

Example of what I used that still seems to be working: ZRH-TXL. I booked an economy light ticket for 75 CHF + upgrade for 111 CHF. It became "Economy Light - D". The business class D ticket would have been CHF 462, and that's the business saver without refund/change options. Quite a big difference, when the only thing that differs between these two tickets is having no luggage allowance because it's a Light rate.

Raul_R

Then you are just lucky!
Checked same route -- for me it shows Light -P

Raul_R

I understood the "trick".
By that add-on-option-upgrade it books to lowest available business class.
What is actually stupid by my opinion.
I tested with flights, were was Z0 P0 and then it becomes Light - D

BlueNordicSky

Sounds like this is something that needs to be investigated further. Sorry for the newbie question, but what's the easiest place to check for flights that have Z0 P0 availability?

BlueNordicSky

I just checked ZRH-TXL-ZRH for this weekend, and was able to get Light - D for both legs. It seems like it's enough to click on the little (i) icon on the top of the price box to show you a summary table of all the classes. If the business class tickets are listed as D, then you probably will end up with Light - D when upgrading.

Raul_R

https://www.expertflyer.com

But I am not sure, what it will show without subscription.