There are, full of people who have official permission from the US goverment to travel to Cuba.

Correct. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%...irport#History

Interesting, I was not aware of this but this is what Flyertalk is all about. ^

But the charter flights seem to be for Cuban nationals only so the OP might have some difficulties.

Its no problem to get a M&M ticket US-Mex-CU but you cannot have it ticketed in the US and you can not get your boarding pass for your connecting flight when checking-in in the US.

A little bit off topic but interesting anyway: USA is Cuba's main (largest) trading partner for rice, soja, etc...

U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba have grown significantly since trade was authorized in 2000. The United States now is Cuba’s largest supplier of agricultural products, supplying approximately 96 percent of Cuba’s rice imports and 70 percent of their poultry meat imports. U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba peaked at $384 million in 2004 and dropped to $328 million by 2006. The European Union (EU) is the second largest supplier of agricultural products to Cuba, followed by Brazil, Argentina, and Canada. Cuba imports about $1 billion in agricultural products overall.

^ That's great, thanks so much ! Last night I called LH again and spend 20 minutes convincing the agent that FRA-MEX MEX-HAV is possible as a 2 region award for 105.000 miles in C. Just in case anyone else wants to do this trip and is reading this, here are the important parts of the story:


A: "No, I can't issue an award on MX"
Me: "You can bookt he award, it's possible"
A:"They are not *A"
Me:" But you can book *A awards with them"
A:"That's not possible!"
Me:"It is. They've changed the rules. Please try it."
A:"They are no free award seats for the flight and date you requested, an no award seats on any MX flight form MEX to HAV on the other dates you mentioned"

Me:"Please try it for december or january, any date, just to make shure we got the rigth flight numbers..."
A:"I can't see any MX awards fpor MEX-HAV I could book here..."
Me:"Something must be wrong. I already did that."
A:"No, that's not possible"

Me:"It wasn't exactly the same route, but I did ZRH-FRA-MEX-SJO and back (LH, MEX-SJO with MX), which should be the same. Please try again."
Agent:"Please wait..." (calling a supervisor)

After waiting for 10 minutes, she's back on the line "Thanks for waiting, I got an award seat for you on MX..." and that was for the first date I requested which had "no avaible seats"

I'm now on a C award on the dates I need, only the return flight was trouble because MEX-FRA had no avaible seats for the dates I needed - first avaible seat one day later when I have to be at work (or I'd loose my job). But I'm waitlisted for two days earlier now and they said it should usually work to get that seat

The only problem I've got now: I paid a "Die Welt" subscription" 8 weeks ago and I need the miles form that to buy the ticket. But they made a mistake so they didn't billed my credit card and I had to send them the money via Überweisung. I did that 2 weeks ago and the miles still haven't posted...

Best regards,
zap!

You're welcome! Oops! You (inadvertently I'm sure) omitted to thank my lowliness for suggesting this kind of connection/combination of carriers but hey, I'm happy you grabbed the award...

FWIW, as I wrote in post #6, Mexicana is a Miles and More Partner but not a *A airline (so the M&L agent was technically right) @:-)

If you have not already booked:

It is really worth to stay a bit in MEX. Lots of things to see, the city-centre, the pyramids, the beetle-taxis driving through the city.

Maybe on the way back as you should speak some words of spanish.

As this thread is not LH specific I'll move it to the *A forum.

Have a nice day
totti
M&M moderator

AC serves 5 ports in Cuba - and they serve VRA (Varadero) more often & from more cities in Canada than they do HAV. VRA is only a short bus or taxi ride from HAV so is quite often a viable alternate with more availability and options than HAV.

You may be finding it hard to get seats on AC at the time of year you are looking for as I believe mid-March is spring break and it's also Easter this year as well. After the winter, there are a lot of people heading from Canada to warmer climes for the break. (Always had trouble on AC's flights from SYD-YVR during March/April because of the amount of traffic heading to/from HNL, which was a stop on the old YVR-SYD route).

Sorry! I wanted to thank everyone who contributed ideas and thoughts for this thread and just qouted two who showed the routing I'll take and an important point I didn't know and even the LH agent seemed not to know (do not pay for a flight with MX, you can have it for free although they'll tell you it's not possible at first). So thanks a lot again to you, andre1970, as well as everyone else ^

That advice came just in time I could add one full day in MEX (I really have to get back to work after the two weeks and therere wouldn't have been free award seats when adding two days), but I'll really enjoy this one day in MEX, booked the airport hilton for two night (one on every flight, 126 Euros per night) and already bought a travel guide (book).

On another note: I made a mistake when mentioning Condor and the flight time. For anyone else doing this trip: It should be 12 hours with Condor (FRA-HAV) while this routing is 12 hours (FRA-MEX) + one night in MEX + 3,5 hours (MEX-HAV). 105.000 miles and about 300 Euros for flying this route in C and seeing MEX vs. 900 Euros for booking Condor in Y.

My waiting list seat has been confirmed - I had to take row 26 in a 747 on my overnight flight back (MEX-FRA) because everything else was already full and I hope I'll be able to get some sleep.

I'm really looking forward to this trip to Cuba and a short stay in MEX - thanks to you all, without you it wouldn't have been possible for me ^

best regards,
zap!