Last year, Lufthansa Miles & More revised the way that eVoucher upgrades are priced and members might now require additional vouchers (up to three) when booking the cheapest economy class tickets.
Problem is that it’s extremely difficult to book your flight in a specific booking class that would allow for the lowest possible pricing and most optimal application of your eVouchers.
Lufthansa has also started to mess with the way they sell tickets online on the website, as in putting them in very low fare buckets even when you request a flexible ticket.
This has the consequece that the passenger earns as little miles as possible with partner airlines frequent flyer programs (if any at all) and the requirement for eVouchers is much higher.
What changed?
The number of eVouchers required for upgrades when your ticket is booked in a lower booking class has gone up and now you need up to three vouchers for an upgrade from lowest Economy to Business.
Here is the chart of how many vouchers you need to upgrade :
Upgrading to Premium Economy with eVouchers
From Economy to Premium Economy Class
For booking classes K, L, T: 2 eVouchers
All other booking classes: 1 eVoucher
Upgrading to Business Class with eVouchers
From Economy to Business Class
For Booking classes K, L, T: 3 eVouchers required -> NEW
From all higher booking classes: 2 eVouchers required
From Premium Economy to Business Class
For Booking class N: 2 eVouchers required
From all higher booking classes: 1 eVoucher required
Upgrading to First Class with eVouchers
From Business Class to First Class
All booking classes: 2 eVouchers required
So far so good, I can see some merit in this and have to give Lufthansa credit that they allow their lowest fares to be upgraded at all. However, the way the airline sells tickets is annoying because you can’t command which fare code you purchase online.
Example for a random flight in May from Germany to Thailand:
So according to the Lufthansa website, you have four fares here, ranging from BASIC to FLEX, the latter suggesting to be a high fare class, and it’s more expensive as well. But not so fast, check out the underlying fare classes:
Lufthansa doesn’t care anymore what the name of the fare is, they make even the lowest fare buckets into flex tickets internally while still booking you into L class.
For a more reasonable upgrade rate of 2 eVouchers from Economy to Business you’d need to book at least into an S fare.
How to do this? The only way is to contact the airline via hotline, visit a ticket counter at the airport, or contact a travel agency.
I decided to call Amex Travel via the hotline on my Platinum card and mentioned that I need a fare with S fare code (which I looked up on Expertflyer beforehand).
The lady was very competent and in less than two minutes provided me with an offer:
I haven’t booked this, but you can see the discrepancy in price. At least there are no crazy fees for anything and the phone was answered immediately. Most importantly: The lady was in the U.S. and spoke fluent English.
Anyone with an Amex card can use Amex Travel, that’s not just a Platinum Card perk, and while I had problems with them in the past, as far as hotel bookings go, for flights they are pretty solid.
In order to use your Lufthansa Miles&More eVouchers, you contact Lufthansa and have them apply the voucher/s accordingly.
Of course, you can also use miles to upgrade, and as far as the booking classes are concerned, it’s pretty much the same issue. If you need a specific fare bucket, the Lufthansa website offers nothing.
Also, keep in mind that you can not upgrade flights on codeshares in advance, although it might be possible on the day of departure subject to availability.
Conclusion
Lufthansa’s new upgrade system, which requires a higher number of eVouchers for low economy fare classes comes with pitfalls that might see customers scrambling how to book the accurate booking class.
The website has always been horrendous, and in order to book, for example, an Economy booking class S, you have to contact the airline or a travel agent. Just selecting “Flex Fare” no longer guarantees you a high booking class.
I always recommend booking through an airline or travel agent, where you have 24h free cancellation in case the airline tells you the upgrade isn’t available for some reason, despite showing availability.
