Aeroplan Blocking Lufthansa First Class Award Space?

[…] http://boardingarea.com/onemileatati...s-award-space/ Can anyone confirm if this is true? If so, that sucks. I was hoping to change my award ticket booked in Dec to LH F . […]

Hope it's a glitch or not spreading to their *A partner neighbor south.

sorry Lucky, but i think Lufthansa F awards are a thing of the past, hell it was good while it lasted. Another reason to earn and burn, not only do miles and points depreciate, but some awards just go away. At least you got your rubber duckies on the last trip 🙂

It's hard to get any from going west either. I have tried NRT to any where in Europe but no luck. Or even AKL to Europe. Very difficult, but intra Europe seems to be aplenty.

well...colour me pink...Just found Oct 28 NRT-MUC LH715 in First.

Aeroplan has had the capability to block or hide flights from agents since they introduced a new booking platform for agents a couple of years ago. I've never been sure whether intentional blocking was in place or IT incompetence was at work. Many Aeroplan agents are willing to direct book flights for you, so even though Aeroplan is not showing these flights, and agents can't see them either...a direct booking request should still get you the seat.

Have you tried searching DTW-TXL, DTW-MUC etc.?

Sometimes when you search for just DTW-FRA it would appear as if there are now LH F awards.

The screenshot from the Aeroplan website only shows up to 3 First Class options at a time (as mentioned in my post on FT http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/20994701-post12.html).

Perhaps the Aeroplan agents now have a even more dumbed down version of the graphical interface? I have a suspicion that agents who have access to the "text/command based" reservation interface may be able to see the flights you want.

Lucky, You were able to book LH F by manual sell with DM right??

Is this still available or dead??

Us airways doing the same. Tried flights in Y from both BOS and IAD. Agents couldn't see it but both were on Ana and ua

@ Raf -- Coach on Lufthansa?

I've also has issues booking Economy and Business class flights from LAX-FRA for next week on United's site. ANA, United, as well as Expertflyer show availability on LAX-FRA non-stop on a few days next week in Business and Economy. However when I went to hold the reservation (for 10/27 or 10/28) on the United site, I kept getting an error message. I called United and they said they couldn't see any availability. Any idea what the problem might be?

Who needs points?

Everyone knows Lufthansa First Class is the holiest of holies and worth every penny.

All 1.5 MILLION of them.

Seems to be lots of availability on Aeroplan both ways close in.

YVR-FRA,
FRA-SEA, FRA-DEN, FRA-YVR

Nov 4/5/6/7.

@ jjjaw -- Haven't had any luck doing that lately unfortunately.

While I think it's possible that LH is blocking F I don't think it's likely. Aeroplan only shows three F options and the call center has a similar interface. You have to get Aeroplan to book segment by segment. I think F is still available for the moment.

@janyyc

When calling Aeroplan, perhaps it might help to give the agent the departure time of the LH flight you want? I think they have the ability to specify time of day in their availability request (which is suspiciously missing in their consumer web based interface).

@lucky, yes. unfortunately for my buddy. Had to push him one day back and route him via YYZ on AC. I think it's a better routing to get to thailand (both connect to TG from CDG) but we lost a day of his trip as a result. I'll be checking inventory close in to see if i can improve the route...

For the record we tried 4 LCC agents, all said something about how people were complaining that they're not having luck on lufthansa.

Just noticed tonight this on Aeroplan's new reward chart " SWISS First Class is not available for reward travel."

@ Eager Traveler -- I would guess they added that just to manage expectations, since Swiss hasn't released first class award space to partner airlines for quite a while now.