My Lufthansa First Class Award Ticket Downgrade Experience

This is lovely. So glad your Dad got to experince LX F again.

Any updated good tricks on finding LH first availability on Aeroplan, like time of the day? I have been looking at ICN, SIN and HKG for some time, seems like they only release it on the day or 1 day in advance? Haven’t seen 3 days before at all…

I’ve had 2 LH F cancellations in the past year and have had no problems being rebooked into SWISS F and also getting 600 euro each time within a week after flying. They’re great when it comes to IRROPs! I have an upcoming cancellation FRA SFO so I may try to get rebooked on LX again.

Ben, what a fantastic detour of a rebooking.

Do you think being able to speak German may have helped your case as to the LX F booking, no questions asked?

Also, I hope this rebooking was in a revenue fare class and that you credited his miles to an appropriate program. 😉

This would never happen at Delta.

At Delta, customers would pay the airline compensation for the privilege of being able to fly on Delta, the best airline in the world!

@ Deo -- The agent I spoke with was actually English speaking, I think from Lufthansa's South Africa call center.

@ Matthias Wagner -- Availability is definitely released closer to departure than in the past. I find the seats.aero tool to be pretty useful for finding the little Lufthansa first class award space that is available. Not really any tricks beyond that.
https://seats.aero/firstclass

@Lucky: I loved the “trip report” pics from your Dad!
Move over Ben, there is a new sheriff in town .

Most importantly, though, does your dad now recline his seat? We are intrigued to know….!

@ FE -- Hah, that's an excellent question! Much to my frustration, the answer is still "no!"

@ Daniel B -- Hahahah, thank you. He has a "round" birthday coming up later this year, so expect a big trip with him, along with his thoughts.

Looking forward to that trip report for sure! And seriously, a couple of pics he will take will be great!

This happened to me 3 weeks ago from JFK. Swiss was sold out and I had to get to MUC at a specific time so I took the comp.

@ Omar -- Thanks for the data point! Out of curiosity, were you on an award ticket as well? If so, did you get the 1,050 euro plus the 75% refund on points, or was it one or the other?

Since your ticket was booked with Aeroplan miles, how come Lufthansa was able to reissue your ticket? Shouldn't Air Canada be responsible for that?

@ Anonymous -- In these situations (either at the airport or for a team of agents specialized in irregular operations), they can take over a ticket and reissue it, given that this is within the carrier's control.

Under German Law you can also sue LH for the real value of the miles.
You can easily sue out around 4-5k EUR for a F->C downgrade

When I have called Lufthansa’s first class help line on a points ticket they have refused to help me and told me they were intended for revenue clients only. This was during the travel meltdown summer of 2022.
Additionally, my compensation for lost luggage/delays at that time took approximately 14 months and endless emails.
Glad you had a better experience .

Aeroplan had had a huge phantom award space issue this week with Singapore Airlines and Etihad. Super frustrating as it'd take me all the way through checkout then throw an error. Really irritating.

@Ben How often do you find availability in J on Discover out of TPA? TPA-based here and I never find anything with them or Edelweiss.

Glad it worked out well for your dad! First time I ever flew Lufthansa First Class (on SFO => FRA), they gave me a standby ticket at check in as the IFE at my seat was broken (and they said they specifically moved me to that seat since I was on a mileage ticket… real classy!)

Since I’d never flown Lufthansa First back then, I accepted the broken IFE and flew anyway. Still mad at myself for not requesting SWISS First instead given how much harder it is to fly that product…

I do love your posts about your dad - it's so cute.

Ben you are such a sweet son. I love this story and the care you took to ensure your father had fun.

Had the same thing happen to me on a FRA-BLR flight. I took the downgrade to business class as I needed to be there for work and was offered €1000 in compensation, access to the first class terminal in FRA (I was connecting) and they even loaded a bottle of Laurent Perrier from the lounge just for me (the business class Champagne was Charles Heidsieck, I think). The purser on both my flights and the lounge agent were informed of my situation and were all super apologetic about it.

Your dad is likely eligible to earn a lot of Miles & More or another Star Alliance program points as well since that Swiss F ticket is usually rebooked with a "cash fare" fare class. So please make sure it gets credited!

Kudos to Lufthansa for the flexibility on resolution and secondly thank you for highlighting the value in being prepared for the call

I second many of the other comments - what a wonderful post! I'm glad you were able to get your dad rebooked on such a fun alternative itinerary!

I heard other people with booked awards on LH First in recent days, to EWR, and had flights canceled. They also got reboked in Swiss First.

Did you also receive the EU 261 600 Euro (?) comp after rebooking to LX?

Great post, thank you. Good to know all the various options.

Long time reader; first time commenter. I literally just created an account to say how wholesome and cute I thought your dad's excitement was.

@ GAYRAB -- Thanks to you (and everyone else) for the nice comments. I'll keep the content coming from him, hah.

@ Dhruv Gupta -- Since he arrived in Frankfurt earlier than initially planned, he wouldn't be eligible for that.

Your dad is doing a great job! I enjoyed his pics...made me smile.

Do you know how much? This just happened to me from FRA to BOS, got rebooked on F fare through MUC. Could really need those points requalifying senator hehe

One interesting side note to this is the reason for the downgrade, which doesn't seem to have gotten much attention. LH only had 5 A380s, operating 5 routes this summer, which isn't enough. All of these flights (BOS, JFK, IAD, LAX, and DEL) were chronically late throughout June, and then the incident in DEL put one of them out of service. Now, they appear to be swapping whichever flight has the lowest load factor day-by-day.

GREAT recovery. Very well done.

Congrats!

Are you sure being rebooked to another flight in the original class of service is a *legal* option? I know most airlines offer it (to avoid refunds) but I believe they're not required to. The regulation only refers to refund in case of a downgrade and doesn't mention rebooking option. Consequently, if you choose to rebook to stay in the original class of service, I believe it's a voluntary rebooking and thus not eligible for a delay compensation.

I got 1050 EUR from LH. The ticket was booked through lifemiles so you can imagine it's hard to get a refund from them but I'm at least pushing for a first to business class mileage differential.

In a week when the airline industry imploded due to what was (really) a trivial file update bringing down IT systems, this counts as news?

@Ben, aren't you eligible if you have to depart earlier than planned? Or is it a combo of departing earlier *and* arriving later? I can't remember... I was eligible for the €600 compensation + accommodation costs when I was rerouted to leave & arrive ~20 hours earlier than originally booked.

I love the trip report from your dad. Gals it worked so good for him.

I had a delayed flight and LX rebooked me from my upgraded Business to First ticket to Biz on Emirates. It’s over a week and Swiss didn’t offered me the eur 1000 or something. Even Emirates first had space but they said no. I will try to call them tomorrow.

This isn't a news website. Go to CNN for that. It's a travel and points blog. This counts as travel and points newsworthy.

I find Lufthansa to be awful. I got stuck in Frankfurt last week bc of a 1 1/2 hr delay and missed my connection. They put me in the worst room of the Sheraton across the street and I was supposed to eat at the ‘Lufthansa Buffet’ provided in a hotel conference room (doesn’t that sound lovely). I ended up flying Condor biz class (which was amazing btw), and all ended well, but there was NO ONE to help me at FRA. No one helping when we got off the plane, no one at the gate I was supposed to fly out from (they told us to go there) and I walked by 2 Lufthansa service centers (also told to go there) and both were ghost towns at 530pm on a Monday. I went to the business class lounge and they were able to help and were very nice. What would I have done if I was flying economy? And this was a paid ticket, no miles, no upgrades.

Did you receive any other compensation? Thinking of the fare differences just 1000 doesn’t seem that much…

I've had 2 LH F downgrade experiences, both on Aeroplan award tickets. First one was FRA-IAD-LGA, FRA-IAD was downgraded to a 744. Agents at the FCT offered €900 to fly in J, but also proactively offered LX FRA-ZRH-EWR in F (which I ultimately took).

Second time LH canceled JFK-MUC-CDG and rebooked JFK-FRA-CDG in J. I asked for EWR-FRA-CDG in F, but oddly they couldn't change the origin within a co-terminal market on a partner award ticket ("if this was LH ticket stock we could do it"). They rebooked me on JFK-ZRH-CDG on LX in F.

Usually it doesn’t work if you’re rebooked to the same airline. Actually no one is sure will this rebook within LHG make the ticket a revenue fare class. But for example when Virgin Atlantic axed its Shanghai route and rebooked award passengers to China Eastern, that would certainly be revenue fare.

The law requires travel to be completed with “comparable conditions”, so it does qualify for compensation if the rebooked flight was later.

Rebooking travel doesn't absolve the carrier of their EU261 obligations.

If the overall change of timing meets the threshold, yes

Rotflmao

We've been interacting a long time, back when you thought you were a hard core right winger on A.net. It is really fun to see how you've evolved. The way you take care of my parents is similar to the way I do and it is great to see.

It was more than adequately covered by mass media on a worldwide basis. There's nothing left to be said.

Flashbacks to seeing "My downgraded adventure on Oman Air" over and over again.

So they booked into A class and he will earn miles for the trip too? 🙂

You want to hear daily scrum reports from crowdstrike over kernel updates?

I love the way you described the situation and how you and Lufthansa handled it.

It seems to me, however, that the only thought of many commenters is: how can I squeeze the most of compensation out of such a situation. Are you really so greedy? Be happy they help you and get you to your destination!

Wow so if you use 87k lifemiles to book it using Amex points, you can get the 1000 euros and business class? wow I would only hope for that to happen

You are a good son, Ben. Someday far off I hope, a time will come when you will cherish these memories even more than you and Dad are right now.

So true. I’d insist on a FC rebooking, but that’s not always possible.

Nice!

You are lucky that he was travelling to Europe, who protects customers.

Deregulated US would have left him stranded, with no compensation and a token (at the airlines' discretion) refund.

I can’t imagine taking the longer overnight flight and then spending another 4 hours waking up in the lounge and still not being at the final destination. I have never understood valuing the flight over where you are going.

I can’t imagine taking the longer overnight flight and then spending another 4 hours waking up in the lounge and still not being at the final destination. I have never understood valuing the flight over where you are going. And he’s not a kid anymore.

I hope you can address downgrades that are not so prestigious for delays especially on US based carriers. For example, a downgrade US domestic from Premium Economy to Basic. Many US carriers think that a simple apology will do.

me ocurrio situacion similar con Avianca, solo que esta linea no me dio hasta ahora (50 dias) ninguna respuesta ni recompensa.
Horas antes del viaje *(con escala) Avianca cambia tipo de avion en la ruta Bogota/buenos Aires cual no tenia clase ejecutiva. Como he pagado con millas el boleto de clase ejecutiva- fui obligada viajar varias horas en clase turista. A pesar de mis reclamos en linea- aun no tengo respuesta. Me gustaria saber cuales son mis derechos y ke me corresponde , en este caso, x la rebaja de clase.

And he was booked into A, entitled to earn miles 🙂

I must have missed the award details and the AC Points required.
Id it posted somewhere?

Was the availability only for awards tickets or for cash tickets? Had an awful time with Lufthansa first last year when our flights in first were cancelled due to strike action. They told us that award tickets could only be rebooked if there was award availability, and could only be rebooked on Lufthansa group airlines. They were unable to get my wife and me to Japan in under 10 days and refused to rebook us onto another airline as the law requires. They also insisted that they could not rebook a first ticket into business class or economy, even if there was award availability. We were forced to pay for a new ticket with cash on another airline, and it took over a year to get the money back. We lost all the miles as well, so lost the chance to fly Lufthansa first. We were treated so badly we have vowed never to fly a Lufthansa group airline ever again.

I had similar issues with Ethiad - booked wit AF miles- from singapore to BRU (via ABU DHABi).but the outcome was terrible here. Ethiad refused.to.respect ANY of.the.EU laws and only wanted to either rebook 24h later or downgrade to.ECONOMY They even refused the 600 EUR. and implicit with arrogance said politely 'sue us' ... Fortunately l have an Air.France platiunum where we could.rebook on Lufthansa.. . Ethiad has a lot bling bling but NO customer service and is to avoid for.travel in any case ..I have BANNED Ethiad for.all corporate travel and airlines not respecting EU regulatiions should lose their landing rights in the EU.

I avoid LH because of their sub-par 2-2-2 J seating. Even if I booked on, say, a 350 with 1-2-1, I'd be afraid they'd swap in a 2-2-2 350. In such a case, I assume they would not consider that a downgrade meriting the 75% refund.

Did you let the super-helpful agent(s) know your blogger identity or did they make the connection and recognize your name? if so, might diminish the universality of the practices you describe. in other words, was it VIP treatment for that reason?

@ Pete S. -- I absolutely didn't get that sense, and the ticket was also in my dad's name. I never identified myself. This is just the standard treatment for being downgraded from first class, and matches other reports online.

That worked out so well in one phone call. I ended up spending over a year trying to get a $1700 refund for a SWISS air business to first upgrade. My original LA Frankfurt Zürich LA itinerary kept getting re-issued because Lonza kept canceling flights out of Los Angeles my Zürich LA business the upgrade I purchased had been confirmed for almost a year. however every time Lufthansa canceled a flight, it would get re-issued and the upgrade would get lost. at one point, Swissair said the first upgrade was not available in the same class of service anymore. I said it was already confirmed and you canceled it just put me in the seat anyways they refused. I ended up paying for the $1700 upgrade again, the day before departure, and fought fought with them and the credit card companies for over a year to get my original $1700 back. Even though you would think the airline has control Swissair was horrible and there was no one you could speak to who could actually repeat the same information twice

Cool! Great for your dad and his enjoyment of the ambience. Cheers!

I enjoyed this post, and I commend you for how nicely you treat your dad and your mom! Kudos to you!

WELL DONE 😉

Wrong title my friend. That was a UPGRADE to the best experience you can have on a western airline! SWISS FIRST is still a class of its own on the north atlantic route. Real SWISS hospitality! The Lounge E in Zurich is unbeatable too. Well done!

There is a misunderstanding in the EU Passager rights. Lufthansa is obliged to bring him to Frankfurt on time. So they could have put him at the direct flight and off you go. So if you choose to fly 24h later there will be no 600€ compensation.

@ Baldi -- The nonstop flight was three hours before the flight he was booked on. He wasn't under any obligation to show up at the airport earlier than his initial departure time.

Non-EU carrier departs from outside EU is not applicable to EU261 (but still Etihad sucks).

Ben, I need to thank you for this article. I was on AA first SYD to LAX and it was cancelled. Chatted with AA and got them to put me on Qantas First. Lovely back door onto a much better experience.

Just received a Lufthansa email saying for 'operational reasons' they've had to downgrade our March 2026 MUC to LAX First Class tickets to business class. We booked it 6 months or so ago using Lufthansa pts. I'm assuming they're maybe swapping the plane with one with Allegris, which has fewer First Class and they don't open those to point bookings. I remember reading this article and will try your playbook - Swiss First is tempting...