Review: Lufthansa A321 Business Class (FRA-VCE)

Hi Lucky, selfish post here. Can you do a post on the AMEX IAP, and mileage accrual on AAdvantage and other programs? I would like to book a a round trip biz fare on AMEX IAP - it’s a few hundred dollars cheaper than AA.com - but I don’t want it to book into some lesser earning mileage class as I want to renew my status for 2023-24. I have Amex plat card and I’d be booking a fare for me and my wife.

Or can your post explain how to understand the fare rules for AMEX IAP so I can figure out how AAdvantage would treat it?

Thanks!

Honestly dismal that they install wifi but not powerports. Yes, wifi is an ancillary revenue for them but they give yo half the infrastructure to use electronic devices. This makes zero sense and is yet one more portrayal of the LH group being such a crap low cost airline in some ways. Hell, some regional jets in the US even have them.

Edit: Give you*

Need an edit comment function

I’ve been living in Germany for 4 yrs now. I continue to be perplexed at things. Great country. Clean. On time. Things works, but hiccups all over the place. Like your flight: clean, on time, decent, but now damn power ports. Wtf Lufthansa. And I’m flying j cab Fra bog tomorrow, on an outdated seat.

Hi Ben,

Just for your information in case you didn’t know: when you look on your tenth (?j Pjotr you see some kind of compartment under center seat 9b .

That actually is additional storage room for carry-on for those sitting in the emergency Exit row..

The real shocker here is that Lufthansa flies 27 year old planes on they European routes. When I was a child Lufthansa praised themselves with having a young modern fleet with constant plane refreshments.

That plane is laughably atrocious. That's "business class"?! Eurowings looks like trash as well. I will say what Ben is possibly reluctant to say. Lufthansa sucks.

"Of the 46 business class seats, roughly 32 were occupied, so the cabin was reasonably occupied, but not full."

It seems not bad for a destination like Venice which I expect not to be a great business area but maybe I am wrong.

I think they have semolina more than elderflower in their desserts...

Lufthansa does suck. The product is perfectly mediocre and certainly nothing to get excited about. The only real advantage in my mind is the punctuality and consistency (which seems not to have tricked down to Eurowings).

Swiss basically sucks too. Of the LH group, OS is the only transatlantic business product that I look forward to.

What an embarrassing onboard product for the price point they charge, and what an embarrassment to Germany. To sum up: Lufthansa does suck - to be avoided unless strictly necessary.

I think it's just a matter of Ben being German, and is probably more partial to Lufthansa than they deserve to be.

Well, it should be clear to almost anyone here that people don’t fly LH for their catering, nor the lounges, nor the cabins…
To put it simple…their network is the key, and unless they do something really bad, people will continue flying with them…

If it's not LH F it looks pretty bad all around on LH. Pretty subpar product. SAS and OS seem much better. Brussels Airlines maybe too.

Mediocre. This is exactly what a dominant player will do in a captive market. LH have no internal motivation or external threat to improve their product or lower their fares. All they do is sit back and collect revenue on those immense corporate accounts. Great for shareholders. But absolutely pathetic for economy and business pax. Only first class pax have a decent product offering.

Departing from a remote stand drives me crazy. Gate agents are usually very careful about boarding the bus in the correct sequence (e.g. business class before coach) but when the bus arrives at the remote stand, the bus's doors open and everyone rushes to the stairs. All of the careful sequencing in boarding the bus is worthless.

So on your longhaul EurowingsDiscover flight, things weren't fancy enough.
But on the short haul intra-Euro flight, they are "trying too hard to be fancy."
I've loved this website for a long time, but I'm getting strong "Lifestyle-creep blogger for whom nothing is correct any more" vibes these days.
I"'m not trying to troll or be hateful, but lately I can count on reviews having such a negative, impossible-to-please tone to them.
I'll just go over to youtube and watch Oskar and Dan try new things with wide eyes and a sense of wonderment, I guess.

As intra-Europe flights are mostly the same in Business with the dumb economy seats - it seems fine to me - it’s a one hour flight ,I’m not sure what were your expectations

You must be new here, this is the experience for most narrowbody intra-Europe flights.

Completely agree. I actually find the meal service absurd on a one hour flight.

And you can get M&M mile per euro spent in your home outlet. Even more when they have bonuses for three, four and five miles per euro spent.

What does “absurd” even mean?
You think people shouldn’t eat when spending one hour in the air?
What a stupid opinion.

It can be smoked salmon, or it can be smoked trout. But it cannot be salmontrout.

I appreciate your effort. But what's the point of reviewing this product?! You've reviewing this kind of european business class products for many times. Its basically economy class with upgraded services.

Yes, there is salmon trout, look it up

Looks like economy rather than business class. Travelled Qatar Business class and it’s the best so far. This is not worth .

Probably because Austrian, the poor child of the group, who usually gets all the old aircraft, can’t take any more at the moment so LH is stuck with them!

@ Legend717 -- My issue with Eurowings Discover wasn't that anything wasn't "fancy enough?" It was a lack of operational reliability, no Wi-Fi, and generally not well trained crews, all while charging the same prices as Lufthansa mainline.

“I don’t know if Lufthansa is getting kickbacks from the elderflower industry, but when I think of the Lufthansa brand, the word “elderflower” is one of the first five things that comes to mind.”

You should check out Swiss, both the airline and the country - elderflower everything. But it never bothered me, it’s a little charming in its own way.

Looks like someone has never flown on inter-European business class flights before...or is completely new to this hobby.

The German word Lachsforelle literally consists of the words for salmon (Lachs) and trout (Forelle).

Business class frankfort to cairo is a joke, I have never been in such a lousy seat! Worse than most economy seats

I am glad for this review…at least when it comes to catering. This is new and different compared to his last review

…unless there would be a dedicated bus for Business Class (and Status holders).

SAS?
Did you ever travel SAS intra-Europe?

SAS stopped access to Third Party lounges for business class passengers with the best excuse ever: to improve their own lounges. Too bad that there is no SAS Lounge in Venice or Torino or anywhere else outside of Scandinavia (well, except for Paris).

SAS does not even block the middle seat in business class…

How much did they charge?

I was just checking flights from Frankfurt to Milano yesterday and business class was just 40 Euro more expensive compared to the light fare without luggage and no seat assignment.

230€ instead of 190€ compared to ITA via FCO for 160€

Not stupid, pardon me. Eat all you want, if you must. Bring your own feast. An airline providing full meals on such short flights is simply ridiculous, and so is your objection.

That cabin looks about as bad as it gets.

Who wants to eat artificial and laughable food like that. At least in the US you can tell what you are being served

It's unbelievable how many times I have transited at FRA and with plenty of empty stands you get a remote , both on arrival and departure and sometimes even on WBs. Would love to get to know why are gate stands not fully utilized.

Remote stands are a thing in Europe but much worse in FRA than any other major european airports.

If Lufthansa sucesso whst shall we say about american Airlines?

Correction #2: sucks not sucesso.
Regarding my previous post.

Lufty LOVES salmon trout.

We booked Lufthansa Business Class from Gothenberg to Tampa. Didn't reflect that it was Eurowings from FRA to Tampa. The plane felt old, staff didn't even wear same uniforms. And our gluten free food order was missed. The staff did however try to find alternative food.
Going home, we flew Lufthansa Business from EWR to FLA. Seats were better, good service.
An added irritation was that we didn't get any points for flying Eurowings! Even though I complained and feel tricked.
I agree with earlier comments about food. I like to know what I'm eating.
Don't understand why good food has to be difficult.
Probably won't fly Lufthansa again.

I'd be happy to receive such an amenity kit on an actual LH flight. On all my longhaul trips this year, they are offering better plastic bags. The kid even doesn't contain eyeshades any longer. I was told because hardly anybody uses them. Luckily so far I have always been able to obtain one from the crew

U r totally correct. Salmontrout is a Fish.

I wish I had seen something like this prior to booking. I was excited about booking a business class service to celebrate our honeymoon and felt like I shouldnt have bothered and just gone the extra mile for my partner in the lounge and gone for economy. It's not business class standard and nor should it be allowed to call itself that (or charge at that rate). Should simply be economy plus. Oh and paying for wifi in business class...really?

I agree with most of your comments. I'm glad to see that food provided has improved at least a little bit (which was not really difficult given the shocking experience you had before).

But I disagree that LH is "Lufthansa's A321 business class is pretty average for European airlines". It is at the very low end, if you ask me. That starts with the remote stand boarding: Some airlines at least provide a C-Class bus (e.g. TK, LX at least on arrival, now also OS). Then the seat: Almost all other airlines have at least some additional leg space (usually 34in pitch) in the first few rows, LH/LX/OS don't. Then the food: Many airlines at least on some intra european flights provide hot food (e.g. A3, TK, TP, IB, OS, KL, AF). Then comes reliability: LH is far down in the ontime ranking ...

My recommendation: Just avoid them, if you can!

I agree with those remote stands! I'd say more than half of my flights from the US end up there. Great views (love deplaning in front of the 777 engine!), but for all the Covid precautions, you're then stuffed cheek to jowl for 15 minutes. If you get Covid on the trip, it will be from being on that bus.

The A321 I am taking from VCE to ZRH has a row 10 that's listed as an exit seat. Looks like they just removed that row for this flight? Currently have it selected since its only a 2 seat per side row which makes it 1 with the other blocked off since it's in business class.

I’m hoping OS will receive some of the B787s LH group ordered. They need to replace their B767s & the B787s will be a great replacement a/c for them.

I can remember when Lufthansa and Swissair had 3 classes on all european flights-----1981-1990. First,Business and Economy on all flights. Wish they would go back to this,as im sure theres a market for first in europe.