For several years now, Lufthansa has been offering first class passengers and HON Circle members the option of renting a Porsche during a layover in Frankfurt or Munich.
This was thanks to a partnership between Lufthansa and Avis, where eligible passengers could rent a Porsche 911 or Porsche Panamera for a period of three hours at the cost of 99.10EUR, and that included fuel and insurance.
The major restriction was that you could drive a maximum of 150km, with an additional fee of 0.99EUR per extra km. As you might expect, you’ll go through that pretty quickly on the autobahn. Furthermore, while insurance was included, there was a 1,500EUR deductible, and I had heard of a few cases where people had very minor damage that maxed out that amount.
I actually never did get around to trying it, unfortunately, though it’s always something that has been on my radar, and I have heard from many people who took advantage of this feature and enjoyed it.
There had been rumors for a while of this being eliminated, and it has finally happened. As reported by YHBU, the “Porsche First Class Excitement” offer has ended as of September 11, 2018, so it’s no longer possible to rent a Porsche during a layover at the discounted price. The webpage that had the details about this feature is even offline now.
Fortunately this has no impact on airside transfers in Frankfurt and Munich. Lufthansa uses a variety of cars for this service, including a number of Porsche models.
Did you ever have the chance to take advantage of Lufthansa’s Porsche layover rental feature?
It would seem the page to reserve these, is back up again....perhaps a false alarm?
TOM ... in Germany only one! AVIS
JEFF 155+ mph .... :-o i wonder how someone not payinf for full fare tickets would race mph on the km/h Autobahn?!?!? So maybe staying on the reality of it and paying for things as should would help.
Glad you 2 enjoyed the speed that would hardly work on the A3 or A5 which is around FRA airport, especially spme years ago with 1 construction site after the other, years ago!
Do any companies still rent Porsches? I just looked at a one day rental from Sixt and you can get pretty sweet BMWs, Mercedes and Maseratis for $150-$200 US. Seems like you could have just as much fun for about the same price as this Porsche “deal”.
I just did this earlier this month. I may or may not have hit 260km/h (160 mph) on highway 3 right outside Frankfurt Main. Glad I got to experience this and sad that other car enthusiasts won't be able to.
You can find LH first subpar to SQ and Cathay, but if you’re flying TATL what choice to you have? LH is the best. AF has definitely upped their game. And BA is horrible. You can take the SQ from JFK to FRA but that’s only one US city and the arrival and departure times aren’t great.
@Alex Smart of you, I think only the AMEX insurance cover these type of cars, many CSR holders forget that.
Sadly 150km ends very fast on the Autobahn, and I don't think you can even reach and maintain 200+ km/hr around FRA or MUC. I would recommend it to someone who never experienced it before. For those who have driven fast cars on the autobahn before, these Carreras deserve more than just 3 hours of...
@Alex Smart of you, I think only the AMEX insurance cover these type of cars, many CSR holders forget that.
Sadly 150km ends very fast on the Autobahn, and I don't think you can even reach and maintain 200+ km/hr around FRA or MUC. I would recommend it to someone who never experienced it before. For those who have driven fast cars on the autobahn before, these Carreras deserve more than just 3 hours of your time and is just not worth it.
Now if they were to up their game and let me drive on 26L at MUC, that is WORTH 99EUR. Ot at least let me take it to Nurburgring for few euros more.
What's the reason???? This SUCKS it was on my bucketlist for soooo long after seeing Brazilian blogger Fabio Vilela from Passageiro de Primeira do it so many times :( ughhhhhhhh schaizer!
Porsche’s are expensive to repair. I had a ‘16 C4S and someone hit my rear bumper while I was at a stop light. It wasn’t a hard hit, and there was no visible damage, but the body shop ended up doing $30k of work on it!
Booked a longer than necessary connection from Nice to Boston about a year ago just to use this feature. Driving 911 on an autobahn was fun. Dropping it off at the FCT was a proper way to end the ride. By the way, no one at AVIS checked my boarding pass. I didn't book the car in advance, simply walked up to the counter and asked for the 99 euro Porsche deal.
I took advantage of this back in May and bombed down the Autobahn in a 911. Wonderful way to kill some time waiting for my flight! Only bummer was that Avis tried to ding me $800 for curb rash. Thankfully I had video of the car at pickup, showing said curb rash before I took it out, so they dropped the bogus charge without pushback.
I took advantage of this a couple years ago when I had about a 6 hour layover on the way to Bali. It's a really cool perk, sad to see it go.
"I found Lufthansa first class not as good as Cathay, JAL or Singapore" - I agree with this. I found LH F fairly disappointing in comparison.
Correction, not stanley but Jeff.
Hehe...
@Endre:
how many times are you going to brag about your paid first class travels?
P.S. No one cares.
On topic, my wife and I did the 911 convertible rental at FRA several years ago and it was a great experience. I hit 155+ mph on the autobahn. lots of fun.
Although Porches are pretty fast I would think that 150km is enough if you only have 3 hours.
I’m too shitfaced each time I arrive , depart on LH first via Fra and Muc. Glad this option is no longer available for drunks like myself.
This is a bad move. LH should've kept the benefit for HON members. Perhaps the disproportionate use of the benefit came from F redeemers, myself included :-)
No I have not
Don’t you think the right phrasing would be Avis discontinues... rather than Lufhansa cuts... I would doubt that Lufthansa paid a penny for this
I never understood how this worked... arriving from LH F I have rarely been capable to drive ;-)
Was definitely more for departing F passengers haha
Lucky this is a vicious cycle of bloggers making. The more bloggers push credit cards and first class, the more people user it, the costs increase and the companies cut the benefits.
The bloggers made the bargain with the devil that they can still make more money pushing their cards than lose with the erosion of the benefits. So everything is the bloggers fault.
Not a big deal on my side. Although I am a Frequent flyer in First, I found Lufthansa first class not as good as Cathay, JAL or Singapore. Pretty sure some frustrated hater such as Stanley will comment on my view because I pay for my First class tickets.
“Lufthansa uses a variety of cars for this service, including a model of Porsche models.” May want to use “a variety” or “a number”...?
"including a model of Porsche models." Did you mean a variety of Porsche models?
Wonder what happens with my confirmed reservation on 19th of september (received it yesterday 14th).
//Mike