Hello, luxury: How to book a seat in Lufthansa first class with credit card rewards

There are two things I love to death: searching for discounts (the thrill of the hunt is nearly as exciting as the actual savings) and traveling (ideally in fancy airplane seats).

Lufthansa’s first class scratches both of those itches more than just about anything. It’s one of the swankiest seats in the sky, and it’s really, really hard to book Lufthansa first class with travel rewards unless you’ve got supreme flexibility.

These massive lie-flat seats, offering bottomless Champagne and caviar, routinely sell for more than $8,000 one-way from the US to Europe. But by collecting rewards from the best travel credit cards, I’m going to book a first-class seat for almost no out-of-pocket expense.

Flying Lufthansa first class is rare, but I want to do it. Here, I’ll outline five steps I’m taking to book a Lufthansa first-class seat with credit card rewards and show you how to do the same.

1. Book with the right loyalty program

When it comes to booking Lufthansa first class, award prices through Lufthansa’s Miles & More program are competitive, but there are a couple big reasons you probably don’t want to book through Lufthansa. Specifically, its Miles & More miles are very difficult to earn, and you should expect to pay hundreds in fuel surcharges (sometimes even nearly $1,000).

Instead, it’s better to book through Lufthansa’s Star Alliance airline partners, such as United Airlines MileagePlus, Air Canada Aeroplan or Avianca LifeMiles. These programs don’t charge anywhere close to the same fees. Plus, they’re easier to earn, since they partner with transferable currencies like American Express Membership Rewards®, Bilt Rewards®, Chase Ultimate Rewards® and others.

Below is a first-class flight on Lufthansa between Munich (MUC) and Washington DC (IAD) with Avianca LifeMiles. You’ll pay 87,000 miles and $136.65 in taxes and fees for the ticket. It’s not a totally free flight, but not a bad price to pay for an $8,000+ flight in an ultra-premium seat.

2. Keep origin and destination airports flexible

If you’re serious about flying Lufthansa first class, availability trumps convenience. Be willing to pounce on any unoccupied seat you can find — even if it’s not departing from an airport near you.

Between its two hubs in Frankfurt (FRA) and Munich (MUC), Lufthansa currently flies its first-class cabin on 16 routes to 10 US cities:

I’m willing to fly from anywhere in the US to either Frankfurt or Munich. That means I’ll have to monitor 16 transatlantic routes for availability. If something opens up, I’ll book a cheap fare to that city to catch the flight.

When I find a flight I want to book, I can then buy a positioning flight from my home airport to connect to my Lufthansa first-class flight. For example, if I lived near Detroit (DTW) but was flying Lufthansa out of New York-JFK, I would buy a separate flight from DTW to JFK.

That said, positioning flights are usually on separate tickets — and thus not protected by the airline — so ensure you have plenty of time to make your connecting flight. Missing your connection could result in your Lufthansa first award ticket being canceled.

3. You can only book partner award tickets within two weeks of departure

Here’s a tricky one. Lufthansa is known to only release award inventory to its Star Alliance airline partners within 15 days of departure. In other words, you’re going to be booking this flight at the last minute.

A 15-day window makes scheduling your vacation in advance difficult. You’ve got a pretty good chance of finding an open award seat or two, but they might not appear until literally the day before departure. Because of this, it’s wise to not book a hotel or activities during your vacation until the last minute. The sad truth is that first-class seats may not appear for your desired travel dates.

Again, if you’re willing to be flexible with the route you fly, you’ve got a good chance of finding something, especially during off-peak dates. If you need to travel during specific dates, you might consider booking an award ticket in a lower cabin and rebooking if Lufthansa first-class award space opens during the 15-day window.

This is when booking with United MileagePlus is useful. It often charges more miles for a first-class award than Aeroplan or LifeMiles, but unlike these loyalty programs, it offers free changes and cancellations on most award tickets.

So if you book a Lufthansa business-class seat and first-class award space opens, you can simply rebook your ticket for the difference in mileage cost. No other fees will apply in most cases.

4. Check routes with connections

One strange (and frustrating) phenomenon in the world of award travel is the ability to find award seats by searching itineraries with a connection.

It’s not logical, I know. But it (sometimes) works.

Take a look at the below transatlantic ticket from Edinburgh (EDI) to Columbus (CMH) on Air Canada using Avianca LifeMiles. As you can see, there are two lie-flat business-class seats from Edinburgh to Toronto (YYZ) en route to Columbus. This flight departs at 9 a.m.

However, searching for flights between Edinburgh and Toronto on the exact same day yields a return of zero business-class seats. In fact, you’ll notice that the previous 9 a.m. flight isn’t even an option in these search results. For some reason, the business-class fare to Toronto doesn’t appear unless you’re traveling beyond Toronto.

It’s a bit of a slog to search for fares this way, but some diligence can pay off in a huge way. And if your main goal is to fly a premium cabin like Lufthansa first class, it could be worth enduring a second leg that you’re completely uninterested in taking. In some cases, you might be able to book the single leg by booking over the phone.

5. Check for flights multiple times per day

Lufthansa first-class tickets are a hot commodity. Once Lufthansa releases these seats to its Star Alliance partners, they could be gone in a matter of hours. As such, it pays to check for these seats several times each day.

There are services you can use to smooth out this process a bit. For example, ExpertFlyer, a popular frequent flyer tool, can alert you when award seats open up in a specific class on a specific flight. Even so, I’ve found some great deals (before receiving alerts) by manually searching over and over.

How to earn enough points to book Lufthansa first class

Thankfully, you don’t need to fly a ton to earn enough miles to book a Lufthansa first-class ticket to Europe. Many travel rewards credit cards offer a large enough welcome offer that could cover most (if not all) of the ticket’s points price.

Here are a handful of the best credit card welcome offers that are available now. Each of these cards earn points that transfer to Avianca LifeMiles, which charges 87,000 points for a one-way flight from the US to Europe in first class.

As you can see, each of these travel credit cards have different bonuses, annual fees and benefits. Do your own research and see which card is the right fit for your wallet before applying.

Bottom line

One of the more persnickety award flights to book, Lufthansa first class is a bucket list item that’s bolded, underlined and italicized for many travel rewards collectors. Even if you’re not interested in visiting Frankfurt or Munich, this $8,000+ seat is hands-down one of the best ways to cross the Atlantic. It’s sort of a destination in itself.

Looking for a new travel credit card? Check out CNN Underscored Money’s list of the best credit cards currently available.

Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Gold card.
Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Platinum card.
Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Platinum card.