From the end of 2024, Lufthansa plans to introduce a payment option for seat reservations with miles as part of the new seat reservation structure for Allegris seats.
Customers will be able to pay seat reservation fees with miles in all travel classes, including the new Lufthansa Allegris Economy Class, Premium Economy seats and the new Allegris Business Class.
How much might seat reservation with miles cost?
There is currently no information on how many miles customers will have to invest to reserve seats with Lufthansa. Other frequent flyer programs, such as the Aegean Airlines Miles+Bonus program, have had the option of reserving seats with miles for some time. There, for example, customers can use 200 miles instead of one euro to pay for their seat reservation.
The price range for seat reservations per flight ranges from 200 miles to 5,600 miles. In addition to Aegean, other airlines such as Air France, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, TAP and Turkish Airlines also offer the option of seat reservation. However, the miles required are less transparent with these airlines. In general, the longer the route and the cheaper the ticket, the more miles are required. Alternatively, Lufthansa could introduce a flat-rate system based on zones, similar to the Miles & More award flights. Such a system would definitely be clearer than the system of other airlines.
Is it worth reserving a seat with miles?
As with most additional services that can be paid for with miles, redeeming miles for seat reservations is generally not profitable. Airlines often charge far too many miles in relation to the cash price. In the example above, this works out to be 0.5 cents per mile. When you consider that you can often get a much higher value with award flights, the disproportion becomes clear.
Lufthansa has not yet released any concrete information about the mileage prices for seat reservations. Therefore, the question cannot be answered with absolute certainty. However, experience and the fact that Miles & More and Lufthansa are rarely generous indicate a clear trend.
At this point in time, it is not yet clear when and how seat reservations with Lufthansa using miles will work. Therefore, some questions on this topic remain unanswered for the time being. However, it is likely that it will make more sense to continue collecting miles and redeeming them for flight awards rather than for additional services such as seat reservations.