There’s an active discussion on Flyer Talk about a HON Circle mileage run by private jet, thanks to a promotion offering 50k miles including award, status and HON Circle miles per international segment on LH Private Jet until early June.  If you can organise a full load in a private jet the costs are not too bad.

HON Circle is the top elite frequent flyer status of Miles & More and requires 600,000 HON Circle miles within 2 consecutive calendar years. Flights must be on certain airlines to count as HON Circle miles (the home airlines of Miles & More). HON Circle status perks include access to the fabulous Lufthansa First Class Terminal and Lounges, Senator status for partner, 6 upgrade e-vouchers, frequent op-ups, guaranteed seat availability and improved award availability (eg additional award seats on Lufthansa and Swiss plus all Miles & More customers can benefit from premium cabin awards on Singapore Airlines 77W and A380 aircraft) which will come in handy given the number of miles HON runners will have accumulated.

Perhaps the most attractive feature for some Flyer Talkers is that qualifying now for HON Circle status gives HON Circle status until February 2013 and Senator status until February 2015.

This sure beats taking hundreds of flights in economy to qualify for elite frequent flyer status.

Lufthansa Miles and More has recently added a flight statistical summary to the site for all high status members (HON Circle or Senator elite frequent flyer status). When you log in you get a summary of your recent flights credited to Miles & More.

Given I use flugstatistik.de / flightmemory.com, which is more comprehensive, I was naturally interested.  Here are some screen shots kindly donated by a reader.

The Lufthansa & Germanwings strike has been lifted after 1 day with the pilots having returned to work (for now).  Even though the strike is lifted expect significant disruptions for the next couple of days, particularly for longhaul passengers.

Most Lufthansa and Germanwings flights are expected to be disrupted next week. Note, however, that some related airlines’ flights are all operating. This includes Swiss, Austrian, bmi, Brussels Airlines, CityLine, Eurowings, Lufthansa Italia.

Lufthansa has published a schedule of their flights which they anticipate being able to operate. All flights not listed on that schedule between 22 and 25 February are cancelled.

At present they are allowing refunds, rebooking onto other Lufthansa flights (in the same cabin but any available booking class), and heavily restricted rebooking onto non Lufthansa flights (requires same booking class). Hopefully the restrictions on rebooking onto other airlines will soon be eased otherwise there will be a lot of people unable to travel on the days they want to. For domestic German flights, Lufthansa also allows rebooking onto Deutsche Bahn trains.

For the latest information for affected passengers check the link above to Lufthansa’s website.

Airline assistance (EU reg 261/2004)

EU reg 261/2004 articles 5 and 6 apply for cancellations and delays respectively. This means food, 2 phone calls, and accommodation (if necessary) must be provided to passengers whose flights are cancelled or materially delayed. Lufthansa will likely argue that article 7 compensation will not apply due to the exemption for extraordinary circumstances.

A 4 day strike running from Monday to Thursday next week has been announced by pilots at Lufthansa and Germanwings (source New York Times).  While other airlines in the group are not directly affected there probably will be some impacts on their flights too, not least due to many thousands of rebooked passengers.

Edited to add.

Related airlines which are not directly affected by the strike include:

• Swiss
• Austrian
• bmi
• Brussels Airline
• CityLine
• Eurowings

In all cases it is the operating airline that matters, not codeshares. Check your flight details carefully.

Come up with a catchy name for Lufthansa’s A380 and you could win 1 million Miles & More miles.  Good luck.