Trip Report – Impressive Economy – Lufthansa London-Malta Roundtrip (via MUC & FRA)

by Adam

This is part four of a fourteen part trip report from my travels to the UK, Malta, and Mallorca. This trip reports includes my United redemption on Lufthansa for Economy seats from London to Malta and back. I must say, I was highly impressed with Lufthansa’s excellent service on these short-haul routes.

I was working in London and decided I wanted to take a short side-trip for the weekend to Malta. First I checked pricing…

Direct flights on Air Malta were GBP 506.80 or $773!

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easyJet had better pricing, but the return flight would mean loosing all of Sunday and the outbound was too early to get any work completed in London at all. easyJet was priced at GBP 366.98 or $560 USD

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I actually liked the Lufthansa options and they were pricing at GBP 430.95 or $658 USD, a little steep for a short weekend trip.

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How about using some of those Avios miles? Unfortunately, BA does not service Malta, but Air Malta is an Avios partner via Avios.com (more on this in an upcoming post). Unfortunately, there was no availability, even from some of the smaller UK airports. DL miles were useless as KLM does not fly to Malta, Air France only flies from Toulouse and had no space, and Air Europa is no longer operating their Valladolid flight.

Well, it was United to the rescue with award space on the same Lufthansa flights as above. The system could not find availability as a round-trip, but searching segment by segment worked nicely for this economy class ticket. Total cost -> 25,000 miles and $133.60.

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Before heading to the gate, I spent some time at the Star Alliance Business Class Lounge.

Boarding at Heathrow…

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The seats on the A320-200 were standard short-haul economy…

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One family of six decided that they were going to just take all six seats in the exit row, including three for their children under five. Not one of them were actually assigned to these seats, but yet they asked the assigned passengers to relocate to other seats, including middle ones.  Well, the German passengers were having none of this and the flight crew literally lectured the man on proper boarding procedures and how to secure seat assignments in advance. They also showed him via the number on his boarding pass that he was the last passenger to check-in for the flight (figures). He was still outraged and said that his home airline in Turkey would never do this to a family…

What most impressed me about these flights was the great service in Economy. We had drink service three times on both the relatively short London (LHR) – Munich (MUC) leg and slightly longer MUC – Malta (MLA) leg. Drinks were provided twice on the Frankfurt legs.

“Yummy” meatballs (seconds were offered)…

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Warm pesto tomato ciabatta, again second helpings were offered (I really liked this…though I was really hungry).

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Complimentary coffee near the gates in Munich and Frankfurt and self-boarding…

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Cheedar and gurke sandwich on the very short FRA-LHR leg, I did not sample…

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I definitely enjoyed these flights more than some recent easyJet, Monarch, and Ryanair flights. Friendly complimentary meal and beverage service and lounge access with my Star Alliance Gold status. Not bad at all…

Interested in using your miles for a flight but can’t find availability? Consider using Juicy Miles for award booking assistance!

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3 comments

LincolnPark August 7, 2013 - 11:14 am

I recently flew FRA-NAP and FLR-FRA-LHR in economy and was also really impressed with the service on Lufthansa. I usually fly UAL at home so the comparison between the two airlines is pretty dramatic. I’m wondering if their Trans-Atlantic service in economy is just as good. Any experience with them on long-haul flights in economy?

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