It can be a bit of challenge to land multiple first class seats on a Lufthansa route availability is limited with only 8 seats in each cabin and they only release partner awards within 15 days of departure.  Furthermore, most of the routes that consistently release first class award space like Detroit and Dallas still operate the old first class product.  The new first class appears on more challenging routes.  Though it takes a leap of faith to land Lufthansa new first class, there is one particular route on Lufthansa which primarily offers the new first class routes and has amazing consistency of releasing multiple first class seats per flight.

Lufthansa 740/741 between Frankfurt and Osaka (Kansai) in Japan operated primarily by Lufthansa’s new first class on the 747-400 is an absolute gold mine!

How good is availability

Let’s take a look at availability. I picked random dates and at first glance I’d say it looks pretty good but not great…..

But take a closer look.  That is actually four first class seats available on the same flight!  That is half the cabin (4 seats AND of course 4 beds!)

If you can settle with just three available first class seats then availability looks like this.

This was just a random search I performed but I monitor this route throughout the year and the award space is phenomenal.  A search returning 7 straight days of first class seat availability is not uncommon.

Why the route is useful

One of my favorite secrets of frequent flyer travel is that I can route to Asia via Europe using United miles.  In economy that seems like a silly idea, but if you are like me, when you are flying Lufthansa First Class you want as much time in that cabin as humanely possible.  This route is great because it is one of Lufthansa’s 9th longest flight at 9271 km.  We’re talking 10+ hours of the top deck.

Lufthansa’s 747-400 configuration is Lufthansa’s second best configuration slightly behind Lufthansa’s A380.  With only 8 seats on the top deck, it is far more spacious than on Lufthansa’s 747-8i 8 seats in the nose and with the separate bed and seat setup, you can’t help but feel a bit giddy when you climb the stairs into this cabin.  I could be wrong but I believe by square footage, you are getting more dedicated space to yourself than on any other configuration of any airline.

Making sure the route has the new First Class

The Frankfurt/Osaka route is primarily operated by the 747-400 new first class but occasionally they will use the old first class so be sure to check this tool to know what you are signing up for.  For what it is worth, I actually still really love the old 747-400 too because it is so darn spacious.

We recently paired this route with one of the gimme US-Frankfurt routes, Dallas in our case and it was 20+ hours of pure Lufthansa bliss.

The bottom line

Landing two seats or more together on a Lufthansa new first class flight can be quite challenging but some routes are more dependable than others.  The next time you are looking to go to Japan or Southeast Asia using United miles, keep this route in mind as a potential complement with one of the US-Germany routes.  You’d be flying the ‘long way’ but I can assure you it is also the ‘good way’.