Lufthansa Allegris Business Class Review Chicago to Munich Details
- Route: Chicago O’Hare (ORD) to Munich (MUC)
- Flight Number: LH 435
- Aircraft: Airbus A350-900
- Scheduled Departure Time: 9:50 PM
- Scheduled Arrival Time: 1:10 PM
- Seat Numbers: 12D and 12G
- Mileage Cost: 70,000 Air Canada Aeroplan Miles
Routes with Lufthansa Allegris Business Class
Lufthansa’s Allegris business class is available on select Airbus A350-900 to/from Munich and Boeing 787 aircraft to/from Frankfurt. In the future, Lufthansa will be retro-fitting additional aircraft types with the Allegris cabin.
Your best source for identifying Lufthansa’s current Allegris routes is Lufthansa’s own website which lists destinations through October 2026. Below are images of the current and upcoming 2026 routes with US destinations including Austin, Chicago, New York (JFK/EWR), Los Angeles, Miami, and San Diego.
Equipment swaps are possible, and there is no guarantee every single flight even on the published routes will be operated by an Allegris cabin. To be certain, I’d reference Lufthansa’s website and conduct a search for the specific flight you are considering. Lufthansa’s search results include an indicator if the flight is operated with the new Allegris seats.
Booking Lufthansa Allegris Business Class with Miles and Points
Lufthansa is a member of the Star Alliance, and its flights can be booked through its own Miles & More program or through partners such as Air Canada Aeroplan, Avianca LifeMiles, and United MileagePlus. Using an award tool, such as Seats.Aero, is easier to identify what might be the best deal for your preferred route. In my experience, Aeroplan is the best value, charging 70,000 miles and about $60 USD in taxes/fees versus United MileagePlus’s 88,000 and about $6 in taxes (specifically for the Chicago to Munich route).
Lufthansa’s Miles & More program utilizes dynamic pricing so at times prices will be cheaper through its program or more expensive than Air Canada and United. Lufthansa releases more award space to its own program so often times you won’t see the same award flight available to Air Canada and United. The big downside is the taxes/fees imposed by Lufthansa’s Miles & More. For this particular flight from Chicago to Munich, the cost is 99,213 miles plus about $1050 USD in taxes and fees. With taxes this high, I’d always look elsewhere.
Avianca LifeMiles is another program you could consider, which is charging 69,000 miles and roughly $75 USD in taxes. If you haven’t used LifeMiles before, its overall website and customer support can be frustrating so I’d recommend Aeroplan instead, given the similar price points.
Lufthansa Chicago to Munich Review Allegris Seat Types
If you are unfamiliar, Lufthansa’s Allegris has a complex business class cabin layout compared to the competition. Most airlines these days offer a uniform seat to most passengers in business class with a possible business class plus seat available (typically a roomier seat with additional amenities located in the bulkhead).
Lufthansa advertises 5 different types of Allegris seats in its business class cabin and, as you may have guessed, upcharges for the best seats. Below is an overview of the seat types on offer. Most people would consider the front row Suites to be the best seats offering a privacy door, additional space/storage, and larger entertainment screen. Lufthansa also offers some additional food options and mattress pads to customers traveling in these seats.
Next, you have Privacy Seats which are located closest to the windows and an Extra Space Seat which is often described as a “throne,” as you sit in the center of the cabin by yourself. Finally, you have Classic Seats closer to the aisle. Some of these classic seats have “Extra Long Beds” that are 7 foot 2 inches long in lie flat mode, which might be attractive to taller individuals.
The overall Allegris cabin layout is somewhat controversial. One one hand, there are some really nice seats available here (particularly the Suites) that, in my opinion, exceed the experience you can find in business class on other transatlantic flights. However, there are only so many of the Suites available, and they may already be taken by the time you book. Additionally, the idea of paying additional money to reserve one of these best seats on top of your business class fare can be a hard pill to swallow.
I prefer consistency and knowing what to expect when I fly an airline. With Lufthansa Allegris, you could end up with a vastly different experience every time you fly, which personally I don’t love. I do suspect Lufthansa will make a lot of additional revenue with this model so I can’t really blame them, but personally I will think twice about booking them.
Lufthansa Chicago to Munich Allegris Seat Costs
If you book your award ticket through Aeroplan, you can select and pay for Allegris seats right at checkout. The classic seats towards the aisle are free of charge to select. If you don’t select a seat, Lufthansa will assign you one at check-in. Not selecting a seat could save you money if you end up in a seat you are happy with but might backfire if you get assigned one you dislike.
Costs of the various seat types will vary by route, but just to give you an example from Chicago – Lufthansa currently charges a hefty $588 USD for the Suites, $200 for the Extra Space Seat, $165 for the Privacy Seat, and $165 for the Extra Long Bed.
Below is the seat map, for the A350 taking us to Munich. We elected not to pay for seats and were assigned seats 12D and 12G at check in. 12D is classified as a Classic Seat and 12G is classified as an Extra Long Bed. We’d certainly have preferred some of the more premium seat types, but I’d classify about 42% of the Allegris cabin as Classic or Long Bed seats facing closer to the aisle. As a result, this review will hopefully aid in giving you a worst case scenario of what Allegris business class is like.
Lufthansa Allegris Business Class Review Classic and Extra Long Seat
Boarding began slightly behind schedule, and we enjoyed the personalized Christmas message written at the entrance.
Walking toward the back of the cabin, we found our Classic and Extra Long Bed seats (seats 12D and 12G). Although these seats are less desirable in that they face towards the aisle, they are great if you are traveling with a companion and want to communicate easily.
With the exception of the front row Allegris Suites and Qatars Q-Suite, I’d say these are on the best seats available in the transatlantic business class market for talking with a companion. Often times, center seats in business class require you to angle your head or lean forward to see the other person but in this case, the view is unobstructed. If you end up in these seats and don’t know the person next to you, a partition can be raised to provide some privacy.
12D/12G and 6D/6G are the only pairs of seats in the cabin to provide this “double seat” configuration, which I think adds to the overall confusing design of the Allegris cabin. If you select the other pairs of center seats (4G/4D and 10C/10D), you’ll have storage lockers that somewhat block the view of your companion as shown in the renderings below.
My seat specifically was the extra long bed variant, which Lufthansa advertises as 7 feet 2 inches long in the lie flat mode.
Towards the front of the seat is an 18 inch 4K entertainment monitor. The entertainment monitor is larger in the the Extra Space Seat and Suites (up to 27 inches).
You’ll notice the larger screen size of the Extra Space Seat or throne seat ahead of us.
Towards the front of the cabin, you’ll find the large suite walls containing the best seats in the cabin.
Below the screen is a pull out tray table which fit my 14 inch MacBook Pro just fine, but I’d prefer a bit more room.
Under the tray table, we’ll take a look at the footwell. From my seat (extra long bed), the footwell was moderate in size but the slight curvature reduces some of the available room. You’ll find larger footwells in some of the other Allegris seat types including the Suites and Privacy Seats.
By comparison, my partner across the way in the standard classic seat seemed to have a slightly smaller footwell.
Between the seats is a drink holder, storage compartment, and a wireless charging pad. The wireless charging pad was functional, but personally I don’t love the positioning. When you are upright, you have to basically turn around to grab your phone and put it back on the pad. Scanning around the cabin, a number of the other seat types have more conveniently placed charging pads.
Inside the compartment is an inflight headphone holder.
In front of this storage area are some unique features including an air vent and glasses holder. Most business class air vents, when available, are overhead so I really liked that you could access this while seated. The air vent control is located beneath the vent with three strength settings. Oddly, the vent doesn’t stay continuously on and timeouts after awhile. I like having a cooler temperature onboard and found it annoying to have to turn the vent on over and over again.
Above the vent is light you can adjust the brightness off using the button on top.
In front of the vent, you’ll find a 10 inch tablet with various seat controls and inflight entertainment controls. While I like the idea of a large touch screen tablet to supplement the entertainment system, I found it to be overly heavy and not very easy to take out and put back.
Lufthansa does have some nice seating controls on the tablet including an option to increase seat warmth and cooling. I’ve only otherwise seen temperature controls in Emirates First Class so this is great to see in business. Like the air vent mentioned earlier, these heating and cooling options are only temporary and must be turned back on after sometime. Cushion firmness could also be adjusted, and I liked the live flight timeline.
The settings panel included brightness for the tablet and main entertainment screen, volume control, and an option for connecting bluetooth headphones.
Beneath the side table are some one touch seat adjustment controls, an electrical outlet, USB-A port, USB-C port, and a headphone jack. Oddly, the USB-C outlet seemed inoperative. Neither me nor my partner could successfully connect a USB-C cable to the port as it seemed blocked or disabled.
Towards the floor is a small storage compartment containing the safety card.
Off to the side is a privacy wall. No privacy doors are present unless you are in the front row suites or the extra space seat which does have a privacy wall only on one side.
Oddly, it seemed the privacy walls in our back row seats were slightly higher than the other walls. You’ll notice how the wall from my seat is a few inches taller than what you see from 11A across the aisle.
Looking towards the aisles, I certainly didn’t feel outright exposed to other passengers, but I do prefer having a closable privacy door that helps me to drown out some noise and movement when working or sleeping.
Around the corner, I took a photo of the other classic seat behind me. It looks largely similar but there appears to be a bit more storage and the wireless charging has a better location.
All in all, the classic Lufthansa Allegris seat is a mixed bag. If you are used to Lufthansa’s old 2-2-2 configuration, this is a major step up in comfort, privacy, and tech. There are some unique features here not found elsewhere in business class including the front row suites, a 10 inch tablet, seat temperature controls, glasses holder, and the back row double seat configuration.
I do think for the average flyer, the variety of options is too complicated. Even the seats advertised as the same style are not all exactly the same so it’s hard to know what to expect without doing research. About 40% of the cabin will end up in a classic style seat, and I personally didn’t find anything I strongly preferred compared to most airlines trending toward a uniform business class seat design with doors.
Lufthansa Allegris Business Class Amenities Review
At the seat was an average soft shell amenity kit containing socks, eye mask, ear plugs, wet towel, dental kit, headphone covers, hand cream, lip balm, and a mint.
We both also had a water bottle and a pair of inflight entertainment headphones.
Bedding only included a pillow and blanket, but I do believe passengers in the suites received a mattress pad. I think Lufthansa is behind the competition a bit here with British Airways, Air France, and American offering mattress pads to all passengers across the Atlantic.
Lufthansa Chicago to Munich Pre Departure Beverage and Taxi
Prior to pushback, the cabin crew came around with a choice of pre-departure beverage and bag of mixed nuts. Serving it in a bag feels a little less premium but does let passengers continue munching even during takeoff.
Prior to the screening of the inflight safety video, the crew also took our meal orders and asked if we wanted be woken for breakfast.
During taxi, I enjoyed the variety of the A350 camera views available. I don’t believe I’ve been on another plane where, in addition to the overhead and below views, there is also a side camera view, which was pretty cool as it allowed for watching nearby planes.
Lufthansa Allegris Chicago to Munich Review Dinner Service
Upon reaching cruise altitude, the first meal service began. Below is a copy of the meal and drink selection.
I selected the Ziegler Avionic to begin, served with a delicious appetizer.
For the main, we both had the stir fried chicken. Unfortunately, this was an underwhelming choice with the chicken tasting quite bland and dry. I did think the faro side salad was quite good and refreshing. Typically, I find the pretzel rolls on Lufthansa to be great but this one was hard as a rock.
Dessert was a tasty apple crumble tart, a couple of chocolates, and a side of chamomile tea.
Lufthansa Allegris A350 Bathroom
Two bathrooms are located between business class cabins on Lufthansa’s A350. I do think Lufthansa does a nice job of styling their restrooms compared to the competition. I think it feels a bit more vibrant and premium compared to the sterile look you usually find.
Individual mouthwash and towel wipes were available along with some L’Occitane lotion.
Lufthansa Allegris Business Class Entertainment Review
Movies and other entertainment could be selected from the main screen or tablet. I found the overall selection to be decent. Under settings, there is an option to connect bluetooth headphones. My partner and I both tried using our AirPods and connected successfully. Sadly, the the connection seemed to stop working for both of us after 5-10 minutes for whatever reason, and this continued throughout the flight. I ended up just using the included headphones instead.
Lufthansa Allegris WiFi
I would’ve like to have checked out the WiFi on Lufthansa’s A350 but unfortunately it was out of service for the flight. Prior to boarding, they at least made an announcement, which I appreciated, so I could finish up some things on the web before departure. During the flight, a few of the seats in the Allegris cabin also did not recline properly so, combined with the Wifi, doesn’t speak well to ongoing condition of what is a fairly new plane.
Pre-Arrival Meal Service
About 2 hours prior to landing, pre-arrival meal service began. Oddly, only one option was offered – yogurt with a side roll, veggies, and some cold cuts. I’m not a big yogurt person, so it was sort of disappointing to not have another choice available when most other airlines have at least 2 choices. I would’ve preferred a warm choice – eggs, pancakes, etc.
After the meal, I enjoyed watching our approach and arrival on the tail camera. We were also given a departing box of chocolates.
Lufthansa Allegris Business Class Review Chicago to Munich – Pilot Debrief
Lufthansa Allegris business class has a variety of seat types and, of course, your impression will change based on where you end up. Personally, I think the Classic and Extra Long Bed seats are nothing to write home about, and there is a lot of other airlines offering a better baseline seat. Based on looks alone, I think Lufthansa’s front row Allegris Suite looks like one the best business class hard products around but comes at a substantial cost. The Privacy and Extra space seats look fairly good but, again, come with an upcharge that you won’t necessarily pay with other airlines.
Beyond the seat, I found the meals underwhelming and the inoperative bluetooth and wifi frustrating. Amenities were also a bit behind the competition.
Maybe I found Lufthansa on a bad day, and I hope to try the front row suites sometime in the future. For now, I don’t love the risk of ending up in a classic seat unless I’m willing to pay for a better one.
