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Following on from the good Singapore Airlines Business Class fare between Europe and Singapore (which I wrote about yesterday) Star Alliance, in the form of LOT Polish Airlines, has another very good ex-Stockholm fare on offer right now – this time it’s to Beijing.
The Fare
Airline: LOT Polish Airlines
Cabin: Business Class
From/To: Stockholm (ARN) to Beijing (SIN)
Stopovers: Yes, Warsaw
Prices From: ~$1,703 Roundtrip
Availability
You’ll find the fare very widely available from now right the way through June next year but you have to be a little careful – some of the flight options involve very long layovers in Warsaw.
To give you an idea of what availability is like on the shorter trips I’ve excluded flights with long layovers from my search and this is what we’re left with:
August Through September
October Through November
December Through January
February Through March
April Through May
As you can see, you would have to be pretty unlucky with the dates you can fly not to be able to find something that works for you.
The Fare Rules (In Brief)
- Bookings must be made at least 14 days in advance
- There’s no “book by” date attached to the fare
- Flights must be booked using a LO ticket number
- Minimum stay is 2 nights
- Maximum stay is 12 months
- 2 free stopovers are available – one in either direction
- This fare books in to the LOT “F” fare code
Finding The Fare
You should be able to find the fare with Google Flights…..
….but my preferred option for searching is still the Matrix search tool. Here are the parameters I suggest if you’re to avoid any unnecessarily long layovers:
As always you should replace the dates and length of stay parameters with ones that work best for your own circumstances.
Booking The Fare
If you find fares that work for you via Google Flights you’ll be offered a link to book from there otherwise, if you use Matrix, head over to the LOT Polish Airlines website and book direct through there.
Earning Miles
This LOT Business Class fares books into fare code “D” so here are the earning rates for three of the more popular programs into which readers generally credit LOT flights:
- Miles & More – 150%
- Singapore Airlines – 100%
- United Airlines MileagePlus – 100%
Note: The above percentages do not include elite bonuses
Stockholm – Warsaw – Beijing and back is a trip of a little over 9,700 miles so that’s what you should use to approximate your base earnings.
The Aircraft
The short-haul segments are operated by regional jets but the long-haul segments are operated by the airline’s new Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners.
The LOT Dreamliner doesn’t offer an all-aisle-access Business Class cabin….
…but it does offer perfectly acceptable good lie-flat seats with a good amount of personal space:
The seats are approximately 23″ wide which, for reference, makes them wider than the Business Class seats you’ll find in the Dreamliners operated by Air France, Etihad, Qatar Airways, British Airways, United Airlines, American Airlines and quite a few more airlines too.
The bed the lie-flat seats convert into is between 79″ and 80″ long which makes it marginally longer than the beds offered by most of the airlines mentioned above.
For a product that doesn’t offer all-aisle access this is definitely one of the better ones.
Bottom Line
Of late I’ve been struggling to find any truly amazing Business Class flares to Asia so a roundtrip fare that’s only just over $1,700 looks pretty good right now. Personally I’d credit the flights to the Miles & More program but, if you’re a United loyalist, it may make sense for you to credit the flights to MileagePlus – makes sure you work out which program is best for you based on the elite status(es) you hold.