Athens to Frankfurt

And back home... our day witth Lufthansa First Class

Not wanting an extended stay in Athens, we both set multiple alarms and then called each other at 4:15am. Then met in the lobby at 4:45am and headed across to check-in.

Oh my, TMI at this or any hour of the day.

Off to Lufthansa counter to check-in. The main reason for choosing Athens as our turnaround point was that it is one of the best EU gateways for attractive LH and LX First Class fares to the US. Roundtrip fares are in the US$4,500 range (or 300,000 Amex MR points) for ATH-FRA-ORD-DEN/DFW-SFO-ZRH-ATH. And with the current LH/LX double EQM promotion, the roundtrip will get me Miles & More SEN (Star Alliance Gold) status for more then two years and the ability to book LX First award seats.

After check-in, off to security where there was no wait.

After a long walk thru Duty Free and by other shops, our First stop was the Lufthansa Business Lounge.

Small but attractive.

With a nice selection of food and beverage.

Star Alliance partner Aegean has a more spacious lounge next door. After checking it out, we moved over.

One more goodie bag from yesterday.

Our gate B29 which was pretty much below the lounge, so we headed down the nearby escalator around 6:20am, some 40 minutes before departure,

Athens ATH-Frankfurt FRA

Lufthansa LH 1285

A321 Neo

7:00am-9:00am

July 4, 2021

Seats 1D and 1F

Like AF, LH has separate bus for Business Class pax which pulled away at 6:30am.

Great idea in theory, except the crew wasn't ready for us to board. That and our driver parked our bus by the back door.

While we waited and waited. And waited so long that the 2nd bus with Economy pax arrived and parked behind us... by the front door. But of course.

Once the all clear was given, predictable chaos as both bus doors opened at the same time.

Since we were in bulkhead seats and other Business Class pax had boarded, nearby overhead space was impossible, especially with a crew bag on the A/C side.