Germany’s Condor Airlines is returning to Calgary after a hiatus of nearly five years and adding new flights from Edmonton for the summer 2024 season. Condor had originally planned to launch the YEG-FRA route in the summer of 2020 but we all know what happened to travel that year!
Both of these routes can be booked directly on Condor’s website and they are also available as award flight redemption options via Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan.
The Calgary and Edmonton to Frankfurt routes
Condor will operate both of these routes twice weekly with their Airbus A330-900neo aircraft. The Calgary route will run from May 20 to September 12 and Edmonton will be May 17 to September 6. (Source Aeroroutes)
The Condor A330-900neo features 30 lie flat business class seats (4 are Prime seats at the front of the cabin with even more room and larger IFE screen), 64 premium economy seats and 216 economy seats.
Earning and redeeming on these Condor flights
Condor Airlines does not have their own in-house frequent flyer program but do participate in Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and Emirates Skywards. Alaska Airlines will be the primary choice for most people flying on these new routes as well as Condor’s existing flights from Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver.
Here are the Mileage Plan earn rates for flying on Condor (based on distance):
You can also redeem Mileage Plan miles for travel on these Condor flights in Economy and Premium Economy class. As for business class it appears Condor has not released them for award bookings. I checked many dates via Mileage Plan and had no luck even though Condor was showing 9 seats (or more) available for purchase.
It is possible that since these routes were just recently announced Condor won’t release business class award seats until they sell a few at their $5,800 round trip ticket price first and/or wait until last minute to fill up empty seats.
For economy and premium economy redemption however, there was quite a bit of availability for both of these routes.
Here’s an example of Edmonton to Frankfurt:
And Calgary to Frankfurt:
Both routes require the same number of Mileage Plan Miles:
- Economy Class: 25,000 one way / 50,000 round trip
- Premium Economy Class: 45,000 one way / 90,000 round trip
- Round trip taxes and fees are roughly US$200 (C$270)
The 50,000 miles round trip for economy class is significantly lower than Aeroplan’s average requirements and 25% higher than Flying Blue’s starting rate of 40,000 miles for a round trip. Granted, if and when we get the much anticipated MBNA Rewards to Alaska Airlines transfer option those 50,000 Mileage Plan miles would require as little as $9,091 in card spending (at 5.5 points) versus $10,000 on the Cobalt Card (at 5 points) to get the Flying Blue redemption. So in the end the Mileage Plan 50K may be a more attractive option than Flying Blue’s 40K option based on potential credit card earning.
Paying for Condor flights
If you are not planning to redeem Mileage Plan miles for Condor flights but rather pay cash we recommend using a credit card that has a travel accelerator like The Platinum Card from American Express, the TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite Privilege* Card or the BMO AscendTM World Elite®* Mastercard®*
Click here to learn more and/or to book flights with Condor
Images via Condor Airlines and Alaska Airlines