By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

Lufthansa Airlines, Germany's largest airline company, has presented PartnerPlusBenefit, a customer benefit program for Korean corporate travelers.

PartnerPlusBenefit is a complete online customized loyalty program, where any company joining will receive `benefit points' each time they fly with Lufthansa.

After joining the program, a company can choose among benefits such as free flights, upgrades to Business Class, cash pay-outs or excess baggage coupons.

Though it can choose the benefit it will take, each employee can still continue to collect mileage in addition to the corporate points earned by the company in the PartnerPlusBenefit corporate loyalty program.

Also, member companies have the flexibility to assign benefits to employees of their choice.

Therefore, when a member company’s employees fly the Inchon-Frankfurt round-trip five times in Business Class, the company will have enough benefit points to get a free flight on the same route going Economy Class.

If the company chooses upgraded service, after its employees travel Business Class on the Inchon-Frankfurt round-trip twice, it can earn enough benefit points for a one-way upgrade from Economy to Business Class on the same route.

With the excess baggage allowance service, companies will get benefit points for a 10 kilogram excess baggage allowance coupon every four times employees fly the Inchon-Frankfurt round trip.

Or, if employees travel the round-trip 10 times in Economy Class, the company can exchange the earned benefit points for cash.

Joining the PartnerPlusBenefit program is free of charge. Once a company has completed the registration at www.partnerplusbenefit.co.kr, they will receive an email with a password necessary for login. With the password, the companies can use the benefit program.

By simply registering and using a corporate credit card whenever purchasing Lufthansa flight tickets, the benefit points will be credited to the member corporation automatically without the company having to input the ticket number manually to receive benefit points.

Korea is becoming one of the most important markets for Lufthansa, and the company is to add a new air route from Pusan-Seoul-Munich from March 27. It is scheduled three times a week.

This will be the first time a European airline has scheduled an international air route from Pusan, the second largest city in Korea. It is the first time even among companies in Korea.

Thierry Antinori, executive vice president of marketing and sales at the company, said that the growing economy of Korea, and especially that of Pusan was the deciding factor. ``The port city has great passenger potential. Also, the new air route is expected to attract Japanese passengers wishing to use Pusan as a hub,'' he added.

For the opening, the chairman of Lufthansa will visit Pusan to take the flight himself, to promote the route as well as to commemorate its opening around early April.

After it launches, 10 flights from Korea to Germany will depart every week.

For more information on the PartnerPlusBenefit program, visit www.partnerplusbenefit.co.kr or contact the PartnerPlusBenefit Service Center at telephone no. 02-3420-0413 or email ppbkorea@dlh.de.

For information on flight schedules or other benefits, visit www.lufthansa-korea.com.