What to do if you must wait in Frankfurt airport for a long time? What kind of free stuff can you get there? Is there free internet available? I get asked these questions quite a lot, as many people often spend a long time waiting for their connecting flight in Frankfurt airport.
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If you are not flying business class or don’t want to use the paid lounge (perhaps, because the reviews for most are just terrible!), yet would like to spend your time in Frankfurt airport comfortably, this article is for you!
In this article:
- Getting free hot drink (and a bonus birthday 10 euro coupon for tax free!)
- Best seating areas
- Getting free reading material
- Booking the airport tour & visiting the terrace
Free Hot Drinks
Since Lufthansa no longer offers free hot beverages or press at the gates, you must look for other options if you would like some freebies. Heinemann & Me Duty Free members get free hot beverages in multiple cafes. What should you do to get one too?
- Register at the Heinemann & Me Duty Free program
- Next, there are two choices, either remember to bring with you the plastic card that they will mail to your home address, or use an app, like I do. You can download the app in Google Play or Appstore, and you can even register for membership while at the airport, since there is free Wi-Fi, so no advance preparation needed!
- You can check in the app or on the website what are the special offers for the Frankfurt airport (there are other airports where this works as well, Hamburg, Vienna and more, not just for drinks but for other services too).
- In the list find those cafes that offer a free drink, at the time of writing this article, these are:
-
- Hermann’s
- Italissimo
- Mayer’s (don’t mix up with Meyers!)
- Natural
- Quickers
- Caviar House & Prunier
- When arriving at the cafe, ask the bartender if they are offering free beverage for Heinemann members, as sometimes new hires might not be aware (don’t despair if they tell you no, just go to the next stand, there is plenty of them!). Then pick what kind of hot drink would you like. They will ask you to show your boarding pass and Heinemann card or app with the number. You do not need to buy anything else here if you don’t want to, as this promotion works on its own.
Bonus tip: If you have registered for membership some time ago, you will get a 10 euro coupon in email for your birthday! This is free spending money in the duty free store (check participating stores, as not all accept the coupons, for example, Vilnius airport does not). You can purchase any full price item for this money as long as it costs at least 10 euros. How this works in the practice is that if your item is 9.90, the cashier will ask you to buy water bottle for 1 eur on top, otherwise the coupon won’t work. If you will pick an item that is on a sale, you will only get discount from the original value, so better take full price items.
Free Reading Material
Next to the Lufthansa Business Lounge in Terminal 1 there is a stand where you can take free press, also in English, such as Financial Times. If you are flying Lufthansa or one of it’s members (for example, Austrian), notice the little Journal tab when you check in online, there you can pick which magazines to download for free for your trip. They have a wide selection in many languages, my favorites are National Geographic Traveller and Lonely Planet Traveller
More Comfortable Seats and/or Children’s Play Area/ Video game room
If you would like to sit in a nice chair where you can put your feet up and have support for your head and neck, go to gates A50-A69!
Soon on your left you will see a seating area with some nice chairs and standing desks to work at. Each chair has its own table with electricity outlets and free Wi-Fi works here as well.
Right next to it is a children’s play area with a nice airplane. Just across on the other side of the hallway there are free video game rooms for older children!
Tours and Visitors Terrace
You can take one of the many airport tours (for extra cost) at the visitor center. They also offer a variety of tours for the surrounding sightseeing places, all for additional cost. If you would like some fresh air, there is a visitor’s terrace in Terminal 2, for a few euros you can visit it numerous times per day.
Delayed flight? Check out this company that will help you claim compensation for delays of more than 3 hours!
I hate layovers and airports in general so nothing will ever make me a happy camper. The info on where to find a comfy place to work is useful, although I’d much rather be on a road trip somewhere where every moment has value and is interesting!
Sure! But often you just cannot get to the place directly and have to take a connecting flight 🙂
Didn’t know that they had tours! Good to know 🙂
I always fly from here, never through here, but these are good tips for other travelers 😀
I hope you get to try the tour out! And that you speak good German 🙂 Mine is a bit rusty, so in the end I chose not to take it.
Such useful tips! But I do always try to get direct flights whenever I travel to avoid long layover in the airport…
Definitely! Time is precious, but connecting flights are unavoidable for far away destinations or if you live not near a hub.
I love this post! I’ve never been to this airport, but I’m a sucker for free drinks and love that this program exists! I’m definitely taking note for whenever I fly into Germany! (and now I kinda wonder if there are any similar programs in my local airports.) That airplane playground is super adorable, too!
Definitely check your local airport! Sometimes they also have special passes for quicker security and similar, if you fly often, maybe makes sense to invest in one.
Thank you for sharing all these tips! I had a friend who recently had a long layover there, I’m sure she’d have been happy to know all this! Airports can be so boring…
Yes, and sometimes challenging too, especially if you travel alone – do you leave your things for a trip to bathroom? Will you lose the nice seat then? In this case, the man sitting next to me was from the neighboring capital and I asked him to watch over my jacket and suitcase (clothing only) while I run to get that free drink 🙂
This is great! I found this page so easy to read (love the big headings) and really cool info as well! Thanks 🙂
Thank you for the kind words! 🙂
I know many flights from India that touch Frankfurt on its way. This helps immensely
Frankfurt is one of the largest airports of the world, and a major European hub, I guess, you can almost go anywhere from it in Europe 🙂
Funny I read this, because we are moving to a city which doesn’t have many international flights, BUT it has cheap flights to Frankfurt, which in turn allows to fo anywhere really. So I’m really glad I got to read this, because we will be in this airport a lot from now onwards!
Excellent! I am glad this was useful! 🙂
If your layover is 7 hours or longer, you can book a tour. Why stay at the airport when you can see a bit of Germany!
Thank you for your comment. I have edited out the link, as I don’t appreciate unsolicited advertising on my blog.
Ok. I am sorry about that. Please accept my apologies.
Because you are not allowed to leave an Airport if it´s a stop-over flight?? Am I right here?
You can, but sometimes one might not want to – traveling for work, or being dressed for a different climate.
This post is so helpful! I’ve never found myself at this airport yet but I may in the next few years! When I do I will definitely refer back to this post! Thanks for sharing some great information! It will make so many peoples layovers a little more enjoyable!
Thanks! I certainly hope it makes someones layover a bit more pleasant! 🙂
Wow, I was there last year october for 7hrs, I had a connecting flight to Canada. My layover was a total disaster, I wish I had seen this post earlier.
There is always the next time, Frankfurt is a big hub in Europe, so you surely will be there again 🙂
me and my friends had a 12 hour delay and we had to wait for the next flight still in the airport, so we tried all the rest areas, all the bars and all the shops in the airport but the relaxation room with its armchairs are fabulous
Glad you liked it!