How one carrier is trying to make crummy airline food taste good + MORE Sep 26th

Photo credit: Dominik Mentzos for Lufthansa
Pampering passengers is big business for Lufthansa. The German airline has become increasingly reliant on deep-pocketed first- and business-class customers—people who don’t blink at a $7,000 one-way ticket between Toronto and Frankfurt—to pad the bottom line while low-cost competitors like Europe’s Ryanair drive down the price of economy-class tickets. To keep the big spenders happy, Lufthansa has spent millions in recent years to overhaul airport lounges, train staff and outfit planes with more lie-flat seats. But one facet of the front cabin experience proved more difficult than most to improve: the food.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. Lufthansa’s catering division had been working with a rotating group of three-star Michelin chefs to design its first-class menus. The resulting dishes, not surprisingly, used high quality ingredients and were expertly prepared—so much so that Lufthansa has partnered with an online outfit to sell its in-flight meals to ground-dwelling residents of some German cities, thereby satisfying a take-out market few knew existed…

Photo credit: Dominik Mentzos for Lufthansa
Pampering passengers is big business for Lufthansa. The German airline has become increasingly reliant on deep-pocketed first- and business-class customers—people who don’t blink at a $7,000 one-way ticket between Toronto and Frankfurt—to pad the bottom line while low-cost competitors like Europe’s Ryanair drive down the price of economy-class tickets. To keep the big spenders happy, Lufthansa has spent millions in recent years to overhaul airport lounges, train staff and outfit planes with more lie-flat seats. But one facet of the front cabin experience proved more difficult than most to improve: the food.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. Lufthansa’s catering division had been working with a rotating group of three-star Michelin chefs to design its first-class menus. The resulting dishes, not surprisingly, used high quality ingredients and were expertly prepared—so much so that Lufthansa has partnered with an online outfit to sell its in-flight meals to ground-dwelling residents of some German cities, thereby satisfying a take-out market few knew existed…

Whether you’re scraping together savings for your first home, or contemplating your next move in the market, Canadian real estate can be a tad… overwhelming. This week, we’ve touched on some of your biggest home buying questions, from saving for a second home, down payment loopholes, and even buying property out of the country.
Read on for our full coverage, plus the week’s top headlines.
Can I Still Get a “Zero Down” Mortgage With a Credit Union?
By law, every homebuyer must make a minimum 5% down payment on their new home purchase when taking out a mortgage from a federally regulated lender (think the 5 big banks). But what about credit unions, which are regulated provincially?
The truth is, zero-down mortgages do still exist at some of these lenders. But is it ever a good idea to get one?
Read Allan’s Blog | Can I Still Get a “Zero Down” Mortgage With a Credit Union?
Why Your Starter Home May Be Your Only Home
The traditional way into the housing market is to start small, build equity, and move on up to a bigger and better home later on…

A reader worries that the gift she received that was charged to a credit card will be repossessed because the giver is not paying the bills