michaelr

Is this possible without incurring Lufthansa style YQ charges?

I have a number of LH miles and UA has availability for the transatlantic flights on its metal. Can I call the Miles & More center and feed them the flight numbers to avoid the fuel surcharge?

SK AAR

Why don't you give it a try and call M&M?

My general impression is that if the carrier (in your case UA) does not include YQ in the fees, taxes, charges etc to be paid when making a booking with UA, then LH M&M will not charge YQ. That assume this from a recent M&M award booking on TG metal (TG stopped charging YQ for award tickets recently) - no YQ was payable to M&M ^

mmff

Yes. Just call M&M.

Kacee

That's moderately surprising.

There should not be any fuel surcharges for a UA operated flight.

Lack

UA does charge YQ across the Atlantic. Not sure if it's as bad as LH ex-US though (on revenue tickets). Would be surprised if LH didn't reach for that money when redeeming miles.

If you want to pay less surcharges fly LOT.

michaelr

I called M&M today and indeed even if the leg ORD-FRA over the Atlantic is operated by UA, LH does charge its wicked fees. For a one way ECON ticket OMA-ORD-FRA-HAJ, United wants 30k miles and $42. LH wants 30k miles and $189. However, when the agent priced the ticket, it priced out at 25k miles. Better yet when the system went to actually charge the miles, it only charged 17k from my account.

My understanding was that only round trips to Europe originating from the US price out at 50k. It looks like I lucked out and the pricing engine applied the discount to a one way ticket. In addition it seems that the 25% child discount was applied, i.e. 7500 resulting in 17,500. The engine always rounds down so it came out as 17,000 M&M.

If this holds up, then for once M&M pricing was not at all terrible.

Lack

If you're residing in the US then the US-Europe awards are indeed 50k RT, so your calculations are spot on. Did you actually book it for a child to get that additional 25% discount?

michaelr

I am residing in the US but thought it had to be a round trip for the discount to apply. It's great news if the discount legitimately applies to one-way tickets as well. I need to book those a lot for my family and it makes LH a but more reasonable to use for this purpose.

The trip was booked for my father who is 74. The child discount should also not have applied because 2 out of the three legs are on UA metal. My understanding was that it only applies if all legs are on LH-owned metal such as LH or Swiss, etc.

Lack

Do check the ticket receipt, if it's for a CHD then someone at checking might start causing trouble.

Check the LOT offering next time perhaps - should save you another $100 in fees with the same mileage cost. I don't think they fly to HAJ though.

michaelr

I actually made a mistake and confused this booking with one I previously made. M&M did properly deduct 25,000 miles for the flight.

I did know about LOT but I need to go to HAJ. I should check if it is possible to fly to Berlin via LOT. That would be an option.

Lack

LOT doesn't fly to Berlin (yet? AB imploding might open up that). DUS/HAM/STR and the usual suspects FRA/MUC.