Originally Posted by
weero
Only regarding the aspect of deceptiveness: yes, definitely. They don't beat the good ol'AN but they are pretty amazingly bad for a company with such a reputation.
Yes that is definitely true. And if you fly alone, you learn to deal with the arrogant employees. I outright enjoy torturing lounge wardens, CI agents, and CSRs who are dishonest. From a mild "why don't you save the fairy tale telling for some customers who flies less", to some direct "I am no longer interested in your fabricated rules and your unfounded opinion, please get me a sup now" - I enjoy singing the whole gamut.
But a whole lot of it is simply personal experience - I was very unlucky with LH lost baggage, service upon misconnects, and reserving exit rows whereas UA always treated me less bad than the rest of the crowd.
I think you should differentiate a bit more:
If you are only flying once a year and then only in Y on an inexpensive fare, you definitely have to be an extremly devote masochist. LH should pay you and not the other way around - there are other carriers (all of them but UA?) that treat you better. My first ever segment longhaul on LH and in Y - before I had any status - actually resulted in an upset FA asking me why I was pressing the yellow button. It is my only life-time segement in long-haul Y on LH ever. There is a reason for that.
If you are flying more often with LH and you are flying mostly in premium cabins and hold one of these shiny cards in gold or black (SEN-/SEN+/HON-/HON+), LH actually does provide excellent service and most agents will go out of their way to find a suitable solution (and only sometimes you have to push the envelope a little bit). Some of them even bend the rules for you - but you should refrain from spreading this accross FT for known reasons. SEN service in Japan was the best I have ever experienced.
If you are flying mostly F and at least once a month and mostly on 747s, you have to be an extremly devote masochist as well - they let you sleep in the open space with 15 fellow pax and guarantee you an unpleasant seat mate and don't dare giving you a blanket to cover the seat so that you can soak the seat with your sweat as well and on top of that they only offer non-branded champagne if you feel like you need a drink or two to bear all of that... But I am going off topic already again, what a disgrace...
