Thanks to your and other suggestions. I called Lufthansa and after providing my name, trip information, I was able to secure Lufthansa's PNR and select my seats.
A side note, Lufthansa's agent is an American and United's agent is Indian from OCC. There's something wrong with that.
Originally Posted by
ORDinary guy
You are right that when booking award seats on LH using UA miles, United (as the booking agent) creates a record locator and issues a 016 ticket, while Lufthansa (as the reservation holder) creates a separate locator. When referencing any travel by phone or online with LH, the United code will mean nothing to them.
Actually I tried exactly the above method (calling UA) just today without success. Despite being 1P/Gold, my call was routed to India and the agent, though friendly, was not able to provide me with Lufthansa's unique pnr#. Note that this information was formerly accessible (and quite conveniently) in the pre-merger version of United.com.
My workaround was to call Lufthansa -and provide them with my name, date, and flight numbers. They were then able to provide me with their unique record locator, and assign seats over the phone. I can now also check the details and refine seats on Lufthansa.com using their code.