Originally Posted by
trickless
I just booked four LH Z fares to FRA-CDG. I went through LH but am in the refundable period. These are flights after March 1, and since the fares are nearly $7k each, I'm thinking I'd be better booking through UA for mileage earn. I've got no status but 5x is still 35k miles. With LH I don't know what I'm going to get, but 150% of actual miles still doesn't compare.
My situation was that I didn't want to book on UA for two reasons - they wouldn't allow seat selections (Z, so not economy), and they couldn't give me the business class on my FCO-FRA later in my itinerary, where LH could.
Thoughts on whether I should refund and rebook on UA?
I'd stick with LH. Simply put, unless you are sure you'll get United tickets, you'll earn redeemable miles based on the miles flown, rather than dollars spent. You won't see the 35k miles, you'll see 150% of miles flown. Even if you purchase from UA, the flight is
operated by LH. Thus, as you can see at
http://mileageplusupdates.com/Tickets for flights operated by a Star Alliance™ or MileagePlus partner airline that aren’t issued by United (ticket numbers that don’t start with “016”) will still earn award miles based on distance flown and the purchased fare class.
So, unless you are sure your ticket numbers starting with "016", stick with LH. I'm curious to see how this works for you if you do go with UA. Let us know!