Originally Posted by
wetrat0
Exactly. I'm sure it's to do with IT issues and alignment of fare classes, which isn't uniform in one direction. Example: I recently booked an economy class LH flight on the UA codeshare because it was cheaper than booking it on LH flight numbers. Somehow the fare booked into premium economy on LH (speaking to the fact that fare designations aren't perfectly aligned). Then I got an op up into J at the gate (no status on either airline).
There is a precise alignment between UA and LH fare classes. UA O,A,R -> LH G,E,N for PE fares. All economy and business class fares map directly (UA doesn’t use G, E, or N on its TATL flights at all).
Was this a particularly expensive ticket? It sounds like perhaps UA had an R seat available while LH didn’t have an N seat, and the filed R fare was less expensive than the cheapest available economy seat.