Originally Posted by
chris63
LH are very good a through checking bags on separate tickets IME & as you say they have an interline arrangement with Condor.
Your problem is if something goes wrong with your FCO- FRA flight, if you misconnect your in big trouble….
LH awards are cancellable up to departure for a 50 EUR fee, you need to understand AS rules in case you don’t make your Condor flight.
Seems a very risky booking to me, especially give the current state of operations at FRA
Thanks! You make many good points. Right now I'm contemplating either booking an earlier flight from FCO to give me more buffer on a delay, or just going to Frankfurt the night before and staying at one of the airport hotels. This isn't until February though, so I have a little bit of time, and another option may be that I can eventually find award space that puts me on a single ticket. But given how rare it is now to find business class award space between the US west coast and Europe (and low fee/in the westward direction!), I figured I'd take it and work the problem out at some point.
AS requires you to cancel prior to departure to get your miles back - there's currently no fee for this, as the US carriers have dropped most fees related to ticket changes (awards or revenue flights). That part is less of a problem than rearranging flights home for a family of 3 on short notice! Turns out we don't really like getting middle seats in the last row of coach on walkup fares.