Buying a ticket from Condor with Alaska Air and other airline segments can make it difficult to access your reservation due to deficiencies in both of the airline websites. You may want to have access to the Alaska PNR directly for seat assignments, meal purchases, mileage benefits, etc.

Here’s my guide for dealing with these itineraries without being forced to talk to a person.

1. Buy a mixed ticket from Condor. Wait for the confirmation e-mail to signify that ticketing is complete. The confirmation e-mail won’t include useful information like a non-Condor PNR or ticket number. (Why?!)
   
2. Go to the Condor website, My Booking tab, and open your booking with the Condor booking number.
   
3. At the top of the itinerary, note the “check-in reference number.” If you are lucky, this will be your Alaska PNR, but most likely it is for Lufthansa or another airline (Why?!) and it will not work on Alaska’s website. (Why?!)
   
4. Go to the Lufthansa app (not the website… why?!). Add the booking with the reference number from the last step. Open the booking and tap “Travel details.”
   
5. Scroll down to the passenger information and you will see a 13-digit “Ticket number” probably starting with 881. (The “Booking reference” shown is unfortunately still not the actual operating airline PNR… Why?!)
   
6. Go to the Alaska Airlines main website (not mobile website). Select the Check-In tab (not “Manage” — why?!). Enter the departure city for your first AS flight, select “Look up by E-Ticket number,” and enter the ticket number from the last step, and click “Continue to check in.”
   
7. The website will tell you that it’s too early to check in, but then it finally gives you the Alaska confirmation code. Mission complete.
   
8. Optional: Now you can call or text Alaska Airlines to manually force your mileage plan number into the reservation since their website still can’t handle the name gender prefixes that Condor requires. (Why?!)

Here are the deficiencies, bugs, and pain points that this obtuse process demonstrates:

• Condor: Their website and payment confirmation do not properly tell you the PNRs of all the involved airlines, nor do they even give you a ticket number to start with.
  
• Alaska: For so many years, their website stubbornly refuses to even attempt to look up their records by non-AS PNR codes. Other airlines don’t have a problem with this (e.g. United). Even worse, it refuses to let you search by non-AS (non-027) ticket numbers — except it can do it just fine when you’re trying to check in! And, come on, why do I need to have an agent manually add my mileage plan number because my reservation has a “Mr.” AlaskaMatt? This is 2024.
  
• Lufthansa: Their website also won’t show you other airline PNRs or your ticket numbers. The app shows your ticket number but also doesn’t correctly reflect the other airline PNR for other airline flights in your booking.

I hope this saves people time and stress, and I especially hope it encourages IT improvements that have been needed for decades.