Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: CGN (Cologne, Germany), travel agent, hardcore Sabre user
Programs: AA Lifetime Gold, BA, DL, LH, HH Diamond, Bonvoy Platinum, AX Centurion
Posts: 445
In Germany, the crucial number is 10. LH does not care whether you consider your party a group. 9 or less passengers never constitute a group, 10 or more always do.
Beware that there are both advantages and disadvantages to group bookings:
Con - A group does not necessarily get a better fare than an individual. The deeply discounted fares e.g. in W class usually are not made available to groups, at least they don't get discounted even more. So, to make up an example, if you have 12 people flying from FRA to LHR, LH might offer you all seats at the Q-class fare level although W-class is even cheaper. What to do? Split your group into two or more parties smaller than 10 and book them with different travel agents or online with different user names.
Pro - When booking a group you can do so without providing names for a long time. And even after sending in a name list, before ticketing (which can happen pretty close before departure) name changes are usually free of charge and changes in the size of your group do not incur any cancellation fees. This gives you a much easier time when people change their minds or become ill and that's why a slightly higher group fare can be rectified. With individual bookings in the cheapest inventory, the tickets have to be issued immediately and after that it's "no change, no nothing".