Difficulty Booking Lufthansa Award Ticket Using OnePass Miles
 

Hello all. I am attempting to book the following using OnePass reward miles. Spoke to an agent who said it's not possible even though free seats are available on all segments:
10/23: JFK - FRA - HAJ
10/28: HAJ - MUC
11/2: MUC - JFK
The "problem" segment is HAJ-MUC. The agent claimed the flight was operated by a subsidiary but LH website says it's a regular LH-operated flight. When I politely pushed, supervisor came back with "LH flights #1900-2200 not eligible for award travel". Doesn't make sense why. I can only redeem Continental miles, so can't try booking through LH, NH, AC, UA, etc. Anyone have any good ideas? Thanks in advance

Which flight are you trying to redeem miles on? Between HAJ and MUC on 10/28, it looks like LH1017, LH1019, LH1021, LH1023, LH1027, LH1029 and LH1031 all have award availability in C and Y (LH1025 only has Y availability).

With CO, it takes at least three (3) agents to think there might be a problem. I would use five (5) CO agents before I'd agree this could not be done.

That said, that wouldn't mean it's not supposed to be able to be done, rather it can't be done with the call center. CO really has no "normal channels" way of escalating an issue. If their flight number mappings on eligible LH flights is incorrect, you'd probably have to contact CO Insider to take a look.

Thanks. I called back and got a very knowledgable rep. What happened is this: all of the flight numbers for the HAJ-MUC flights change in December to 20xx and 21xx (my mistake on my travel dates - meant December). So the agent is not able to book, because system says no free seats for LH flight numbers 1900-2600! Assuming there's a glitch in the system (i.e., flight numbers got updated before rules did). So guess until LH updates its system to lift the ban on these flights, I'm stuck? Continental said there was nothing they could do (e.g., call LH to fix, etc.)

No, it's a CO ban, trying to protect them from booking unauthorized flights.

CO needs to update their system to allow these flights if they're legit.

As I said in my earlier post, CO does not have an escalation path or mechanism through "the normal channels" to get this fixed. The call center reps and supervisors will apologize and blame someone else, but they really don't know what to do next. They're more interested in getting you off the phone.

CO Insider will be your best bet. Shoot him a PM. I think he's probably the only person within the entire CO organization that you can reach out to who can get the right ball rolling.

Hi sen11, as you found, we had an issue where Lufthansa updated their flight number ranges, but we didn't get the proper notification. As a result, our reward pricing for certain Lufthanse regional partners was impacted. We've since made the necessary corrections on our end, and you should have no problems pricing this reward itinerary. Issues like this happen on rare occasion, and when they do, the process of reporting, researching and correcting can take some time. We appreciate your patience.

This isn’t exactly related, but I have to say I love the CO and LH are both in *A. I just booked SIX award tickets FCO-FRA on the same flight which saved me a bundle and lets me avoid someone like Ryanair. :D

Thank you, CO Insider. Much appreciated.

Easy first class star alliance booking
 

I actually cant believe how easy it was today to book an award ticket over the phone with CO miles on Star Alliance carriers.

I am flying NYC-CDG in November and wanted business class on the CO nonstops but only availabiltiy was 250,000 miles seats. I asked about connecting flights on partners and the agent checked and could only get 3 out of 4 segments in business. Then I remembered that we can do first class awards now as well so I asked and within 2 minutes I had a routing EWR-IAD-CDG on UA in First and CDG-FRA-EWR on LH in First.

Normally I would not like the connections but I do get to spend 3 1/2 hours in FRA at the First Class terminal (I took an extra long connection) and I guess I will be driven to the plane in my very own Mercedes.

Sounds like fun. And all this for onyl 135,000 miles.