Not Using Connecting Sectors
 

Guys,

In a couple of places of LH's booking system it mentions I would like to benefit from the best offers and will use my flights in the booked sequence and you have to tick the box. To me this suggests that LH are pretty hardcore about people buying tickets in a third territory and using it from the transit point.

Anyone got experience of getting away with this on LH?

Cheers

Unless you buy a full-fare Y/C/F class tickets (and even these fare bases, have restrictions, so better check with LH), LH will adamantly enforce using ticket in the sequence you bought. If you don't fly the last sector on your ticket, it is, in general OK, as long as you don't claim unused taxes/fees. Otherwise, skipping any of the sectors will void your ticket.

You may get some flexibility in case of irregularities such as heavily overbookings or very considerable delays, but the changes need to be authorized with level 2 authority (and not many LH employees have one or are willing to grant it).

Lufthansa recently (after some court orders) introduced the super flex fares, which allow to take the segments in any order. Even pricier then regular flex fares.

Buying tickets in a third territory and using it from the transit point will result in the relevant out- or inbound journey being either void or repriced. This is pretty obvious because the fares in different markets differ.

There were times when CAI First Class fares via FRA to the far east were about 1/3 of the price ex FRA. LHR First Class fares via FRA are still cheaper than First Class fares ex FRA. The same is true for other markets.

I used to do this a lot with BA and CX but in recent years airlines have wised up and won't even allow you to cancel the first segment and thus keep the remaining sectors. Basically, you now have to start from the point of origin.

I'm just wondering if LH strictly enforce it; and if the first flight is on a different carrier, say KA, and you cancel segment 1 by calling KA, will they leave the rest intact?

If you have the first segment on KA and continue on LH I would expect that you have to seperates fares anyway combined on one ticket and I am not sure how this will result in cheaper prices. However, if is is one fare you can be pretty sure that they will enforce the rules

One thing I've always wondered about (but would never actually risk doing) - what if you bought, say, LHR-FRA-JFK, then checked in online for the whole thing but showed up at the gate at FRA ready to board? Then after an error pops up on your BP, claim you were on the LHR flight, and that they must not have scanned the BP properly in LHR? Would they make a one-time exception and allow you on the FRA-JFK flight?

The "boarding pass mustn't have scanned properly" line is unlikely to work. The airline will need to know exactly how many people are on board, and who they are, before the plane departs. You'll often see flights delayed and problems with the paperwork when passengers that are checked-in don't board the plane. They would know without a doubt when you rock up at FRA that you didn't take your inbound flight. And I definitely wouldn't expect a one-time exception after they'd caught you out on a lie.

After many many people bought tickets from cheap destinations (ATH, CAI, TIP etc) and used various tricks to avoid flying the first segment LH has become very particular in enforcingthe so called 'sequence check': if they even remotely smell a rat the entire ticket is cancelled. Teh sad part about this is that not only did people misuse the system, but also sued the airline when they called the people out. Hence it became too much of a political issue and LH IT got working on the tool to catch such offenders.

Some insight: http://www.lhsystems.com/resource/do..._integrity.pdf The document mentions sequence check is coming, but LH already has this in use, and LH systems plans to sell it to other soon.

I think you know about the latest BGH result regarding this !
I only can say ( I fighted myselve against TG in the same case ) and 2 month ago, shortly after that BGH result came out, TG agreed to pay a huge amount, to stop my case which was with OLG FRA already. Them not transported us from DUS-FRA-BKK-VTE..... after we not used the TOB-BEN-FCO// open sectors. May be LH investigated in that, and forced them to pay, bevore another adjudgement is spoken against airlines. ;)

But the BGH juged, that the sequence rule... can used as a standard in T&C.
If a customer can bring an argument why him not could use the first segment, the airline still has to accept him on following segments !
Also cross ticketing is a fully legal instrument the customer can use to reduce the travel costs ! If the airline try to scotch this them will get more problems with at least European courts, which protect more the customer rights.

I believe you refer to the decision of the German Supreme Court (BGH) of29.04.2010, (Az. Xa ZR 5/09). It is important to know that this decision deals with a complaint of a consumer organisation. It does not deal with a complaint of an individual traveller but with the abstract legal question whether or not a certain clause in GTC is fair or unfair.

The court held indeed that a clause in General Terms and conditions stipulating that a ticket becomes void if not all flights are taken in sequence is void, because it is excessive. The airlines would have milder ways to secure their fare structure (which was fully acknowledged by the court). The court however held that the arilines are free to reprice the ticket if the first leg in not taken:

And the court held that the airlines might certainly penalize passengers who buy tickets from a fare heaven just for the sake of buying tickets in a cheap place and not taking your flight from there:

As a result LH offers fully flexible tickets and all other tickets have restrictions. This does certainly not allow - even if bertheike hold differently - a scenario like to OP described.

I have never heard for at least 20 years that airlines did anything against X-ticketing in Europe. This is a US problem and whether it is legal there or not is neither up to me nor up to the German Supreme Court to decide.

And they were fully right do so because (a) from all you posted here you tried to cheat the system, (b) a ticket originating in TOB has nothing to do with the German Supreme Court and (c) they would have been free to reprice your ticket and should have done so.

Not taking you on the flight was from a commercial point of view a dangerous decision, agreed. However, the German Supreme Court (if your ticket would have been under German law what it obviously was not) gave the Airline the discretion to reprice and this would have given you quite some pain :D

With all the due respect, I find this discussion "bizarre" to say the least.
I like to enojy mistake fares, fuel dumps, taxes reduction and so on, but this is very different. I like this, because this is within the rules.

This is something regarding the condition of carriage. These are rules you are requested to accept and subscribe, and when you tick the box and you buy the ticket, you have a contract with Lufthansa or any other airline.

We can discuss if such a measure / restriction is fair or not, tough or soft (exactly as if we discuss about the price of a F class ticket), but I'm fully against these kind of tricks if you buy a ticket which *clearly* (this has to be said: Lufthansa highlights explicitly this condition) does not allow you to tear coupons (but the last) or to use them in a different order.

Just my 0.02 $

p.s.
And I'm very happy if Lufthansa or any other airline is going to enforce it as much as they can. I strongly support them doing this.