Frequent Flyer Horror Story: Why I will NEVER set foot on a Lufthansa flight again
Mar 11, 2011 | 9:13 pm
#91
Join Date: Dec 2006
Programs: LH SEN, FB Plat., HH D.
Posts: 5,127
All of us can have a bad experience but at least for me, holding status in M&M has meant several op-ups in LH/LX/OS, while in many years as Plat/Gold in FB only once I have been upgraded, and I have never felt treated as a loyal customer.
Mar 12, 2011 | 12:23 am
#93
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: WRO
Programs: LH SEN, UA 1K, MR Platinum, BW Gold, HH Silver
Posts: 281
I would be very careful declaring "will never fly LH again".
How do you know you will be able to avoid LH in the future ?
Would your current and future employer(s) accept not flying LH because of your bad past flying experience ? (especially if price will be much more attractive at LH - sometimes happens)
What if your homeairport became dominated by LH ? (i.e. LH takeovers your homeairport main ariline or you move to place like MUC)
What if LH will be your only choice to get to important event in case of travel irregularities ?
... again... such statements are not serious. I would believe in statements "will try to avoid LH in the future" or so... but not "will enver fly LH again".
Take it easy. Most of the people that had declared not to fly certain airline boarded they planes afterwards.
How do you know you will be able to avoid LH in the future ?
Would your current and future employer(s) accept not flying LH because of your bad past flying experience ? (especially if price will be much more attractive at LH - sometimes happens)
What if your homeairport became dominated by LH ? (i.e. LH takeovers your homeairport main ariline or you move to place like MUC)
What if LH will be your only choice to get to important event in case of travel irregularities ?
... again... such statements are not serious. I would believe in statements "will try to avoid LH in the future" or so... but not "will enver fly LH again".
Take it easy. Most of the people that had declared not to fly certain airline boarded they planes afterwards.
Mar 12, 2011 | 12:40 am
#94
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: MUC
Programs: LH HON, IC RA
Posts: 167
You should think twice before you write! For what reason should even a HON spend around 2000 usd for a west coast - HNL flight in UA's domestic first?!? Even if the typical HON in your world is a millionaire (not just in miles...) and should afford it on personal trips. But as you wrote, you have no experience on UA E+ and I suggest you believe that the domestic first product is the greatest thing on earth. Well, in that case keep your opinion and have a great day! ^
Mar 12, 2011 | 12:49 am
#95
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: HKG, TXL
Programs: CX DM
Posts: 566
Add to that deceptive advertising (LH is really one of the worst) and their lying on YQ surcharge (same YQ when oil shot to 140 as when it dropped to 79). You want to raise prices - raise them, but dont lie and BS your clients. Advertise the full price and take it like a man. But who am I kidding here...
LH always advertises with the full price on their website, the only charge youll have to pay is the ticket service charge (15euros most of the time).
By calling them liars you are just lying to yourself.
Also, why didnt you just only pay 2/3 tickets and went for the bassinets?! I understand that 3 seats next to each other give you more privacy, but paying for a 1/2 yr old son
regards.
sounds more like a nightmare to me, say hi to freddy!
Mar 12, 2011 | 12:49 am
#96
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 2,866
Let's face it. There are cases where the airline is totally wrong. I have never been refused a carry-on. If they say anthing, I tell them it is designed to fit under the seat in fornt of me. My sister has been frequently forced to check in a bag, even though others are allowed on with much larger bags. She has a real small carry-on. I could see if all larger bags are not allowed, but this selective enforcement is ridiculosis.
Mar 12, 2011 | 1:38 am
#97
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: HKG, TXL
Programs: CX DM
Posts: 566
You should think twice before you write! For what reason should even a HON spend around 2000 usd for a west coast - HNL flight in UA's domestic first?!? Even if the typical HON in your world is a millionaire (not just in miles...) and should afford it on personal trips. But as you wrote, you have no experience on UA E+ and I suggest you believe that the domestic first product is the greatest thing on earth. Well, in that case keep your opinion and have a great day! ^
I have the choice not having to deal with narrowminded people like you, which I gladly take. Just because you claim to be a HON, you dont have to be condescending on other people (especially saying uuuh your just a FTL). Seriously cant be bothered with someone NOT contributing to the actual topic.
To your experience part: You never stated in your previous posts that it was a domestic flight. I was talking about UAs NEW intercontinental C product which IMO is better than LHs.
Anyways.. have a great day : )
ps: Please do take me to your FCT in MUC!!!!
Mar 12, 2011 | 1:45 am
#98
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: PRN
Programs: LH HON* || HH Diamond || Accor Gold
Posts: 1,573
I saw this thread and decided to post something i wanted to post for a while. I doubt it will change Lufthansa monopolistic practices, but at least there is a chance that people will not fly Lufthansa when they actually do have a choice.
Due to some circumstances, members of my family have to fly LH to Astana, KZ from NYC and back. LH is the only western company that flies to Astana (TSE). The actual flight is to Almaty (ALA) but they do stop at TSE (BUt for whatever reason, TSE price costs almost $500 more, actually the reason is simple KLM flyes to ALA, but only LH stops over at TSE so they are taking advantage of their monopoly). The reason i am adding this bit is that there were many previous incidents that made me hate LH, but this one really tipped me off.
What does LH pricing policy have to do with the service you have experienced on your trip from Germany to the US? It would be silly for an business enterprise not to take advantage of a monopolized situation, and quite many, if not all, companies around the world benefit from their status as monopoly as long as they can.
Either way, me wife and our 1.5 year old decided to go to Germany for Christmas Holidays. Even though our son was eligible for a 10% fair, we actually did buy him a seat. During reservation, i chose 3 seats in a row, to ensure that our son would be between me and wife.
While I do sympathize you with the whole situation, seats assignments, as you know, are not guaranteed. You could have checked in online, do late-night check in, arrive at the airport earlier, etc.
I got printed confirmations with seat assignments, etc. Our trip to FRA was decent, everything went as expected. Now when we were going back to NY, this is when the fun started.
We came to the airport 3 hours earlier, and the very first interesting thing that happened is that during check in we were not assigned seats. The agent told us we would get seats at the gate. I figured "strange, i have reserved seats assignements. I specifically called LH and said it was important because we are travelling with a small child". Either way, i decided not to argue and proceeded to the gate.
Again, since you claim to be an experienced traveller, this very element of not having seats assigned at check-in should have alerted you and you should have brought it already at check-in and, if necessary, ask for a supervisor so that they can sort it out. Arriving 3 hours before the departure and bringing up this issue immediately after checking-in (rather than waiting a few minutes before the boarding starts) would have left you and people handling the case with many more options.
After waiting in line for almost 30 minutes and getting to the agents at the gate, after about 15 minutes of "silent computer typing" the agent tells me that our seats are no longer together. Instead we have only 2 consecutive seats and the third seat is across the aisle. I started explaining that i need 3 seats next to each other because i have a small child. Not only that, but i actually bought him ($790) seat specifically for that!. The lady says that she will give wife and baby 2 seats while my seat will be across the aisle and i can trade my seat with the lady that is supposedly has the third seat next to the 2 where my wife and son will be. She says tehre is nothing she can do. After i show her my confirmed seat assignemetn in my reservations she does a simple "sorry, not our fault. Our computer must have dropped it". Yeah, not thier fault. its their computer's fault.
Either way, i walk away to my family and then i notice - my seat is actually not directly across the aisle. It is one of the 2 middle seats!!! I think to myself, now, who in their right mind would trade an aisle seat to a middle seat for a 7.5 hour flight?
I go back to the counter and go for another round of argument with LH reps. I call the manager. I tell them that they clearly screwed up, they oversold and how do you know that? The change of seats assignments can happen due to several reasons., and their computer issue is not my problem. I tell them upgrade the lady who is in the seat to BusinessAnd who are you to tell the company how to run their business? How about LH telling you to use your credit card and upgrade yourself to first? (BUsiness was almost empty, but LH insists they will not upgrade anyone to Business who did not pay for it Unlike many US-based airlines, LH does not devalue its hard product by giving away free upgrades; that's one of the reasons why LH is actually making money.). LH was extremely rude and completely unwilling to help. Finally I go ballistic and i say If you guys dont resolve this and you dont find 3 seats that are next to each other i will raise hell, i will get to LH CEO, I will go far far and away to kick their behind (I also showed them that i work for a very major corporation and that bad press they will get will be immense).Your employment status has no relevance for LH unless you are a customer who brings in significant number of premium paying travellers. After paying 2000 USD for this trip, you can hardly qualify as a money-maker for LH. LH transported you to your destination on time (I assume) and in one piece. If you had wanted more things, you were more than welcome to pay for them They shrug me off, behave like nothing is happening. A minule later the manager tells me to wait near the counter during boarding, she will try to do something. The way she tells me is totally rudeIf her tone had been rude, then yes, she could have said it more politely; yet she did try to solve you case, despite the fact of, most probably, having to deal with many other issues, too.
At the end, right at boarding she is able to switch the seats around (i think they upgraded the lady to business after allOr maybe the lady did not show up, or maybe there was not any lady at first place, or maybe there was another reason.... Many maybes...). I got what i wanted but it cost me a lot of wasted nerves and my mood spoiled for 2 days.Oh wow, so since, as you claim, work for such a high-profile company, I don't understand how you can handle your job (I assume it does bring you stress) if you get upset for 2 days after such an incident. Is your high-profile company not facing any issues that transcend the level of annoyance of not sitting together for 7 hours?
And it gets better!!!
When we boarded, an attendant comes over and says "would we like to switch our seats to the seats with bassinets, where the baby can sleep" I say "All 3 seats?" she says "No, only 2". I reply "No thank you, we prefer these because our kid will not sleep anyways, and it will be much better to him to have some freedom to move between our 3 seats".
She walks away. After the plane takes off, 2 attendants come over and in a very rude tone tell us "We have a problem. We have a passenger who was denied boarding because you refused to seats and now the baby is taking an empty seat" Utter nonsense. In case the flight is overbooked, LH will NEVER leave an empty seat on an airplane and deny boarding. And most probably, crew would not know whether someone was denied boarding or not or whether it was because of your child's seat that a passenger was not let to board.Imagine how ballistic I went after that!!! I said "We bought this seat! Do you guys even bother to check your things?" The lady apologizes. They leave. In 1 min they come back and demand us to show them the ticket for the kid. We do. The apologize "Sorry" and leave.
Moral of the story - Lufthansa sucks, it abuses its own monopolistic practices abused? in which way? I assume you were flying FRA-NYC. It's hardly a monopolized route for LHand thinks they can get away with anything. They also lie in advertising, advertising $259 for a ticket that is $1299 after all the feesDo they? Under the price, it states "one-way price based on a roundtrip purchase, excl. taxes and fees". While I wish they would advertise the full price, they do mention that what they show is NOT a full price. They also lie and decieveYou can lie and deceive, I can do, too. BA can, US government can, German chancellor can. Your point?. I wish TSE had other options as we all have to go in May.You have: via VIE, IST, SVO, KBP, ALA, DME, AUH.
I flew Delta/Air France for many years, and while they had their share of problems, they were never this rude and unhelpful. Lufthansa you suck, and your executives suck double!!!And the reference about executives comes from?
Due to some circumstances, members of my family have to fly LH to Astana, KZ from NYC and back. LH is the only western company that flies to Astana (TSE). The actual flight is to Almaty (ALA) but they do stop at TSE (BUt for whatever reason, TSE price costs almost $500 more, actually the reason is simple KLM flyes to ALA, but only LH stops over at TSE so they are taking advantage of their monopoly). The reason i am adding this bit is that there were many previous incidents that made me hate LH, but this one really tipped me off.
What does LH pricing policy have to do with the service you have experienced on your trip from Germany to the US? It would be silly for an business enterprise not to take advantage of a monopolized situation, and quite many, if not all, companies around the world benefit from their status as monopoly as long as they can.
Either way, me wife and our 1.5 year old decided to go to Germany for Christmas Holidays. Even though our son was eligible for a 10% fair, we actually did buy him a seat. During reservation, i chose 3 seats in a row, to ensure that our son would be between me and wife.
While I do sympathize you with the whole situation, seats assignments, as you know, are not guaranteed. You could have checked in online, do late-night check in, arrive at the airport earlier, etc.
I got printed confirmations with seat assignments, etc. Our trip to FRA was decent, everything went as expected. Now when we were going back to NY, this is when the fun started.
We came to the airport 3 hours earlier, and the very first interesting thing that happened is that during check in we were not assigned seats. The agent told us we would get seats at the gate. I figured "strange, i have reserved seats assignements. I specifically called LH and said it was important because we are travelling with a small child". Either way, i decided not to argue and proceeded to the gate.
Again, since you claim to be an experienced traveller, this very element of not having seats assigned at check-in should have alerted you and you should have brought it already at check-in and, if necessary, ask for a supervisor so that they can sort it out. Arriving 3 hours before the departure and bringing up this issue immediately after checking-in (rather than waiting a few minutes before the boarding starts) would have left you and people handling the case with many more options.
After waiting in line for almost 30 minutes and getting to the agents at the gate, after about 15 minutes of "silent computer typing" the agent tells me that our seats are no longer together. Instead we have only 2 consecutive seats and the third seat is across the aisle. I started explaining that i need 3 seats next to each other because i have a small child. Not only that, but i actually bought him ($790) seat specifically for that!. The lady says that she will give wife and baby 2 seats while my seat will be across the aisle and i can trade my seat with the lady that is supposedly has the third seat next to the 2 where my wife and son will be. She says tehre is nothing she can do. After i show her my confirmed seat assignemetn in my reservations she does a simple "sorry, not our fault. Our computer must have dropped it". Yeah, not thier fault. its their computer's fault.
Either way, i walk away to my family and then i notice - my seat is actually not directly across the aisle. It is one of the 2 middle seats!!! I think to myself, now, who in their right mind would trade an aisle seat to a middle seat for a 7.5 hour flight?
I go back to the counter and go for another round of argument with LH reps. I call the manager. I tell them that they clearly screwed up, they oversold and how do you know that? The change of seats assignments can happen due to several reasons., and their computer issue is not my problem. I tell them upgrade the lady who is in the seat to BusinessAnd who are you to tell the company how to run their business? How about LH telling you to use your credit card and upgrade yourself to first? (BUsiness was almost empty, but LH insists they will not upgrade anyone to Business who did not pay for it Unlike many US-based airlines, LH does not devalue its hard product by giving away free upgrades; that's one of the reasons why LH is actually making money.). LH was extremely rude and completely unwilling to help. Finally I go ballistic and i say If you guys dont resolve this and you dont find 3 seats that are next to each other i will raise hell, i will get to LH CEO, I will go far far and away to kick their behind (I also showed them that i work for a very major corporation and that bad press they will get will be immense).Your employment status has no relevance for LH unless you are a customer who brings in significant number of premium paying travellers. After paying 2000 USD for this trip, you can hardly qualify as a money-maker for LH. LH transported you to your destination on time (I assume) and in one piece. If you had wanted more things, you were more than welcome to pay for them They shrug me off, behave like nothing is happening. A minule later the manager tells me to wait near the counter during boarding, she will try to do something. The way she tells me is totally rudeIf her tone had been rude, then yes, she could have said it more politely; yet she did try to solve you case, despite the fact of, most probably, having to deal with many other issues, too.
At the end, right at boarding she is able to switch the seats around (i think they upgraded the lady to business after allOr maybe the lady did not show up, or maybe there was not any lady at first place, or maybe there was another reason.... Many maybes...). I got what i wanted but it cost me a lot of wasted nerves and my mood spoiled for 2 days.Oh wow, so since, as you claim, work for such a high-profile company, I don't understand how you can handle your job (I assume it does bring you stress) if you get upset for 2 days after such an incident. Is your high-profile company not facing any issues that transcend the level of annoyance of not sitting together for 7 hours?
And it gets better!!!
When we boarded, an attendant comes over and says "would we like to switch our seats to the seats with bassinets, where the baby can sleep" I say "All 3 seats?" she says "No, only 2". I reply "No thank you, we prefer these because our kid will not sleep anyways, and it will be much better to him to have some freedom to move between our 3 seats".
She walks away. After the plane takes off, 2 attendants come over and in a very rude tone tell us "We have a problem. We have a passenger who was denied boarding because you refused to seats and now the baby is taking an empty seat" Utter nonsense. In case the flight is overbooked, LH will NEVER leave an empty seat on an airplane and deny boarding. And most probably, crew would not know whether someone was denied boarding or not or whether it was because of your child's seat that a passenger was not let to board.Imagine how ballistic I went after that!!! I said "We bought this seat! Do you guys even bother to check your things?" The lady apologizes. They leave. In 1 min they come back and demand us to show them the ticket for the kid. We do. The apologize "Sorry" and leave.
Moral of the story - Lufthansa sucks, it abuses its own monopolistic practices abused? in which way? I assume you were flying FRA-NYC. It's hardly a monopolized route for LHand thinks they can get away with anything. They also lie in advertising, advertising $259 for a ticket that is $1299 after all the feesDo they? Under the price, it states "one-way price based on a roundtrip purchase, excl. taxes and fees". While I wish they would advertise the full price, they do mention that what they show is NOT a full price. They also lie and decieveYou can lie and deceive, I can do, too. BA can, US government can, German chancellor can. Your point?. I wish TSE had other options as we all have to go in May.You have: via VIE, IST, SVO, KBP, ALA, DME, AUH.
I flew Delta/Air France for many years, and while they had their share of problems, they were never this rude and unhelpful. Lufthansa you suck, and your executives suck double!!!And the reference about executives comes from?
Mar 12, 2011 | 1:59 am
#99
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 4,862
What happened is they oversold. I understand that this is a standard practice among airlines, but when you screw up (you oversell, and your computer magically loses a confirmation and you are called on it by your clients) you admit your error, apologize, and pay up (by upgrading a passenger to business, or what have you).
Add to that deceptive advertising (LH is really one of the worst) and their lying on YQ surcharge (same YQ when oil shot to 140 as when it dropped to 79). You want to raise prices - raise them, but dont lie and BS your clients. Advertise the full price and take it like a man. But who am I kidding here...
Mar 12, 2011 | 2:27 am
#101
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: MUC
Programs: LH HON, IC RA
Posts: 167
Goodness, take a look on your profile! It says LH FTL, mr silver card! @:-) But give me favor, don't bother me with your statements. I dont care about which topic you are talking. I never talked about UA intercontinental C, read my quote! And if you would really have any flight experiences, you would know the differences about LH and UA behaviors and how they treat status clients. Believe it or not, I got manners and therefore I won't write what I really think about people like you! Enjoy your weekend!
Mar 12, 2011 | 4:19 am
#103
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: HKG, TXL
Programs: CX DM
Posts: 566
Goodness, take a look on your profile! It says LH FTL, mr silver card! @:-) But give me favor, don't bother me with your statements. I dont care about which topic you are talking. I never talked about UA intercontinental C, read my quote! And if you would really have any flight experiences, you would know the differences about LH and UA behaviors and how they treat status clients. Believe it or not, I got manners and therefore I won't write what I really think about people like you! Enjoy your weekend!
Already your statement "people like you!" is a disgrace and you should be ashamed of yourself. Luckily I seem to have a better education - also when it comes to English grammar - than you and when I stop by my apartment in MUC I hope that I will never cross your way.
People like you have a big mouth on the internet and love to insult & provoke others. Truly entertaining!
best regards.
Mar 12, 2011 | 6:46 am
#104
Join Date: May 2005
Location: BRU
Programs: A3/Gold, BA/Gold + other less precious metals
Posts: 2,644
Mar 12, 2011 | 7:37 am
#105
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 15
olm, you have to learn to read (Especially regarding TSE options, and specifically where i mention western. (Also you mention SVO, you clearly never travelled through SVO because if you did you would know that NYC-SVO-TSE would require transfer from SVO2 to SVO1, which is a nightmare in Moscow (even for a native Russian who I am). Either way the point is do your reasearch first.
I find it extremely funny that you go out of your way defending your coropration, which clearly screwed up. They are the ones oversold. When you oversell AND you screw up, you bite the bullet and compensate your customers who got screwed up by you overselling. If you (LH) pretend nothing happened (which is ironic since this is the tone of your post as well), you are no better that some banana airline from the third world where such things are norm.
Finally on LH advertising the full price. Major LOL.
Go to their US website. Now. They are advertising NY-Linz for $370.
I just did a quick search for the dates of their ad. Full ticket price - 1070. I rest my case. This is pure deception in advertising! This is also why i wont even bother replying to the rest of your "It didnt happen" post.
I find it extremely funny that you go out of your way defending your coropration, which clearly screwed up. They are the ones oversold. When you oversell AND you screw up, you bite the bullet and compensate your customers who got screwed up by you overselling. If you (LH) pretend nothing happened (which is ironic since this is the tone of your post as well), you are no better that some banana airline from the third world where such things are norm.
Finally on LH advertising the full price. Major LOL.
Go to their US website. Now. They are advertising NY-Linz for $370.
I just did a quick search for the dates of their ad. Full ticket price - 1070. I rest my case. This is pure deception in advertising! This is also why i wont even bother replying to the rest of your "It didnt happen" post.
Last edited by nycdude88; Mar 12, 2011 at 7:44 am