janehoya

Husband: Star Gold (UA 1K), D Fare, purchased ticket in July.
Husband's colleague: no frequent flyer card, J Fare, purchased ticket in August.

Husband's colleague has never flown abroad so my husband wanted to treat him to First class using one of his UA SWU's. He had two with him. They went to the counter together and husband explained that they would like to use 2 SWU's. The agent told him that sadly only one seat was available. Husband asked for her to give the seat to his colleague. The agent typed away and said, "Mr. X. is already seated in First Class." Husband ended up in F along with his colleague. I can only guess that this was an Op-Up but I pretty amazed that out of 98 C seats, there were no status passengers to Op-Up. Does it seem plausible that there were no J fare *Alliance flyers booked in C today or is this a computer glitch?

Anyway, they are both thrilled to be seated up front together.

SMK77

Lufthansa changed its policy for operational upgrades some time back:

Business Class was overbooked and your husband's colleague got the free upgrade because of the higher booking class: Lufthansa starts with the most expensive booking class (here: J) and upgrades any pax in that booking class first before upgrading the next expensive booking class (here: C). Only within the booking class HON has priority over SEN over the the rest of the crowd.

janehoya

I am aware of their new policy and understand it, which is why I was questioning the absence of ANY HON/SEN/* GOLD on the J fare? There are 98 seats in C on the A380. Do you mean to tell me there were no status passengers booked on a J fare? Or are you saying that * Golds are considered in the same manner as non-status passengers for Op Ups within the same fare class (J in this instance)?

DFW-SEN

I would assume that only very few people actually book J class. Many Corporate fares book int D or Z.
S

formeraa

Have you considered that they upgraded all the passengers who paid fare class J? Suppose 6 passengers booked in J and they upgraded all of them.

janehoya

No, I didn't consider that but I was tracking F class on this flight and starting one week ago there were only 3 seats for sale (I'm not talking about the seat map but actual tickets for sale on LH.com) and 4 days ago that number dropped to 2, where it remained steady until even this morning.

todorovic

This. There are very few reasons why someone would buy J when C is available.

oliver2002

Note that if you are prepared to shell out the cash for (usually full fare) J LH gives you a complimentary upgrade to F, its a well established sales policy in North America. The same goes for Y. This policy is ancient, but the upgrade in such cases books into O and I well in advance. If the inventory is not available, the sales office will make sure you are listed when checkin opens. Post Lehmann when we stopped buying our coporate C/D/Z fares ex DTW, LH offered us this scheme to extract more revenue from Y tickets. I've been on F flights ex DTW where half of the cabin enjoyed the C->O bump at checkin even though the business cabin was not oversold.

janehoya

Thanks Oliver. So much for the computer glitch that I thought was the cause of the upgrade. Very interesting. Are you saying that the complimentary F upgrade for J fares is somethings that companies negotiate or does it also apply to individuals purchasing tickets?

I'll let my husband and his colleague know as they have both been wondering what happened.

oliver2002

Its also for individuals, I know ABG and SleepoverGreenland know it in more intricate detail.

janehoya

Thanks Oliver! They'll both be very pleased as they are both on J fares on the way home.

Actually, does this policy work ex-MUC or only ex-North America?

SuperFlyBoy

Way to blow off your elites to other carriers...

Forget loyalty altogether then!

oliver2002

Its not automatic, for depatures ex Germany your US sales rep needs to work his/her mojo.

htb

Correct. That's why LH isn't officially explaining their OP-up rules. This way it will take a bit longer before most loyals realize they are being kicked into their behind.

HTB.

ded0r

I was under the impression that they only removed everything below Q from the grading list (which I think is fine). But what you are describing means that a HON on a (btw. very expensive) C fare will be upgraded only after all non-status pax on a J fare?! This makes absolutely no business sense! But then LH management is a lost case these days.
Are they seriously believing that the one time LH J fare flyer will come back and buy J fares again?

As a German I can only hope that by the time they're gone they didn't screw up too much