YuropFlyer

I guess most of you are aware about the issues when you're holding a non-LH branded M&M card, such as LX, OS, LOT, SN versions, when you're resident in those countries.

Basically, when you do a proper online checkin, and don't have any interactions with any agents, you just choose "LH / Lufthansa" at the FFP and all is good.

But if you're at an airport - outside of central Europe, especially - good luck handing the agent your LX Senator card (or actually even a plain blue card.. just you won't notice that the program hasn't been registered properly there) and having him/her putting the status correctly in the system.

I've travelled through a wide area of Asian countries, and even at *A hubs, staff usually failed to enter "LH" properly as the FFP, because it has the Swiss brand / logo on it. And to some of those airports, Swiss even does fly..

And even if you're directly telling them "Use Lufthansa" / "Use LH, not Swiss" when handing the FFP card, they won't understand. And no, no language barrier there, simply the agents at non LH-group-airports don't understand the "logic" of LH Group having various branded cards all needing to be registered as "LH" or else it won't work.

It's "just" annoying and taking a few minutes to fix at every checkin, but this isn't what *G status should be about. And I tend to assume quite some miles will NEVER post because people don't realize it (when you don't hold at least Elite status and thus it won't show *G/*S on the boarding pass anyway) - thing is, they can perfectly enter "LX YOURNUMBER" as FFP, the system will accept it, simply not actually link it to your account.

So.. I was wondering if we, as FT, could somehow reach out to LH with a suggestion to fix it:

Two ideas I've come up with:

-Have M&M somehow "linking" it so that it doesn't matter if you're entering LH / LX / OS / LO / SN before the number - the status will show properly and miles post correctly. I suppose, considering we all know the - ummmm - "quality" of all things IT at LH, that this might be a rather tricky solution to implement.

-Quick and dirty idea: Simply having "LH" printed before the actual number on the cards, and Lufthansa name and logo shown next to Swiss / Austrian / LOT / Brussels name.

I guess they want to keep their "local" brands even if they're 100% German to appear local, but the current system is unpleasant (and I hope not intentionally set up this way so that many mileage postings never actually reach the accounts..) and in my opinion, it really needs a fix.

Comments? Similar experiences? Maybe a perfectly working solution? No, printing out "fake" Lufthansa cards with your actual number in BKK isn't one

andywaw

My experience exactly.

Years ago my Miles & More card had only LUFTHANSA logo. Actually, I signed up to LUFTHANSA Miles & More long before LOT joined Miles & More. However, once they did, they automatically assumed I became LOT Miles & More member. My M&M cards started to bear both logos of LOT and LUFTHANSA. Some time ago they removed LH logo from them.

Last year, when I was checking in with my FTV card with LOT logo for my TG AKL-BKK flight, the Thai Airways lady at Business counter struggled to enter my LOT FTV card for 10 minues or so, and guess what - the miles didn't add. Instead, for weeks they showed in my account as "added in another mileage programme".
The very next flight was on Austrian Airlines and the miles for that flight appeared in my account the morning after the flight.

Fabo.sk

FlyingBlue picks up without any issue, whether put in with AF or KL. So it's definitely possible to tie.
Worst I had was a message in our corporate booking tool that "Your KLM card might not give you seating privileges on Air France flights", but it of course did without issue.

iLied

Nic33

For those who are really annoyed: they can get a M&M German credit card. I have a true "LH" SEN card on that card.

On another note, I have noticed that all my boarding passes set forth "LH SEN*G". I am wondering whether this has always be the case and whether all LX status passengers get "LH".

vantage03

Nic33

Yes, it is reported here:

Lufthansa Mastercard for Dutch resident

YuropFlyer

While this appears to be a workaround of some sort, I don't think it's very practical, and it basically not only leaves the 95% of FT members that don't / can't / won't go this way, but the 99.99999% of non-FTers that don't fancy jumping through so many hops just to get a "correct" card in the rain.

In short, it seems everyone is massively annoyed by the behaviour.

Considering that a generic request to LH will probably be refrained as to contact "M&M" about it, and M&M will not care about it much, anyone has an idea if there is anything that could actually be done, short of giving up and having to educate the checkin agents each and every time (and wonder what happens to all those other passengers who don't..)

I - or the devil in me - was thinking of producing a laminated A5 card with clear instructions for checkin agents (they love those in general, as observed and got told in person) about the issue, and giving one of those to each agent that fails to properly enter LH as FFP for us LX / OS / LO / SN - based flyers. Maybe with a slight pun against LH on it. Might eventually cause LH to rethink the idea if the agents like those cards and use them even in sight of pax

airoli

It is my understanding that this is actually the case.

In Expedia, the drop down menu for FFPs has "SWISS Miles & More", "Lufthansa Miles & More" etc. as options. Somehow, in my profile my number is associated with Swiss, so on tickets booked via Expedia the PNR will say FQTVLXxxxxx . And I've always gotten my miles and status recognition (when I still had some, that is).

To be fair, I haven't actually earned any M&M miles in a few years now - not worth it anymore.

Nic33

Actually, I also always request and obtain missing miles from Alamo which has only LH as a choice for the M&M group. So I tend to conclude that the prefix (LX/LH etc) has no relevance. But it seems to be contradicted by OP's and vantage03's findings.

f4freeJunior

Never experienced any issues whatsoever. My SEN number is added by the TA or myself online and is always showing up properly on the bp.

f4freeJunior

@airoli.
Well it depends. I fly a lot on expensive tickets and in my specific case it is still a good program. To give you an example, this week on just this leg DUS-ZRH I got 2167 miles for an Eco class ticket. Where do I get more miles? Yes there is YQ on award tickets etc but I believe that for my flying pattern it is still the best programme out there.

Abouttimetoo

bawm

OP, not sure how what your typical booking channel is, but what about looking there for a solution? I definitely agree that this system is whacky, but I don't struggle with this very much as I ensure the number is correctly added at time of booking (directly in Amadeus using the LH prefix). Have you had any luck figuring out why it can't be attached at booking?

Cheers,
bawm