athome

There is no loss for the OP, as LH is paying for his incurring costs in MUC.
I stated this already earlier.

thbe

That's a funny perspective. Maybe less fun for the OP.

Fabo.sk

Airlines are not responsible for loss of enjoyment under ec261/2004, or sunk costs.
One sort-of exception is, that if you decide enroute that due to delays the purpose of the trip can no longer be fulfilled, you can request to be flown to point of origin and a refund. But, as OP here decided to continue to WRO and VNO, this is not the case (despite I originally thought so, believing he went back to LAX straight from MUC)

chapmanj9

Lufthansa didn't offer anything to us. I even asked in the lounge for the German Lufthansa number and the lady there said she didn't know and I should just google it. They provided no food or vouchers, no hotel accommodations, no taxi vouchers. It was 8pm at night and we went to the lounge to try and make calls about rebooking and booked our own hotel as most hotels were selling out. We got kicked out of the lounge at 10pm and then tried to get an uber unsuccessfully so we finally took the S bahn around mid night as far as it would go as the entire route wasn't functional so then we walked about 3/4 of a mile in the snow dragging our carry on luggage to get to the hotel. Lufthansa did nothing but say, it's weather related, no assistance at all. We incurred all the expense due to this delay. I submitted a request yesterday for reimbursement of our train tickets, 3 hotel nights, and taxi. If they don't cover all of that then I will go look at my credit card trip interruption insurance to see what they will cover.

SK AAR

Ok. Thanks for clarifying.

Provided that you left out any expenses related to Krakow and focused only on the expenses incurred in MUC, I would expect LH to reimburse these expenses without objection. It may take a while though because I would expect LH to be drowning in requests for reimbursement these days.

chapmanj9

SK AAR that is good to hear and I realize LH will be swamped with requests and it will probably take some time but I just want to eventually be reimbursed for the Munich expenses. In my request to LH I solely focused on the Munich expenses.

I have a ticket in with Hilton Honors customer care regarding the Krakow hotel points and for the Krakow to Wroclaw train tickets, we were able to cancel them and only lose 15% which amounted to around $2-$3 USD so I don't care about that. I appreciate all the comments and assistance as I have definitely learned a lot and will be much better prepared should something like this happen to us again as we've been lucky with international travel and never run into anything but a few hours delay. Happy Holidays everyone!

SK AAR

Do let us know how it turns out with the HH points for the Krakow hotel. Will be interesting to many of the readers in the thread.

jamesbrownontheroad

Just ressurrecting this thread to update the story.

Filed an EU261 with Air Dolomiti to claim for lodging, food and taxis for two adults during the >24hr delay we experienced 5-6 December 2023 as a result of the winter storm meltdown at FRA MUC.

Air Dolomiti never responded, so counted 2 months and then initiated a claim with SÖP in Germany on 7 February. Today, 7 March 2024, SÖP confirmed that Air Dolomiti will reimburse me the claimed sum of €290.71.

Herzlichen Dank an SÖP.

chapmanj9

Just wanted to circle back and let everyone know that Hilton did eventually give us back our 135,000 HH points for the stay in Krakow that we never were able to enjoy. Initially the hotel manager made a request to Hilton. He understood but also didn't want the hotel to have to incur any costs associated. That initial request was denied. My husband has been a member since 2004, travels for work alot and prefers Hilton brands so he made another request and eventually they agreed to give us back our points. Lufthansa never ended up getting back to us even after I submitted all our bank info to be reimbursed the 3 hotel nights, train tickets and taxi so eventually we got paid by our credit card company and hopefully they subrogated against Lufthansa.

athome

So you finally stayed several days for free, as you didn't have to pay for any hotel costs.
Do you regard this as rightful and fair?

Fabo.sk

From pax rights perspective, it is, with a caveat that LH should not have played dead. Good for OP that the credit card company stepped up.

From Hilton perspective, commercial decision on Hilton side. Surely legally there was no requirement to refund either first night or whole stay, depending on rate conditions, but refunding a comparatively small amount of points for a long standing customer of 20 years, presumably a status holder, I think it's good business.

chapmanj9

Yes athome we stayed in Munich for free but it wasn't a stress free vacation as they kept canceling our flights (4 days in a row) and we never got to visit our original destination. I am not happy about the utter lack of response from Lufthansa either, very poor customer service even 3 months after the event.