I wish I read this thread before...just got an email saying that I cannot check in. My route is PKX-WAW-JFK

Ok/good luck! Do keep us updated how this turns out.

For a PEK-WAW-JFK itinerary EU Reg. 261/04 will not be applicable according to ECJ judgment C-451/20, Airhelp Ltd v Austrian Airlines AG where the ECJ held that a OS itinerary Christinau-VIE-BKK was outside the scope of EU Reg.

What's the reason shown why you can't checkin? Screenshot please.

Are they still doing this?! Don't want to rush to judgement that it is the same situation as me, but it could be... If you did confirm that the reason is because of award booking, please let us know. As for me, no real updates but I am not giving up. I'll also post further updates.

Breach of contract is a bigger deal than EC261.

I think they still doing it. I had a ticket on Jun 22 PKX-WAW-JFK ticketing by Aeroplan. After that email I had to cancel that ticket.

Why didn't you push back on them?

What did the email say? Can you post an anonymized version here?

I strongly agree with moondog - not being able to check in 23 days ahead of schedule isn't a reason to give in to the airline.

You can secretly make alternative arrangements but don't let the thugs off the hook!

Thanks ny110010001 for starting this discussion. I was recently in the same situation with LOT Polish Airline, and this post has been very helpful to me. Want to share my experience here, in case it can be helpful to others.

Result first, the ticket was honored. However it took tremendous amount of effort, which I believe is pretty unfair for someone who holds a confirmed ticket and expect a hassle free flight.

Here is the story. I booked a reward business class ticket through Aeroplan for a family member, route PEK - WAW - JFK. Three weeks ahead of departure, I received an email from LOT Polish Airline Beijing Office, claiming the booking was invalid and the passenger would be denied boarding. I contact LOT Customer service to explain this situation and to confirm the status, and as expected they replied booking was confirmed. It does seem that the Main Office has no idea of Beijing Office's action.

Then I emailed Beijing Office for a reason, instead of giving an answer, they started to question how I get my ticket and where my reward mileage is from. So I explained (my own credit card points transfer, Aero plan reward booking, etc), and insisted on them to provide a reason. Guess what, no response. Luckily, the family member that I booked ticket for lives in Beijing, so she personally went to the airport polish airline counter and get a contact number. On the phone, they claimed the way of booking this ticket is "illegal", even though the main office confirms status if valid, they don't take the channel as legit, which makes absolutely no sense to me.

It did not seem going anywhere with the bilateral communication with LOT PA Main office and Beijing office separately. So I pulled together a long email in both languages( English and Chinese ), recap the whole situation and attached all the points transfer and reward booking confirmations, send to both main office and Beijing office to ask them to resolve the inconsistency internally, and let them know that I will file complaint and take legal action if boarding was denied with a confirmed booking. Later on followed up with Beijing office with a phone call, finally they agreed they will sort it out. Next day, no question asked for boarding. It was a pretty exhausting process.

Cindy666 , thanks for posting. It boggles the mind that the Beijing LO office would be going so rogue... Congrats on getting to a happy result!

I'm curious about one thing, do they target Chinese-sounding names? If you're booked using Aeroplan and your name is John Smith, are you good to fly?

I don't know why they just don't block non-M&M redemptions. I suppose to do that, they would need to know how... :D.

-Nationality shouldn't matter
-If you did scam your ticket, it's on them to prove it (i.e. demonstrate that the Chinese student is not your friend)

Thanks blue2002.

Obviously. I am wondering if the Chinese office is targeting Chinese.

They can target whoever they want, but without clear PROOF, their claims have no legal standing.

They can't target who they want in the EU. That's probably illegal, unless under Chinese law its possible? Is discrimination by race/nationality/creed/gender/sexual preference illegal there? I'm not an expert on that!

What I mean is they can claim that they think you bought miles, but there is a big gulf between thinking and proviing.

From what can be understood in the medias etc, apparently it is not. It is encouraged ! :eek:

Unlike some other Asian countries, I rarely observe overt racism here in China. I've never been to Poland yet so can't comment on that.

I‘m not aware of any country in East or Southeast Asia without strong racism. Racial profiling is as much common practice as social profiling.

Hi Cindy666. Forgive me for not seeing your post until now. I'm happy that you were able to have the tickets honored. If I recall correctly, LOT Polish resumed their PEK to WAW flight not long before I was scheduled to fly the route. Perhaps after many people pushed back since, they started to relax their stance a little bit. If the PEK local crew are still doing this, let this thread be a forewarning and data point for future travelers.

LOT Polish still have not responded to my complaint. While I continue to have great respect for the airline, they should understand that this is not going away without a proper response from them.

Luckily a high profile travel blog picked up the story and let's see where this goes. For those that has a vested interest from reading this thread, here's the link to the blog: https://onemileatatime.com/news/lot-...-fraud-fiasco/

FYI, my first name is not Chinese but I'm just one data point.

So firstly, not sure why someone said otherwise, there is racism in China. Obviously. Don't know what onr defined as "overt" but it is blatantly obvious to me. Black and white people get treated very differently.
China doesn't really have a legal system for consumers so I am not sure why posters who presumably know something about China or say they live there suggest that (or more to the point the legal system is for the government to impose its control over the people).
In China there is not much recourse when companies or people don't listen to you. Police don't care. But making a fuss and having it go viral definitely works (similar to the US, or presumably most places in the world).

There seems to be no consequences and only upside for the Beijing office unilaterally voiding tickets. So why would they do any differently?

Who knows the answer may say so please !

but OP has already brought in the cavalry with OMAAT
https://onemileatatime.com/news/lot-...-fraud-fiasco/

and a background as why scams and unsavoury practices are getting flagged as fraud
https://onemileatatime.com/insights/...-miles-points/

WRONG

It would be so easy just to close off this flight to non-M&M awards. It’s a simple fix and it would probably stop all of this IDB.

I'm very interested in this thread because I'm booked to fly JFK-WAW-PEK using Avianca miles in November.

It appears that the consensus is that this is a problem with ground staff at PEK, but I wanted to ensure there have been no reported instances of this problem in the opposite direction.

Are you saying the government in China protects poor people?

Yikes! Does this trigger a red flag? I thought this was a widely used points strategy. :O

No. I was merely pointing out that your claim was factually wrong.

I’d expect to be IDB if booked with AV miles. Seems they don’t like any non-M&M redemptions.

SO WHY OPEN THE SEATS?

I suppose now it’s on Ben’s credit card site, Krzysztof Moczulski will probably comment on it tomorrow.

You claimed that "China doesn't have a legal system for consumers". It seems that you are either unaware of PRC consumer protection law or have minimal (no?) experience invoking it. But, it IS a thing. That's why I called you out. I'm not interested in debating the pros and cons of this legislation here.

I came here to read after reading Ben’s article on his blog.

I only went thru the last 3 pages but I am surprised to see no one speculate that the LOT Beijing office staff might be the fraudsters themselves? Note that all the denied boardings were on partner airlines redemption, they do not dare to cancel a Miles and More booking because they could not make up excuses. What makes me feel that they might be the fraudsters themselves were their stance even though LOT HQ told them the tickets are valid. Just HOW they can still say the mileage redemption were from mileage brokers when their own company HQ told them these were not the cases?

This reminds me years ago, may be over 10 years ago that UA issued redemption tickets on Air China premium cabins were being canceled by UA China Office! Eventually UA stepped in and after investigations, the conclusion was the cancellations were to free up award spaces being sold as cheap premium tickets on the Chinese market. Similar frauds happened to BA Avios redemption on CX flights intra Asia that eventually caused CX to request BA to block redemption on close departure within 7 days.

Could it be possible the LOT Beijing Office staff from the top down, collude with the mileage ticket brokers to grab spaces that were booked with partner programs, knowing this could be much harder for the passengers to resolve the cancellation. Then the freed up spaces could be sold on the fraud market. There are no shortage of partly overt solicitation on cheap premium cabin tickets ex China. With the severe shortage of available flights and the skyrocketing demands, it is a real possibility that internal frauds exist, especially we are talking about China.

with trips ending in the US I would simply get the US DOT involved and have them sort it out.

I view your statement in the same vein as, speaking of the past few years, "Hong Kong has a rule of law".
I guess we have different opinions and will never agree.

To reiterate, your claim was that China doesn't have a legal system to protect consumers, and I suggested that this is EASILY DISPROVEN.

The efficacy of these laws is obviously subjective, but even in this respect, I'm not convinced that you've had sufficient experience lodging or fielding complaints to make an informed judgment. For whatever it's worth, 60% of my clients sell goods/services to Chinese consumers. As such, I've seen a lot of cases over the past decade. We can't simply ignore them and always try to avoid actually going to trial (even in China, this is typically expensive).

Hillarious comments there... my highlights

- Call Dr Böse! (who doesn't touch things starting outside the EU)
- Elliot! (who deals with US things only)
- *A! 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️
- small claims court in NYC! :D
- Aeroplan will sort it out!

They do have a point with the NYC/US courts, as that is where the leg ended (and maybe the whole ticket originated, if bought as r/t?).