f0zzyNUE

hi there,

as far as i understand for SEN companion awards the SEN and the companion have to travel together on all flight segments ...
one question arises: are companion awards for 50% of necessary miles also possible if the sen travels on a paid ticket or do both sen and companion have to travel with award tickets ??

tia
CHris

Dennis

both need an award ticket!

chapinpirulin

Both have to have an award ticket, travel all segments together and be on an LH operated flight all the time.

Flying Lawyer

To my understanding this is only half correct: The companion has to fly all segments with the Senator but not v/v. Since my wife lives in Berlin and I in Duesseldorf I regulary book on all i/c award tickets:

DUS - TXL - FRA - Intercontinental - FRA - TXL - DUS

for myself and

TXL - FRA - Intercontinental - FRA - TXL

for her. This works perfectly with companion awards

FlorianGrassl

Thats fully true, as the name already says, "companion award"!
The person that is flying with the SEN must be accompanied by the SEN on all segments, but not the SEN has to accompanied by the companion on all segments.
So it is possible that the SEN has more segments than the companion.

San Gottardo

Actually, I am not even sure how they check on it... I've had several occasions where I booked a companion award for my wife, but then I had to change my reservation whereas she took the flight we originally booked. Never any problems. Just luck? Or don't they check at check-in (what a sentence, but you know what I mean)?

htb

The conditions for the companion award read

"For any Companion award the Senator and the Companion should always travel together."

I always wondered what it meant...

Probably they only check at the time of booking, or they accept that travel plans are bound to change as long as it's the exception.

HTB.

FS_FRA

I wanted to bring this topic up again, as I am looking at booking a companion award for my fiancee next year. The only problem is that I might not be able to fly with her on the outward leg, but definitely on with her on the inbound leg. Looking at what creber posted above, it seems that this is possible? So the questions are:

- has anyone done this before succesfully where it was obviously not a fluke?

- the wording in the comapnion award T&C says should - is this also the case in the German T&C (which I havn't been able to find), obviously as sollte or something similar, as I presume the reservations people will go by the German T&C

- could I book a comapnion award for us and then change my outbound leg later?


Many thanks,

Floris

flysurfer

You can change any award for EUR 40, but in your specific case, the companion award would then change into 2 normal awards, so LH would have to pull the additonal miles.

Of course, there's a chance M&M/LH might not realize the sinister plot behind your change and simply forget pulling the miles - I have no clue about the sophistication of their award booking system ot their CSAs in this regard. My guess is that they'll see it, as companion awards are certainly booked under ONE itinerary with ONE single Amadeus booking code. So your booking needs to be split up into TWO seperate itineraries and Amadeus codes.

The one thing that's clear is that you are deliberately trying to fool them. Which, should they catch you, I'm sure you will vividly deny.

FS_FRA

Flysurfer,
thanks for your prompt and as usual informative reply.... I wouldn't go so far as to say I am deliberatly fooling them, just testing the water as to how stretcheable the term "should travel together" in the T&C is... in my understanding the term "should" is very different to "must"....
But, as this is a very important trip for me and my fiancee (...) I won't be doing anything to jeopardise it....


Cheers,
Floris

flysurfer

The only jeopardy for you would be the fact that you don't have enough miles on your account to support 2 seperate award bookings. Other than that, you are totally safe, as it is LH's responsibility to pull the correct amount of miles for a specific type of award.

Btw, who cares about faulty English translation. The German version, and this is the one that counts, is totally clear: "Bei einem Companion Ticket müssen der Senator und die begleitende Person (Companion) stets die Reise gemeinsam absolvieren." Mind the "must" and the "stets", a the latter refers to the requirement that ALL LEGS of the journey must be completed together.

htb

Why should only the German version count? I've never seen the German terms and conditions -- LH never sent them to me.

HTB.

flysurfer

Well, then feel happy to sue them if they don't comply with your version of the T&C. *shrug*

AJLondon

I would second flysurfer's advice here. It is spot on in all his/her above posts. ^

ulev

A companion award is treated as a second award from the beginning, at 50% of the primary award. it is not one award for 2 at 150%!

There is no problem at all, to have a second PNR with a separate file key for the companion award. It is either by request or automatically if your primary award contains additional segments without the companion. In this case the 2 PNRs are only linked by a note in the remarks section of the PNR.

If you only rebook one of the two later on, it is very unlikely, that additional miles will be deducted from your account. Of course, there are no guarantees.