Thomas_B

I just wanted to check-in JFK-MUC for later today and I was asked for my preferred seat. I was kinda surprised as I had a reservation for 30A in the booking and I never got any notification that it was changed. So the lady from the FTL hotline (don't have a non-0180 SEN number) looked into my booking and said that the seat reservation was removed about 2 months ago but she was not able to say why. Now it looks like I won't get 30A even though I reserved it 3 months ago. Did anybody have any similar experience and was there an offer for an upgrade or miles when complaining? A normal Y-Seat is definetly a lot worse than a emergency exit seat imho.

Rambuster

A couple of years ago I had a confirmed seat in 1C on an A300 (LHR-FRA). At checkin I was suddenly given a BP with 1E (middle seat !!).

In the gate area I spotted Boris Becker and mumbled to my assistant that he's probably got my seat....turned out he did....

To make things worse his mobile phone wasn't switched off and started ringing during the approach to FRA. The purser immediately yelled through the cabin: "Who's mobile is that?" until she realised it was Beckers phone. She then changed her tone within a millisecond and said "oohh, Herr Becker, could you please turn off your phone".

Turned out in the end to be a good story at the annual LH (pre-HON) summer dinner at the German embassy with Weber and his (then) deputy Mayrhuber.

Anyway, so much for seat reservations to get back to the topic...

htb

Happened to me -- I had 32J reserved and the boarding pass for 32J was already printed out at the check-in counter. The lady then produced another boarding pass with xxE (middle/middle) and destroyed the one for 32J. I was rather late with checking in and obviously they had given the seat away... Upon mentioning that she had just torn up my exit row seat, she was startled. I had to pay some change fee anyway, so I asked her if she couldn't find me a better seat while I pay the fee -- which she did: upgrade to business. It was a middle seat, but once the doors closed I asked to move to an empty row at the window, which was no problem!

The situation here of course was a bit different -- this time obviously the check-in staff had messed up.

HTB.

Thomas_B

Ok, I'm writing this from 30A on LH411.

The Check-In staff was not really helpful at all and when I asked if she could look up the reason why I didn't get the seat I had in my reservation she said that it was never in the system and accused me of faking my reservation email. After asking if there's a way to get another exit row seat she said there's none and that I should check-in earlier next time. Pointing out that I tried phone check-in for the emergency exit seat she just said that I should come to the airport like everybody else. When pointing out that being a SEN should get the benefits that are advertised she said that all customers in coach are the same to her. Needless to say that I took my BP (25A) and walked away kinda surprised. I went to another agent and asked for a supervisor and got an entire row on my own and then managed to switch the row against 30A and 30C at the gate. So it's all good afterall.

Tyrolean

Was this in JFK? The staff there I found very rude. They refused the times I have been there to give me my SEN-Benefits (like enetering the staus in the booking: This makes no difference, we treet every customer the same..., why do you que up in the First-class lane when traveling on an upgraded economy ticket?)

weero

Finally someone who once meets the LH CSRs I always meet.
Ok, I am bit less well behaved than you, calling them liars/cheap skates/incompetent
at a very early stage .
No bad deed go unpunished...

flyinghlxman

A year ago, I could also lose my reserved seat.
When I arrived at FRA, the check-in staff told me she could not honor my pre-assigned seat in C class. I yelled at her, made the scene and finally got the seat I wanted. Sometimes, you have to be tough

monkeybaby

Seat reservations work about 30% of the time for me on lh. Otherwise they get either mysteriously lost out of the system or changed from em. exit to the two middle seats in the middle of the bird's guts (The CIAs are always amazed why I booked these seats).
No offers for compensation since lh will use every trick in the book to put the blame on you/your TA/the hotline agent/Santa Claus and after the booking's once erased from the system it's a bit hard for you to prove you did everything right. Flashing the SEN card helps sometimes; sometimes it makes the matters worse (there's Y-sen-friendly and Y-sen-hostile agents out there)

but I live in weeroworld I suppose.

weero

Yes. For some of us there is no mercy on behalf of LH.
Swearing helps on a mental balance side though.
I generally resort to call LH as a whole or at least its IT names, very bad names.
Only when an agent dares the wrong step on pinning the blame to me they the
the 'inverse speech'.
Another good insult is to doubt their authority to issue as simple things as a BP.
I had that in FDH earlier in the year when an agent claimed that I was "on a
cheap award tix" (it's either cheap or an award) and hence "she could not get
me seats I had reserved". A "I don't want you to issue a BP, I don't trust your skills,
please hand me back all my documents I will check in with your colleague
before you buggar up my reservation" completely muffled her.
One desk to the left everything worked as it should have.

I found out that without severe insult, you cannot simply change check-in
agents as they immediately invent laws against it. Mostly from the 9/11 anti
terrorist corner. But once you get them muted, it generally does not constitute
a security risk anymore.

SleepOverGreenland

Very rarely my seat reservations got lost. Lately it happened on HAM-FRA, travelling on 2xPPB C awards and 1xM&M C award. All three reservations were good for FRA-HAM, but the way back the 2xPPB seat reservations were completely lost, as well as mine and my wifes status label on those two BP was lost.

CIA was quite confused, when entering my HON card for the etix tickets and recognized, there were no 3 seats somewhere together in the cabin. She made some calls and finally gave us 3F, 4D, 4F. Reserved was 2C, 2D, 2F. Not a big deal for a short flight, but at least the system "lost" it somehow. Of course, I had my printed email confirmation and a checkmytrip.com printout including seat reservations. But since seats in row 2 already got assigned I didn't make a show. Would have reacted different on a longhaul flight, of course.

flysurfer

You know I don't get out much, so my experiences don't really count, but I remember only one case of "lost" seats in the past 2-3 years. It happened quite recently: my exit row seat in domestic shorthaul Y was gone. However, the explanation was quite simple: LH had moved the C class curtain a few rows back between the time of my phone check-in seat assignment and me showing up at the airport. So exit row was now in C, and I had to move back a few rows. Maybe I should have asked for an op-up or sumthin, but I guess I didn't care for such a short hop.

Rambuster

Same happened to me. They moved the C curtain and moved me from 8C to 26F.

I nearly had a fit !

flysurfer

They didn't dare that, they moved me directly into the SEN row = 2nd row behind the curtain. 26F sounds like last row...

weero

That's worse - not only loosing a reserved seat but a seat on a BP!
How could you allow them to get away with it? Oh wait, you are nice with the
LH personnel in order to keep them providing you favours .

yvr-runner

Last december I booked the firts row Y on JFK-FRA for me and my girlfriend. as we arrived at the airpot we both had new seats in completly differnt rows. I complained at the superwiser and got an upgrade to C, not bad. After entering the plane I noticed that they changed tha plane and therefore our row did not exist on this config. I did not care, had a great flight ^