Snoopy

Just like my favourite book character Winnie-the-Pooh, I'm a bear of little brain. Maybe there is something I am missing here and someone can show me the light:

Tried to upgrade from C to F from Tokyo to Frankfurt on March 1 using two 50K vouchers. I was told that there were no more seats for upgrades. ITN was still showing 2 available in both F and A. I tried to book a F award ticket on the LH website and a seat was available. Are upgrades and awards booked in different booking classes? Which is better? Would it be worth calling FRA or (my preference) ZRH where I used to be based.

Second item: When I was trying to book the award ticket in F it only wanted 135'000 miles. I went through the process again for C class and it still wanted 135'000 miles. Is there a glitch here somewhere?

Please show me the light!!
Thanks

tcswede

On the first question I can not really help you - but to my limited knowledge - similar bear brain - both upgrade and award come out of I inventory.

On the secons item, on IFW this happens when you have an inter European connecting flight before the longhaul, as this is only available in C and hence the reward will show fully as C "priced" mileage - but rest assure, they will take the full amount out of your account. Been there - done that ...

Cheers

Thomas

Tirreg

Booking class for award and upgrades is O class (for First, I for Business). If there are only two seats available in F and A (paid First) two weeks before departure the chances that LH will open O class are rather low. I only wonder why there were award seats available... Maybe a mistake.

Snoopy

Thanks for the pointers.

I ended up calling the Senator desk in Zurich. Now there is only one seat left...so the chances are not good. But at least the guy put me on the waitlist (which Tokyo said the couldn't do).

paulusst

Online and telphone award availability differ sometimes. The reason why could not be explained by any tel rep I spoke to because it is booking class O (different fare buckets maybe??) in both cases. But some agents knew about this discrepancy and told me to go ahead and book two O Awards online and call later to have the companion bonus credited (which cannot be done online).

In your case, if there is still online upgrade availabilty try booking the upgrade online with miles and call later to change it from miles to paper vouchers.

Stephan

cbellero

It would interest me what Lufthansa does if a non-senator who has, lets say 140000 miles on his account and then books the F flight for 135.000. Does this person then get an extraordinary overdraft or do they not issue the ticket?

flamboyant 1

One should really try this and post here. Unfortunately most people on the LH Board are SENs - good for them...

tcswede

It is similar to when the SEN tries to go beyond his/her overdraft of - 160.000

Depending on how much, they will accept a small ectra overdraft - especially if they can see that you travelled fairly regular in the past - or alternatively if you purchase some tickets for future use - they would "credit" / apply the miles for these flights into the equation of needed miles.

Then again I do not know what happens if these are full fare tickets that you could cancel again once you return. My guess is that you probulary can only do it once in that case

The small overdraft was possible as an FTL from my experience - but that was in '94/95 - it might have changed since

Cheers

Thomas

sfosenkid

Does this work? I thought in order to switch from miles to voucher, they would have to cancel the upgrade, and enter a new one. However, if there are people on the waitlist, those would be processed before you once they take out your upgrade based on miles...

That's at least how agents have explained it to me in the past.. I have never tried it myself.

sfosenkid