Yes, I received a response from the department that the PA connected me with. They said they would cover the costs and asked me to send them the receipts once the isolation period was over. I had already sent the receipts.

It seems I must escalate this matter directly to him, as you advised.

In my experience, HON PAs differ considerably. Some are genuinely committed, others clearly less so.

These days, I no longer go through the PA first. I give HON CS one chance, and if that does not produce a satisfactory result, I go straight down the external route.

We are supposed to go first to HON CS & like you i give them one opportunity & then involve my PA

They have just confirmed their obligation to reimburse me and promised to cover the costs. However, since my flight was operated by Swiss International Air Lines, they said they would forward the details to the relevant department.

While I appreciate their confirmation, I find this a bit strange. While it is indeed a Swiss flight, I purchased my ticket through the Lufthansa website. Why can't they handle the cost settlement directly?

Interestingly, when I requested a change to the ticket, Swiss advised me that, as it was a Lufthansa stock ticket, I should contact Lufthansa or HON Circle Services.

While the PA service is certainly helpful... ...LHG's overall processing speed is considerably slower than BA's, which I used previously.

I understand your point. There are legal and corporate reasons for this. Lufthansa and Swiss are separate companies based in different countries, even if both belong to the same group. In theory, this could certainly be handled more seamlessly, but in practice it is not that simple.

Another aspect is that enforcing passenger rights in Switzerland is generally more difficult than in most EU countries. Swiss is well aware of that and often seems particularly willing to play deaf and drag matters out.

Payments are handled separately by the individual companies, same with tickets, we can only be thankful that we have PA, imagine the mess otherwise 🤔

That's right. If it hadn't been for him, I'd still be in Dubai or looking for expensive evacuation flights. BA isn't allowing rebooking onto Emirates, after all. I'm absolutely certain that I'm home now thanks to LHG.

However, I was puzzled by the fact that Swiss Air simply passed the buck, stating that, since the ticket had been issued by Lufthansa, I should speak to them. Would the outcome be any different if the PA were to send them that information? I hope so. It wasn't an enormous expense, but I hope it works out anyway.

Different accounting centres �.. welcome to the complexities at LHG, half the time they do not understand their own rules you get caught between the outsourced CS & LHG employees but with a HON PA & the BER callcentre & Basel CCC as HON we get results in the end, heaven help anyone else 🤔

Update on my case:

Having not heard anything from them for over a month, I called the HON Centre in Switzerland to ask about the progress of my case.
They said that they had not received any data from Lufthansa and asked me to resubmit the documents.

Great!

You should let your HON PA know about this, ask who dropped the ball & ask your PA to liaise with CCC

She's on holiday. I'm sure there's someone who can cover for her though.

I'll send it over soon and let you know how it goes.

Mine is also on leave but She did give me the contact details of the PA that is covering for Her.

OK, so after chatting with Swiss Air yesterday, I've sent the receipt to them again.
They approved my claim at 7 this morning and said I could get my money back as a refund or as a voucher.

I was wondering if they'd be willing to consider a slightly higher voucher amount if I asked? To be honest, I don't think the offer's a bad deal, especially since I'm planning to book a flight with Swiss Air soon.

They offered me either �350 in cash or a �500 voucher, based on the amount I actually spent.

Everything is relative, but I thought Swiss Air's service was way better than Lufthansa's HON Centre. I asked the HON helpline for an update a few days ago, but they just told me to ask Swiss.

If I hadn’t asked the Swiss, I don’t think I would have received the money…

CCC are way better than LH HON service but SWISS HON do not have a PA.

Your voucher offer was more than the cash offer, which is their normal practise, just be aware all legs of a trip must be on LX flights to be able to use the voucher.

Er... I've already messed up the currency settings, so I've sent them an email.