Book United codeshare or Lufthansa direct?
 

Hi all -

I'm booking a flight in October that basically looks like this:

DEN -> IST
KBP -> DEN

I see the same fare on both United and Lufthansa, about $1280 which is fine. But, I am trying to figure out where to book the flight. Can anyone tell me if I'm understanding this properly:

If I book in UA: It looks like I'll get 100% miles for the flight, but I can't do seat assignments (which I don't really like because I'm tall and finicky)

If I book on Lufthansa: It looks like I'll get 50% mileage for this flight (I think) and I can pay extra for assigned seats.

Note that I only have a UA Mileage Plus acct, I don't actually have any miles on Lufthansa. In the past, I've always been able to get a decent seat on these flights by checking in exactly 24 hours ahead and just grabbing a seat online, but I'd sure like to reserve in advance. Then again, I hate to give up miles :)

Any advice here?

Wow looking at this page I'm seeing how I really didn't understand how miles were awarded in the first place: https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/Mar...es/united.aspx

Maybe they are the same after all :)

Lufthansa lists them both as 'restricted economy' but united lists them as L & V class.

Book United codeshare or Lufthansa direct?
 

United allows seat assignment in advance free of charge unless you want e+ ; in that case they charge you, unless you have *G status on UA or you are traveling with someone who has status.

If you don't care about programs and have no status you may want to think About opening a SQ account to get 100% credit on K and V class .

I called UA and asked about this - they claim that they simply can't reserve seats on those Lufthansa codeshare flights. I keep running into this because I'm based out of DEN and there aren't that many direct flights overseas - so I take this direct to FRA quite a lot.

Lufthansa charges you to reserve a seat, any seat, even it's just an ordinary seat. But, for $35 I'm ok with that.

Book United codeshare or Lufthansa direct?
 

You'll get PQD towards status if you book through United. That may or may not matter to you, but really should be the deciding factor.

United is going to credit you based on the Lufthansa fare class you get ticketed into - NOT the United one they sell you.

You are not going to get advance seats if you buy through UA, period. You may be able to get advance seats if you book on LH, but only if you pay extra.

It's generally a bad idea to buy codeshares so I wouldn't do it without a good reason, i.e., because you are chasing UA status.

Ok, thanks for this info.

I wasn't chasing status on United because I thought I'd never even make the first tier. But, looking at their website, maybe I'm close to Premier level. Here is what I need:

PQM 23,536 of 25,000
PQD $2,169 of $3,000
4 segments (this is done)

If I'm understanding, by booking these as a codeshare through United I would achieve premies status with this single flight. That would probably be worth it, and I am pretty diligent about doing the online checking 23:59 before the flight so I could risk it with the seats.

Am I right? thanks for all this info!

Moderator, pls move this to UA forum.

Anyway, this is spot on:

You need to focus on how much UA will credit for LH K class flights (or whatever booking class you are looking at). With UA you earn ZERO miles for LH K class and 50% L, T and S class on LH flights

Way to reference the only LH fare class (K) that doesn't credit, with no indication that's what OP would get :rolleyes:

Most of the time the fare class will map straight across UA => LH.

OP should check his ticket after booking to confirm that it's not booked as an LH K. But that's a very unlikely result here, particularly with a $2100+ ticket.

That's just flat wrong. If OP books the UA codeshare, a T, S, or L will credit 100%.

If the OP buys from UA and the ticket is issued on 016 stock then the RDM earning will be dollar-based, not distance based.
https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/mar...spx?ItemId=298

If booked direct through LH then the earning will be based on the fare class and may be only 50% or 75% for RDMs, especially if they really are in L or V class. They will earn 100% PQMs in those fare classes.

I tried to understand as much as possible about whether this would work, and what I found was:

PQM: Since this is a United issued ticket, there should be no issue picking up 1700 mies here.

PQD: It looks like I'll also accumulate PQD, based on the fare price but not taxes, etc. This was a little ambiguous. The Lufthansa fare was around $600 in fare in $600 in taxes, but somehow the UA fare broke down differently.

I went ahead and purchased the UA fare. Here is how the itinerary ticketed and priced, in the end:

1. That's way too cheap for a V. Call LH and find out what fare class Lufthansa has you booked in before 24 hours expire.

2. Assuming it's not a K fare, you will earn 5650 award miles (RDM) and just over 12,000 premier qualifying miles (PQM). PQDs are $1130. I'm surprised there's no international surcharge on that fare.

From what I've read, I'll get the needed PQM & PQD regardless of the fare class since it was booked on UA. I brought up the flight on LH website and they listed the fares the same way:

But one fantastic thing happened - the LH site is allowing me to pay for seat reservations on this flight, ,which I was told wasn't possible.

That's not correct. "Certain fare classes are ineligible for accrual." But since you don't have a K, it's academic.

Awesome ^^

LH must have fixed its systems, because this was a consistently reported problem.

Probably not, according to ITA.
It appears that UA rolled it in to the airfare in this version of the display. ITA breaks it out but the numbers are roughly the same in total.

http://gallery.millerworks.net/photo...-87mLKRC-L.jpg