fligher

I'd like to use PartnerPlusBenefit points for an award flight. I'm considering bringing my <2 yrs old baby along in-lap (no extra seat) to drop her off with grandparents who haven't seen her in a year, while I'm attending a week-long conference.

Has anyone tried this? Will they allow in-lap infants added on to a PPB ticket, given that the PPB program is only for company employees? Any idea what extra fees will be?

fligher

I realize it's an old thread, but for now this info can be found here in your account. You need to click to open the booking class overview:

fligher

Reposted my earlier post here in the global forum:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/lufth...de-awards.html

fligher

From another subforum:

Trying to upgrade econ (W) to biz for LAX-FRA using BenefitPoints in the Chinese PPB program. Response:

"You are kindly informed that there is no seat available for upgrade to Business Class LH457. We will keep our eyes on the flight upgrade."

Hmm, not what I thought after reading above post earlier. And what's that strange line about "keeping an eye on it"? So I asked back to put me on the upgrade waitlist where I've been many times before for M&M upgrades. Response:

"We cannot process the award upgrade request for wait list segment, so that we cannot get the result if upgrade business class available or not."



How can they not have access to the Lufthansa waitlist system? And how in the world are they handling those requests then?

Seats could become available any day and then be taken quickly. Will they manually check every day? What if they forget? Should I email them a reminder every day (only half joking)? And does that mean no priority for Sen status and I only get upgrades after ALL waitlist requests are filled (else how would PPB get to see free seats)?

TBH, I already find it off-putting enough that I can't just book the upgrades myself online. Instead I have to call or email them. Do other PartnerPlusBenefit marktes handle upgrades the same manual way? And are they all unable to give us proper waitlist spots?

daumueller

also Award/Upgrade waitlists are not checked daily...

also, as noted yourself, this is kind of a double posting in 2 Forums...

SuperFlyBoy

Okay thanks - not been using PPB much - the character in India (yes, only 1) seems to be ignoring my requests to reinstate miles when LH/UA were at fault to failure to allow us to board in the upgraded class of travel...then rerouted us...

NightFly

1) CZ - yes. Have to call up, no online booking.
2) No. Always been put on a proper WL, and always got the upgrade I requested (although sometimes only a few days before departure).

afmiami

I am enrolled in PPB Italy and today I received an email announcing "enhancements" to the program. It is always complicated to decipher how to get awards and upgrades through this program, but my understanding is that they increased some of the points earned with premium fares, increasing also the number of points needed for upgrades and tickets, starting Sep 1st.
However, if I read it correctly, it appears that with the new structure it will be possible to get upgrades on discounted business class tickets not only D (as it is now) but also Z and P.

https://www.partnerplusbenefit.com/a...INT_COLLECTION

If it is the case, this would be a positive change, even if it costs more points, because as of now to get the possibility of upgrades you have to buy very expensive tickets. If indeed we will be able to upgrade from discounted business tickets, I could finally be able to use the points.
Did anyone, maybe in other nations' program, received the news and has the same read as I do?

PMacDiggity

Hello,
My company recently signed up for PartnerPlusBenefit with Lufthansa, and I'm having trouble understanding what exactly this does. I've done a bunch of Google/Reddit/FlyTalk searches, and it's still unclear to me. Can someone sort this out? As an employee, what will this do? I take a few trips from the US to Austria (where my company has offices), and other destinations around the US and Europe. It looks like it may let me get some upgrades, but I'm not clear on how these are made available. Will this mean I have to fly United in the US? I also am unclear on how miles get accumulated; does my company get all the miles now, or do they get miles in addition to my miles? Do all transactions have to use the credit card my company has on file? Any other key points to understand would be very helpful, most of the info I have found seem to be based on having a general background understanding of the program, which I do not have, and can't get much more than the info on Lufthansa's site (and trusting info on airlines' websites about their benefit programs never seems to be a good idea).

Thanks!

yurtripper

Good luck with that. If you're an employee then I wouldn't expect you to get the points - it's a benefit scheme aimed at companies rather than individuals.

I signed up a year ago (as a company owner) and have NEVER managed to get any flights to credit, even when they have admitted that the flights I took had qualifying booking codes (not all fare classes count). I had someone promise me that the points for my previous flights would credit by September but they never did. I spent so long trying to get flights credited without success that now I've simply given up. Life's just too short to put up with their five-star service.

Lack

The points are accumulated on the business account and get spent by the business - could be to upgrade you on your work travels, or can be used by the owner for the family retreat. You can still collect miles for the flight, so you're not giving up anything in that regard.

The biggest issue for me was always the POS restriction. You have to buy flights in the market you're registered in.
I think right now every revenue booking class does count, at least for LH flights.

PMacDiggity

So I still accumulate miles on my own, and my employer accumulates additional miles? But it has to be done with my companies credit card, or can I use my credit card so I accumulate those miles as well?

ralfkrippner

The PPB contract number has to be put in during booking. In the past you could also use special credit cards with LH connected expense report functionalities but I'm not sure this is still true. Also you can manually add ticket numbers and travel dates into the system but this is cumbersome. Then about 2-3 months after your travel the company PPB account gets credited with PPB miles. All points go into a single account for the company. Those points are not equal to bonus miles. They have their own complicated accrual and spend rules and even different assignments of reward travel ressources. There's no online booking for reward tickets AFAIK, you have to call.

To get a PPB account you need to have a company registered in one of the markets of PPB. They might ask you for your expected volume of travel before assigning a PPB account.

yurtripper

Yes, they registered me in the UK for some reason, even though the only business address I supplied was in PL. They even admitted (via email) that the mistake was on their end and promised to retro-credit the flights but they never did so. The last time I checked they still had me registered in the wrong region even though I had been told by several different reps that this issue would be fixed promptly. However, the agents themselves never said that the region issue was the reason I had not been credited - they always tried to say it was due to an invalid fare class (until they caved in and admitted they were wrong about this also). I've now given up dealing with them and written the whole thing off.

Passmethesickbag

Do free tickets from Partnerplusbenefit come out of the standard award buckets or do they, like BA's On Business, allow you to book from revenue buckets?