I'm done complaining about Swiss - it is time to outright ridicule them ...
 

Business class round trip for two - total airfare $11k. FULL FARE - NON AWARD.

When we booked the tickets at swiss.com we were taken through a very clear user interface for choosing our specific seats on the outbound and return flights - confirmed seat choices, etc. - NO CONFUSION.

Now fast forward to t-minus one week to takeoff and those choices are all gone. They have no record of our seat choices.

Further, because our return flight is on a (swiss booked) United flight, nobody will let us choose a seat:

- Swiss says, call United - they assign your seats
- United says, we can't assign seats - this is a swiss booked flight

... but let's remember, we *ALREADY* chose seats for this flight, on that plane, operated by United, clearly chosen and NO CONFUSION.

Unbelievable.

If the flight is on United metal, you should be able to download the United app, add the trip (my united > trips > find my trip) and select your seats *again, but for real this time*.

United’s app is uniquely excellent for self-managing flights/travel on their planes.

Booking codeshare flights is often fraught with issues such as this add to that LH groups lamentable IT

United is not that great either - but their app is actually the best airline one around - and they keep improving it...

United with LH codeshares can be very very difficult - I can attest to this!

Nothing to do with „Swiss“ or „bad experience“, you should ALWAYS book seats with the operating carrier to have stuff under control.

The OP did that. Only the return flight is on UA, as I read the description.

I will say that my personal (limited) experience with UA is that they feel seat assignments are just a suggestion. I've had seats changed and dropped with them at a far higher rate than any other airline. YMMV.

Even more… the title is completely wrong. OP should not „outright ridicule Swiss“, OP should blame UA not LX

WOW - I'll have to try Swiss. If Full Fare Business is only $5,500 round trip that's an amazing price

They improve it for their own penny-pinching operations, so they can charge your for ever more ridiculous things.

The last year, the UA app got so much worse for the customers who use it and cross-functionality to the LX and LH platforms suffered a lot.

I booked two UA TATLs this year which used LH and LX feeders and it was a condensed nightmare.

Thanks to UA's continuous upgrades (known as enhancements to LH/LX folks), their systems are now completely incompatible.

You should be able to tell who is at fault - was it booked as an LX or a UA flight number (i.e. as a codeshare)? I'd almost bet that this was UA's fault.

I have a 220 LH ticket with BOS-LHR as an LH flight number. Absolutely zero issues assigning seats on united.com

Upon booking or in the app?

all of the above. Was able to select upon booking, was able to change on the web and the app. No issue whatsoever.

cheap
 

This is outrageously expensive for ONE passenger even the US being a captive market of high spenders. As a comparison I bought recently a partner special for TWO people in booking class A (first) from Italy to South America and back for the same amount (in EUR tough).

This said, all these people moaning and complaining about LH group airlines, just try competitors, perhaps a nice US legacy carrier or a ME airline where work conditions and human/women/gay/other minority rights are what we know.

A good idea would also be to buy tickets on 724 or 220 ticket stock, never had a problem.

Had a similar situation with a YUL-VIE paid Pair of C tickets. There was a slight schedule change by a few minutes and the seat assignments had to be redone. No warning of this, just happen to check it out my self. Booked though AC for the OS flight. Only reason I booked through AC is that I also have another pair of aéroplan award tickets for the same flight.

Lovely.

From my this year experience since January:

UA app "offering" the check in of an LX flight booked through the UA app:
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...eff442c7b7.jpg

The same flight on SWISS.com ::

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0078663837.jpg


an earlier segment on LX (booed via united.com) upon airport check -in with UA:
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...543261c2b1.jpg

Smooth and brilliant IT integration :tu: .