Air Dolomiti award/mileage/seating questions & issues
 

Is it possible to use UA awards to fly on LH flight numbers operated by Air Dolomiti? I find no availability on UA.com for flights from FRA to VRN using the award search. Am wondering if this is because it is not possible to use UA miles on these flights or if there is just no availabilty. I searched for months of april and may and found no availability any day so i thought it might be a glitch.

Yup, possible, I've done it in the past.

Others can correct me if I'm wrong, but AFAIK, Air Dolomiti, Lufthansa Cityline etc are all treated just like any other LH flight for awards purposes.

Btw: neat little regional carrier. Clean planes, friendly service.

Correct. Great airline.

I agree, nice airlines. I was in F on Air Dolomiti and it was a little weird. I got to board he plane first but had to enter the rear of the aircraft and walk forward to my F seat. I was the only passenger in F and the last to leave the plane as we exited out the rear.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if you are just booking FRA - VRN, don't you have to call to book as it wont show up on Shares? Safe travels. :cool:

The FRA to VRN flights are also not shown using the ANA search tool.

So is there any resolution to the question of whether not finding any award availability on united.com for air dolomiti flights actually means there is no award space? I cannot find any at all on the flight (MUC-FLR) that I'm looking for. Could calling produce a different result? If yes, is there anything I should tell the agent to assist him/her in finding the award space?

Thanks,

phl82

Those flights are not eligible for Award redemption purposes as EN operates them under its own code.

Lufthansa partner Airline Air Dolomiti United Credit
 

Is it possible to earn miles in a Star Alliance partner program (United Airlines Mileage Plus) while flying on a Lufthansa Flight operated by Air Dolomiti?

They say: "We received your request to credit your MileagePlus® account with the flight on February xxx, Venice to Munich. This flight was a code-share flight where Lufthansa had marketed the flight, but Air Dolomiti was the operating airlines. For a code-share flight, the miles are determined by the operating airlines. We are unable to credit your account because Air Dolomiti is not one of our partners."

My understanding is that Air Dolomiti is not a code-share partner of Lufthansa but totally owned by Lufthansa and part of Lufthansa Regional as much like Eurowings. This should come with full Star Alliance benefits right? they had for example pre-boarding for Star Gold.

It is wholly owned by Lufthansa. In theory, it is no different than flying Lufthansa. Good luck trying to convince United of this...

I don't think this is sufficient - for instance, Silkair is a fully-owned subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, but no mileage is earned for flying on Silkair (they don't do pre-boarding for Star Gold either, but I don't think Air Dolomiti choosing to do pre-boarding for Star Gold implies that you'll also get mileage).

What relations does Air Dolomiti have with Lufthansa and Star Alliance?

Air Dolomiti is now owned by Lufthansa. This has allowed the Airline to change from a small business to become part of a worldwide group with the duty of creating value for it. As it is part of the Lufthansa Group, passengers who fly with Air Dolomiti can enjoy the benefits of the Star Alliance partners to which Lufthansa belongs, as Star Alliance is one of the most important airline networks worldwide. Air Dolomiti is also a member of Lufthansa Regional, the alliance created by Lufthansa to increase the quality and efficiency of the regional partners. Internally, the Airline maintains brand independence and its own industrial autonomy.

This is from: http://www.airdolomiti.eu/faq/inform...t-the-airline/

I would think for sure you would get bennies like additional baggage allowance, and I would think miles as well, though what's posted above doesn't say that explicitly.

I'm also VERY interested in tracking down the answer. I have a RT planned MUC-BRI on Air Dolomiti soon. I certainly will show them my UA 1K card to get my additional baggage allowance.

EDIT: I don't think you can/will earn UA miles on Air Dolomiti. Though you can earn Lufthansa Miles and More miles.
http://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/mark...ePartners.aspx
Air Dolomiti is NOT listed. Though GermanWings is! So, I think, no, you won't earn miles on them. Maybe in my case, I'll open a Miles & More account to get some credit. Bummer, I wanted to earn PQM & RDM. Oh well.

Air Dolomiti award/mileage questions & issues
 

I must take 20+ flights a year on them, all LH flight numbers on LH ticket stock. Never had an issue with PQM posting to UAMP

I have earned and redeemed miles on EN (Air Dolomiti) flights. It's been a few years, though. These count as LH flights IME and credit accordingly.

The reason GermanWings flights don't count is that LH established them expressly to not be part of *A so they wouldn't have to give out *A benefits. Every other LH subsidiary I've flown has credited fine.

EN can actually be both, depending on the route.

On both of these roues, EN markets flights using its own code and the LH flights are actual codeshares (which are not eligible for *A accumulation or redemption):

[KVS Availability Tool 7.3.5/Diamond - Timetable/NL]
[KVS Availability Tool 7.3.5/Diamond - Timetable/NL]
In contrast, MUC-MXP flights are pseudo-codeshares and are eligible for *A redemption & accumulation:

[KVS Availability Tool 7.3.5/Diamond - Timetable/NL]

Thank you both for this feedback.

My flight is EN8218. Is it correct to say that I should expect Star Alliance (UA MP) miles accrual for this flight?

I think it is.

How can you tell the difference between a codeshare and a pseudo-codeshare? Is it by flight number?

On a related note, anyone have experience with star alliance elite baggage benefits on EN? In my case, UA *G. The thread here quote a web page suggesting that only LH elites get baggage benefits. But a poster above speculates that all *G would. Any actual experience?

Booked as a LH codeshare?

If you go to http://www.airdolomiti.eu/ and click on the "Destinations >" button on the mid-right of the page, you will get a pop-up map of the current destinations.

Those listed as operated on behalf of Lufthansa can be booked with and will earn United miles - they have an LH flight number in the 1000 series, and they also show a full list of Star Alliance flight numbers at the gate.

Those listed as managed by Air Dolomiti cannot be booked and do not earn United miles - they only show an EN flight number and an LH number in the 9000 series.

Thank you f:)r this info. This explains why UA rejected me when trying to get credit for my recent Air Dolmiti flight on 016 ticket stock with an LH flight number. I'm not terribly pleased but at least I now understand what's going on.

You can get mileage with EN as part of a larger UA booking. I've flown EN MUC<->TRS as part of a larger SFO<->TRS itin for about 8 years between 2004-2012. There was the annoyance of having to get paper tickets from UA because EN was in a weird partnership where they had a codeshare agreement in place but their own booking engine, etc., but I never had a problem getting mileage credit. That may have changed recently.

There was a more complete integration between themselves and LH around 2010-2011. I stopped having to get paper tickets for itins that had EN segments and I noticed that the gate area monitors would list only the LH flight number at MUC and TRS. I don't think they are a full *A member even now and they've always referred to themselves as "A partner of Lufthansa" instead of "A proud member of the Star Alliance" .

I <3 EN BTW. The service has always been wonderful, the staff is nice and I love how they manage to bust out a full meals even in coach, even on a quick hop over the Dolomites in an ATR.

I was lucky enough to be on a couple of their flights when they were handing out little HerpaWings models of their planes to pax. :)

I haven't been on an EN flight since 2012, but I never had a problem with *G anything in almost 10 years of flying them. Note, though, that as I said in a previous posting, this was part of a itin that included UA metal flights booked through UA. I've never flown just MUC-VCE or VIE-MXP, etc. on just EN.

My flights into TRS have always been in the 4xxx or 3xxx range.

This does suck for *A service, esp. intra-IT because you don't really have all that many options . It seems like your choices are to fly one of the many LH "partners" or AZ :(

I found this out the hard way. I called MP and asked to speak to a supervisor. They said LH rejected my request, not UA. I could have easily booked my trip via FRA and got full credit so after I told my story the supervisor gave me 500 PQMs but no RDMs. One time thing, they said, but to be fair the website isn't clear about this.

FWIW, I was rejected but then the agent had to ask the supervisor about something else and they ended up crediting the EN flights. I was told that they've had problems crediting them automatically and that LH was incorrectly rejecting things. I'm now n:confused:t sure what I believe but after receiving a whopping 1000 RDM, 500 PQM and $56 PQD for my P fare VCE-MUC I'm moving on. My 016-ticketed BRU-VCE flights on SN got zero credit due to the P fare class.

According to .bomb, after 9/1, all EN flights earn credit (both RDM and PQM) as a partner airline.

I believe only the LH-coded ones will recognize *A baggage limits, though. Others still have "priority boarding" FWIW.

I just noticed that too Exerda that Air Dolomiti is now listed on the UA partner page.

To confirm: I just tried to claim for LH coded Air Dolomiti flights in August and got told that if they had been in Sept I would have credited, but no go for August :-(. Both LH 9xxx flights to/from VRN. Oh well...

This may be yet another case where HUCA works w;)nders.

It's sad but true, that LH flights operated by Air Dolomiti earn according to the partner schedule (see update below, this may no longer be the case)

In my opinion, it's worth every (lost) mile

The service on Air Dolomiti is second to none when compared to every other "regional" airline

Where else do they insist, that when you have a glass of wine, you are given a glass, not a piece of plastic...


UPDATE, 15th October

Word of caution

UA are being "difficult", talk about driving (flying!) you into the hands of their competition??

"We’re always glad to hear from Premier 1K members like you. Thanks for writing.

We received your request to credit your recent flight on Lufthansa. Unfortunately, this flight does not qualify to earn MileagePlus® miles because it was not operated by Lufthansa.

A codeshare flight is marketed (or sold) by one airline but actually flown by another. In this case, your flight was marketed by Lufthansa (our partner), but operated by Air Dolomiti S P A (an airline that does not participate in the MileagePlus program). When you fly a codeshare flight, it is the operating airline (Air Dolomiti S P A in this case) that determines whether your flight is eligible to earn miles.

We realize that airline codeshare partnerships are detailed, especially when it comes to earning miles.

Thank you for selecting MileagePlus as your frequent flyer program. We look forward to serving you again soon."

The problem is Lufthansa.

In former times they just had LH codes on all flights. They were just operated with EN planes (like City-Line). These were 100% Star Alliance Flights with all Bells and Whistles.

Then the bean counters found the little loophole:

They just switched routes from LH codes to EN codes and added a codeshare with LH. What happened now:
All *A Members did not get any *A Perks (I saw *G not getting Lounge access in MUC or not getting extra luggage).

No Milage credit.

The change was made route by route and done very silently. The plane and the timetable did not change, just a little rochade with the flight numbers.

The did similar things with Germanwings (4U) but with that, they repainted the planes.
Both are no members of *A!

UA *G are very lucky: UA did bi-lateral agreements with 4U and EN, so you get at least miles. No word about lounge access and extra luggage.

LH is just a shame!

lounge access at MUC?
 

It looks like UA has sorted out the mileage accrual issues by making EN a partner airline outside *A.

I wonder if/how this would affect lounge access in MUC? I have a connection there between ORD arrival on UA and MXP departure on EN.

Has anyone been able to use *G lounge access when transiting MUC to an EN flight recently?

Partner flight have not in the past qualified for *A lounge access (when departing *A BP is required).

I'll have to wait until the summer to report back, but I will try.

The UA booking I made shows a LH flight #, but then 'Operated by Air Dolomiti'. If I can get a boarding pass from UA or LH, we'll see whether that works, or not.

In *A the operating carrier not the marketing carrier is what matters so I think your point is moot.

Last year, I was able to get into an LH lounge at MUC with an Air Dolomiti BP. The machine said "Access Denied" when she scanned the BP, but it looks like she did some additional processing to make it go through.

So you can smile and give it a try.

I'll definitely try, and will report back later during the summer, unless somebody else beats me to it.

While not Air Dolomiti, I have similar issues with flights on Luxair from FRA to LUX. While Lufthansa code shares and sells those flights (and even owns part of Luxair), since Luxair is not in *A, I usually do not get club access when connecting from the US because my onward flight is not on an *A airline. On a few occasions I have been let into the lounge in those situations, but it was definitely rare.

UA / Air Dolomiti Booking
 

I searched on Google and here but couldn't find an answer to this specific situation:

On an upcoming trip, for the return leg, I have an Air Dolomiti flight connecting to a UA flight in MUC. In the past, when I booked an itinerary with UA and Air Dolomiti, there was a link on united.com when viewing my reservation that would show me my Air Dolomiti confirmation number.

With this upcoming trip, I don't see a link with the confirmation number, nor does United show a seat assignment for the Air Dolomiti flight. In my experience, it's typical for united.com to not show seat assignments for flights on other *A airlines, but I've always access to the confirmation number on the other airlines on the itinerary.

Does united.com no longer show partner airline confirmation numbers, or could something not have booked correctly? Wondering if others have had similar experiences recently.

The site doesn't show ALL partner PNRs, TG being a prime example.

I still see partner numbers on my records. I would call and make sure all is well and get confirmation from the agent.

So even though UA now is partners with EN, I don't see any EN flights available for mileageplus award redemptions, can these be booked by phone? Are they releasing any seats? Where is best to search if so? 2 Years ago all the space was online, but I guess that was before all this restructuring.