Odyssey4

I am so upset right now and need some guidance. Yesterday booked 2 RT on LH F IAD-FRA and elsewhere from there. One came from my husband's account using his miles and one came from my account using my miles. I booked something online and called both times to change the itinerary to avoid fees. Later in the day I went to select seats. I got my husband's seat selection first. I tried to do mine next and found out I was in business!! I know the agent was booking me in F because she went over the miles and fees with me. She took my credit card info as well.
I called UA and got a supervisor who could only find F availability on the outbound and no longer on the return. She said she would put it a request with LH to open up space and put me on the wait list. I checked and there are still 5 F seats left on the flight. As of now, space is still not open. What are the chances it will? This is my first time on LH F and routing through FRA was to use the FCT. I don't know what to do, cancel and give up or wait and hope. I was so excited.

Madone59

Welcome to FT Odyssey4 - hopefully we can help you out.

So you have two F seats IAD-FRA and one F and one C seat FRA-IAD. Right? With the limited availability of LH F seats I definitely wouldn't bail on that, but wait for another seat to open.

I am not sure how you determined there are 5 seats left in F on that flight, but if you were counting open seats on the seat map that is unfortunately not accurate. If you could provide departure and arrival dates maybe the collective FT knowledge can help you out and make a suggestion like MUC-IAD return or coming via ORD?

Best of luck!

Odyssey4

Thank you very much for the welcome and kind words.

Yes, we are both in F on the way there, he is in F and I am in C on the way back.

The return date is 7/26. I used expert flyer to see how many seats were still there. It returned F5.

I looked for space to NYC and ORD and MCO from FRA and could not find anything on that date.

villox

First of all, I think chances are PRETTY good that another seat will open. Since you're doing FRA-IAD, and you said it's F5, I assume you are on the 748, you should also know that it features LH's newer lay-flat business class product. It's still a good seat though not the level of First. BUT, you can also accompany your husband to the FCT as each F pax gets a guest if on the same flight.

I presume you were charged the lesser miles for your return (70k vs 110k)? If it were me, I'd just leave it, hope it opens up, look forward to the outbound, and then worst case scenario know I'd saved 40,000 miles and still gotten a lay-flat seat.

Odyssey4

Thanks for your advice! Yes, we are booked on the 748 both ways.
I did ask a UA supervisor to make sure we could both make fee-free changes to our tickets at any time, so I have some room to wait. The issue with is flying in separate classes is I know my husband will insist on trading seats with whoever is sitting next to me in C so we can sit together (sweet, really) -so one of us will pay the miles for F and not get it.

Is there a window I should be looking at for availability to open on the 26th?

villox

I don't know if it's still the case, but LH used to release F seats every day (within a 14 day window) right around Midnight in Germany (6pm EDT). So I would check every single day until then at around that time. They've got a seat almost every day next week, just not Sat or Sunday yet.

This coming Sunday (the 19th) for example, is F3, but they're still showing one award seat. Tomorrow's flight is F6 and they're showing FOUR. So as it gets closer it seems they're fairly reliable about releasing open space. Hold out hope!

Odyssey4

Thanks so much! I am hoping! Everything is crossed. I am quite honestly checking multiple times an hour. The one thing that worries me is that there already were 2 award seats on my flight. They were both there yesterday so I am thinking someone else must have booked the other available F seat once my seat was erroneously booked in C. Do they open more award space once the initially offered awards are bookeid?

MatthewLAX

LAX-FRA-LAX at last minute (two days out for LAX-FRA, 10 days out for FRA-LAX). One seat.

villox

In my experience, yes. There have been known problems with UA showing "phantom" availability - that's what may have happened here (i.e. their site showed two, but when the agent when to do it there was only one). Not sure. It's still 11 days away so completely possible they'll wait before releasing more seats.

In fact it's recommended to snag one seat in general on LH if you want two but they only show one, and then wait for them to release another. That's what I've done in the past when trying to get one for my companion. Since you'll at least get to your destination in premium it's low risk.

Good luck!

Odyssey4

Thanks so much for all your help! I will let you know how it works out.

Odyssey4

Thanks for the data point. Do you remember how many seats were open when your seats were released?

MatthewLAX

Did not check inbound, but oddly the outbound (to FRA) was only F2.

Odyssey4

Wow!!

villox

Another important thing to keep in mind on is that you can't just look at how many F seats there are. You need enough in C and Y as well, because they'll oversell C and Y and just bump people up. Luckily in the case of your flight, so far, it looks pretty open all around.

Odyssey4

That is a very good point and thank you for checking!