TuomoR

Hello - Do other premier mmbers have problems with connecting with Lufthansa in Europe ? UA seems to be pushing only connections through LH and the service at the airport, on the airplane and at the destination is pretty bad. UA has other partners but they seem to be only selling connections through MUC and FRA. LH had lost my bags on 4/5 flights in the last 8 months, they have zero customer service and the story goes on in terms of how they treat UA passengers. It also appeara that the higher status you have with UA they treat you worse. Any similar experiences ?

Considering OneWorld despite being million miler ( almost 2 milion miler )

WineCountryUA

Welcome to FT!, TuomoR

Yes, UA has a special relationship with LH and LH Group carriers.
UA/AC/LH have a TATL Joint Venture. -- this is big as it means revenue sharing.
LH is another founding member of Star Alliance. The other large EU carriers -- AF/KLM and BA are in different alliance. The remaining carrier are most country specific (expect perhaps TK -- also *A)
There is really no other reasonable partner for UA. LH Groups out of FRA/MUC/ZRH are very centrally located and can get you nearly anywhere in EU with a short hop

So the best coverage of Europe for UA flyers is LH / LH Group

The weak spot of *A is the UK

As for luggage, LH has never lost my luggage (when I check, usually flying with by wife -- annual to EU)

And what would be the purpose of that?

Who would you suggest UA use instead? If you think LH is bad, the others are hardly better.

SeamusSA

Wow, this is 180 from my own LH experience over the last several years. LH has been consistently better than UA in terms of service - e.g., already had me rebooked at FRA when UA irrops made me miss a connection, nice lounges, inflight food and service well done. Do dislike the LH strategy of blocking middle seat in front rows and selling as business class but otherwise they've performed quite well for us.

halls120

This. LH has never lost my luggage, and they treat me better as a *G than UA does.

hirohito888

What is the final destination? You can also search for flights via BRU/VIE/ZRH.

*A is marginally weaker to UK, they operate from 13 airports in North America to the UK; DL/VS operates from 15 airports in North America to the UK. While DL/VS operates from 4 airports in the UK vs. 3 airports for *A. Of course, DL/VS will probably have more frequencies given that VS is based in the UK.

WineCountryUA

and when looked as a gateway into Europe or even UK, it becomes even weaker.

nexus7556

J and F LH onboard flight has been way better than UA, but everything else has been a hot mess with LH:

• They delayed my luggage 4x 2022 Nov-Dec (returned within 3 days each time)
• EU claims took 3+ months to process. One didn't process until I filed a claim with both DOT and Schlichtungsstelle für den öffentlichen Personenverkehr.
• Phone agents are only for ticketing and would not help with any issues post travel
• I was downgraded from F to J once and they only offered me $300 cash even though the difference in fare was almost $6k. (ended up cancelling the ticket)
• good luck getting their app or website to let you assign a seat
• Also changes to itinerary or seat don't reflect in LH app, one time I boarded only to find LH changed my seat and my digital boarding pass didn't reflect the change

I only continue to fly LH as its the only reasonable option to get me between SFO and GVA most of the time, or I am booking last minute and F is available with points. United tends to be 2x the price otherwise.

cfischer

LH is a great airline. Last summer operations for all European airlines were abysmal; LH was no exception to that. Have flown 3 r/t on LH this year (granted, in F) and no issues whatsoever.