SWU on Lufthansa Codeshare?
 

Next month, I will be flying to Almaty, Kazakhstan (ALA). The ticket and flight numbers will be United, but the aircraft will be Lufthansa (connecting in FRA). The ticket, which is being purchased by the U.S. government, will be coach, M class or higher, but not business class (pursuant to law).

Can I use SWUs to upgrade these flights? Any advice would be appreciated. Incidentally, I did search on this topic but could not find an answer at this level of detail.

Thanks,

Bruce

You can ask the Lufthansa personnel when you check in for your flight from the U.S. to Germany. If there is space I think you stand a good chance of getting an upgrade. (I do not believe you will be able to confirm your upgrade in advance, nor do I believe that your SWU can be used to upgrade more than just the one transatlantic segment.)

If you can, then buy the tickets separately and use miles to pre-confirm the LH segment. Use the SWUs transatlantic. I am sure that you would have to blow 4 SWUs on this trip anyway to upgrade the entire trip.

FRA to Alma Ata is not going to be fun in LH coach unless it's empty. I had a nice flight FRA-CAI but I was very lucky -- noone in front or next to me.

But I am guessing that the US govt insists that you buy the codeshare.

I got upgrades using SWU on Lufthansa on two full V fare RT in April and May, respectively. All four segments were on stand-by basis. Lufthansa treats *A Gold members very well. This is far better than how UA treated me in my July V fare RT ORD-NRT - they refused to upgrade using my SWU or points even though business was only half full both ways http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

The official position from MP is that you can not, in any way, upgrade a codeshare flight (United number on LH Metal). This will really be up to the LH TAs at the time of the flight. If you use a SWU, my guess is that they will let you upgrade as standby, but as I said, that's just a guess.

Do not the SWUs say right on them they are good for LH metal flights on day of departure? And being a UA flight # ever earlier maybe?

HOWEVER ... just having taken 4 x 'Biz' LH flights intra Europe in the past week, (2 of them 3 hour flights) do not get too excited Bruce, as the LH 'Business Class' (sic) seats are 100% IDENTICAL to all coach seats! No amenity kits, no recline, no privacy ... 3 seats each side aisle etc.

A few days ago with several other FT'ers we flew FRA-DUS 'Biz' class where there were FOURTEEN rows of 6 wide 'Biz' class and only 7 rows of 100% identical coach sets!

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~ Glen ~

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Glen,

The back of the Cert only says "Lufthansa Flights" and does not refer to "Metal" or code share provisions. I called the UGS desk a couple weeks ago when booking a DEN-FRA trip and asked them whether it mattered if I booked it as UA or LH and that is when I was told that I would not be able to use the SWU if it was a UA flight on LH metal. There is no way to confirm an upgrade on LH metal ahead of time using an SWU. Again, the practice at the gate with LH may be to upgrade you on a code-share flight with an SWU, but I'm not willing to risk it. If anyone has successfully done this, I would be interested in their story.

In 2000 I did successfully upgrade a LH-operated (metal)/UA-codeshared (UA flight number) at check-in using a UA/MP-issued 20,000 mile certificate (which was the amount required for a trans-atlantic flight at that time). To the best of my knowledge this was not allowable under the rules. I believe that, in a similar situation today, it is reasonable to ask at check-in if you can upgrade using a SWU. Further, while I agree that such a situation is not allowed under the current SWU terms and conditions (or at least not well defined?), it would be reasonable to expect that the LH personnel would accept the SWU provided there was upgrade space available.

Did you request this before your LH flight? Back in 98-99, I used to upgrade LH flights with MP miles. You had to purchase full fare on LH, request that UA MP print a certificate, and then surrender said cert. to LH on the day of travel. The process was a pain...it took about 3 weeks. You could never just last-minute book LH and expect an upgrade.

Yep, they just move that curtain based on loads. The Germans were always a smart and tricky lot. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

In this case, no I did not, even though one of the benefits of the mileage certificates is that you can confirm the upgrade in advance of the flight.

FRA to ALA is a 6.5 hour flight and LH uses a 310 widebody. In fact, LH uses 330/340s to CAI, which is only 4 hours.

Oh dear, looking at the seatmap, the 310 has a 2-4-2 config with a moveable divider so one does not get better seating in C. However, when I recently flew a 3.5 hr OS CAI-VIE flight on a 320, C had very few people whereas Y was reasonably full. So I could grab a row to myself and nap.
http://cms.lufthansa.com/fly/de/en/i...780757,00.html


[This message has been edited by gnaget (edited 07-21-2003).]

Ozstamps
this is only partially correct.
The seats are identical on the intra German flights - however on the intra European flights one seat is "removed" - Seat B by pushing the ABC side together and pulling the DEF apart. This is only a marginal improvement of about 1 to 2 inches on each seat - but sitting on a or c it makes a difference as the seatmate is half a foot away. There is a small recline of the seat - again marginally.
Yes - it is a far away from the domestic US F class - but then again most flights in Europe are a max of 2 - 3 hrs. And in that time you will be fed well (mostly http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif )

Cheers

Thomas

The LH seatmap is wrong in this case. LH had domestically configured 310's and internationally configured ones. The seatmap still shows the domestic config, but those planes are in the desert... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif At least two of the three A310's still in use
have the international config with 2-2-2 in C and 2-4-2 in Y but it is the old C class with less seat pitch than the standard LH C/Class.

What LH does on intra Europe flights in regards to C seating is NO different to what all carriers have ended up doing in Europe anyway ... Consolidating 6 seat rows into 5. Seperate seating like in the US and Asia for C class has been gone for quite some time. That being said the rare time that a long haul aircraft is used on an intra-europe route - you get a seperate C (and maybe an F) product. This is rare though.