Missing LH flight credit: does it matter?
 

Normally, I fight for every missing mileage credit possible as I never want to fall just a few miles short at the end of the year, but in this case, I don't know whether there's any benefit.

I flew an LHR-FRA roundtrip a week and a half ago and tried to credit it to my MP account. The outbound posted within 2-3 days, but the return still hasn't posted. The fare class was W outbound, E return, both of which should be eligible for mileage credit according to the UA web site. However, I've read some recent accounts of having to fight for credit on E fares.

When I hit the 15-day window, I'll apply for credit on-line since it's easy and I'm curious enough to expend that minor bit of effort. However, if that doesn't work, I'm wondering if there's any benefit to putting any more effort towards it. Here's why:

• My current EQM plus booked travel puts me comfortably over the 1K mark even without the missing mileage. (Side note: It will be my first time as a 1K! ^^)
• I won't be anywhere close to any other EQM milestones.
• The LH flight wouldn't count toward the e500 or CR1 threshold.
• The LH flight wouldn't count toward MM status.

Of course, it's still 500 RDM, but frankly a lack of RDM has never been a problem for me. Also, 500 RDM just seems to be a really small amount to spend any significant effort over.

Or am I missing some other reason to fight for the credit?

For the principle of the thing? :)

Seriously, if you don't need it for qualification and if the 500 RDM aren't worth your time, you can just as easily forget about it. I'd probably waste my time trying but I'm not anywhere near 1K.

Here's someone who isn't going to fight for miles?!!!

Of course it's worth it. When you get into 2008 and find you're a few miles short of an upgrade using miles, you'll realize why,

I'm in the same situation: made 1K with a K outbound flight on LH, waiting for an E return flight to post, and will fight it all the way if they try to dispense with it. (It's only O and T LH fares that don't count or get you reduced mileage, AFAIK.)

LH Flight Credit
 

I find that LH is consistently difficult in posting mileage credit. Somehow, they always seem to "lose" your frequent flyer number.

Or I'll just remember that I got some unexpected bonus miles here and there and recognize that it pretty much comes out in the wash. Really, it's about $10 worth of miles -- how much of my time should I waste for $10? If there was any chance that the EQM would be a factor, or if there were some other benefits I might be missing out on, it could be worth it, but $10 doesn't buy much of my time.
Actually, it's L and T fares, according to United's web site, and that's only for intra-Europe travel. Apparently, all fares are eligible for 100% credit on travel outside of Europe.

E on LH is not like E on UA. E's LH's LOWEST discounted coach bucket. Don't know if it earns miles on UA. Make sure you're checking into LH E not UA E.

I relied on this page that clearly shows that LH E earns 100% miles. In fact, I specifically "bought up" to W on the outbound because the original flights I had chosen booked into L for the outbound. That price difference was only $30 or so.

Also, I'm sure I'm looking at LH booking classes on my ticket because I booked directly through LH.com -- the only UA involvement was my MP #.

Maybe United meant to include E as one of the exempt booking classes, but if that's the case, they need to fix their T&C. Obviously, they need to honor the terms they've laid out, and if they had told me that E was one of the excluded classes, there's a decent chance I would have bought up on the return, too.

Edited to add: I just checked the LH web site, and they have severely-reduced earnings (25%) on E and U booking classes, in addition to L and T. That reinforces my suspicion that UA meant to exclude E (and probably U), too. Also, E, L, and T seem to be available only on European flights, so I'm not sure why united.com excludes L and T "for intra-Europe travel" only. :confused:

On LH, I *think* E used to be higher up bucket, like E on UA. I think that recently changed. Perhaps, because of this, LH is no longer awarding miles for E. It's probably an out of date page on united.com (shocker!). Given E fares are the cheapest out there on LH, I wouldn't expect to earn miles.

This title of this post rang a bell with me, although I have considerable more miles at stake. I wasn't credited for a FRA-PVG flight in C on LH from this June.

It was rejected for credit because they said I didn't include my ticket receipt. In actually did include it, but I had made some many changes to my itinerary on this particular trip (it had 6 or 7 legs) and the way our corporate TA had the receipts was difficult to read.

As a result, I've been procrastinating fighting this for several months. Not logical, I know (particularly for this forum!)...

Well, now I'm really glad that I don't need the EQM. As I mentioned above, I'm not inclined to put that much effort into trying to get 500 RDM, but I might drop UA a note about it if my on-line submission is rejected.

I recently flew a LH RT FRA-TXL in E fare class, booked on Orbitz. Since Orbitz didn't let me put my MP number into the booking, I had the LH agent at checkin in FRA do it. The boarding pass showed UA*G. On the way back, the agent at the Senator lounge in Berlin noticed that my BP didn't show *G when I showed her my UA MP *G card. She tried to put in my MP # (same PNR!) and it didn't work. She said something like "Oh, I guess you don't get credit on award travel". When I pointed out that I had paid for the ticket, she said "E" class usually meant award travel. Since I was more desperate for coffee/breakfast than 500 miles at that time, I told her it was okay and I would deal with it later.

Two weeks have passed and neither flight has credited. So I guess I'll try the online system and -- if that doesn't work -- the MP fax number. Like the OP, I don't need the EQM since I have reached 1K already and have no chance of hitting another milestone.