United/Lufthansa - no miles credit for the Lufthansa legs?
 

My Lufthansa-operated flights this past March, booked through United, were never credited. When I submitted a mileage request form in June, all they credited me was the last United flight of the trip which they'd omitted on the original credit, but nothing for the Lufthansa flights, and no explanation. Is United no longer crediting miles for Lufthansa flights booked through United? (Sorry if this has already been asked and answered.)

Some low fare-basis Lufthansa intra-European flights don't earn mileage credit (see the chart here...it specifies no credit for T & L fares). But if you bought through United, you need to know the underlying Lufthansa fare code, which might be different than United's. It's hard to find that info, particularly after the fact, so you might try calling the Mileage Plus service center.

https://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/mar...spx?ItemId=298

That aside, there does appear to be a problem right now with eligible Lufthansa segments crediting automatically to Mileage Plus (according to one discussion on Flyertalk). I've had to request credit for two Lufthansa segments flown last month that did not post (and fare basis was not an issue in my case). I'm not sure what the problem is...I've flown lots of Lufthansa segments in the past and haven't had this problem before. You might try resubmitting the Lufthansa flights, and make sure you use the Lufthansa flight number and not a United code share flight number (that was an issue for someone on the FT discussion).

Okay. I'll try that. Thanks.

Years ago I learned the hard way that my Swiss flight from Zurich to Ohare would not earn miles with United because the fare I had paid was not a high enough fare bucket. I now make sure I am at least "s" fare on Swiss.

My guess is that you paid a discounted price that did not earn miles.

I hope you get lucky and find out that it was part ofthe glitch referred to by ms_go.

Well, I suppose $1,250 might be considered a discounted price these days. We'll see. What do you mean by at least "s" fare? Two that I'm looking for credit on are T, the third is K.

T and K are heavily discounted economy fares on United. From highest to lowest, United's economy fares are YBMEUHQVWSTLKG. But again, it's the operating carrier's corresponding fare class that matters, and I'm not sure how T and K on United map to Lufthansa's fare structure (it wouldn't surprise me if they were T/L fares). It's confusing...and hard to find that information without calling, unfortunately.

Are these all intra-European flights? As far as I know, a transatlantic flight should earn miles.

T and L tickets earn miles across the Atlantic Ocean but not within Europe.

One of the T flights is transatlantic.

Confusing is an understatement. Before I clicked the Submit button, the messages to the right of each flight entry said "We are currently unable to process your request. Please try again later." I pressed Submit anyway, and immediately received an email confirming receipt of the request. The only thing to do now is wait (another) 2 weeks and see what happens. I suspect this is all calculated to make people just not bother to claim their miles.

Update: I got all my miles.

For my trip San Francisco to India, the United mileageplus mileage credit did not get processed for the Lufthansa section of flight, but it was processed for the United sections. Has anyone else seen this ?

I got the following response from Mileage Plus :

In reviewing your flights from Los Angeles to Frankfurt to Bengaluru with Lufthansa, these flights were purchased on "K" booking classes. Lufthansa does not award MileagePlus® credit for this booking class for flights. We are sorry to disappoint you;MileagePlus credit will not be eligible for these flights.

Each partner sets the booking classes that will be eligible in the MileagePlus program. These booking classes are subject to change by each partner.

Please note that the booking class that appears on your passenger receipt or E-Ticket receipt may differ from the booking class that the operating airline uses to determine MileagePlus flight credit.

All Economy class tickets are identified with the generic letter "Y" on the boarding pass, regardless of the actual booking class of the Economy fare that was purchased. Similarly, the identification letter on boarding passes for Business class is a "C" and First class is an "F". The letter identifies the cabin of the aircraft in which you are seated.

For the most current classes of service, please visit United. Under “Earn Award Miles” in the MileagePlus tab, click on “Airline Partners”, then choose the partner airline from the list.

We realize that this can be very confusing, especially when it comes to earning miles. We hope that we have been able to fully explain your partner credit. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact Mileage Plus