United ticket (016), Lufthansa flights, NO miles?
 

As a loyal United flyer for several years, I was shocked to find that two recent flights ticketed on United but flown on Lufthansa received NO miles. I've flown both these routes in the past and had no issues. Sometimes the intra-European flights have been an issue, but I have always received mileage for ovserseas international flights.

Ticket information as follows (both start with 016, meaning ticketed through United):
IST MUC 4/15/2015 K
MUC BOS 4/15/2015 K

After several exchanges with customer service, this is the response I received:
"""""Thanks for participating in the MileagePlus® program!

Not all Lufthansa fare classes are eligible for earnings. Fare classes not listed on the Lufthansa earnings chart are not eligible for mileage credit, regardless of where the ticket is purchased. Also, some classes of service offer less than 100% mileage.

For complete accrual details for Lufthansa flights, please visit the Airline Partners and Global Alliancespage and click on the Lufthansa logo."""""

According to that chart, since I am a silver member, I am entitled to 7x fare miles. What gives? I thought the only time that you wouldn't accrue miles is if it wasn't issued on a United ticket and wasn't an eligible fare class on Lufthansa.

What's the point of buying it on a United ticket if you can't even get ANY miles? How can they get away with this? As far as I am concerned, the chart is wildly misleading because it doesn't indicate that you have to purchase certain fare classes, even if you are booking on a United ticket.

Do I have any recourse here? Any advice? Thanks.

Alison

K class flights haven't accrued United miles on Lufthansa flights for several years. I don't know when you've been flying, but K fares, even though they aren't the cheapest fares, no longer accrue United miles.

This isn't that unusual, at least not in the past. For flights to Asia, booked on American, Cathay Pacific flights accrued miles on their own system, not on AAdvantage. Nor for a long time did British Airways flights booked through American and supposedly part of the program. I only realized when the miles on both failed to appear. I believe BA miles do now count as AAdvantage miles, don't know about Cathay Pacific. I agree, it's a chickens--t way of doing business.

This happened to me on a flight from Zurich to Istanbul two years ago on a flight I purchased on the United website back when they said all flights earn miles when purchased on our website. They no longer make those claims.

Watch those codes carefully. I just purchased a flight from Frankfurt to Montpellier France for $80 one way on the United website. No miles but for $80, a great deal. Hope I have lounge access.

I assume the flight numbers are LH on your ticket, not UA codeshare, right?

This is about South African Airways and United miles but please bear with me. A friend of mine flew SAA and got no United points for that. She was expecting around 20,000 miles for that trip and she was shocked when she received nothing. She called and she was told that this was because of the class of ticket she had purchased. I don't know the letter code of her ticket but I would imagine it was a discounted ticket.

I know this doesn't help you much but don't feel alone.

The OP is brand new -- registered to post her question. I hope she isn't waiting to hear from Fodors that there are responses. Often happens unfortunately . . .

The OP also posted this on flyertalk and had some discussion with others on it.

It won't help in this case, but for future reference...

The e-ticket receipts, which come via e-mail and/or are accessible online as soon as the reservation is ticketed, now itemize the Mileage Plus accrual, including redeemable miles and Premier qualifying miles, segments, and dollars. I'm sure it isn't fool proof (for example, accrual rules could change between purchase and flight), but I always double check it right away, particularly when there is another Star Alliance carrier involved, to make sure there are no surprises. If I saw a "0" when I was expecting to earn miles, I'd call and clarify within 24 hours of purchase, while I could still cancel without penalty.

The airlines defend themselves by printing a contract of carriage or two (often when you buy two tickets you get different rules, written in almost incomprehensible styles, so you need a lawyer to find out what you are buying. In April we visited Switzerland, and they broke with their traditions by telling one flight (they apparently couldn't tell which of the four flights it was) did not earn miles, but after we returned they made an un-announced change and we ended up with our miles.

My pet peeve is when they list a flight as having no meal (usually they actually do serve a meal). But it worries me as I am diabetic, and have to be careful with my diet.

I don't understand why, in such an automated system, they cannot give you essential information, but choose to hide that information as best they can.

Once I bought two tickets; I thought they were identical, but then they gave my wife miles, with none to me. We negotiated this for weeks, until I asked them how they had elected to give my wife miles, when I had actually bought the tickets. They were charitable and gave me equal miles.

the rules for airlines these days SUCK. Thanks for the deregulations! Nothing is simply anymore when flying.

No one forces anyone to sign up for miles. Miraculously, one can still fly to a destination without joining any FF program.

> the rules for airlines these days SUCK.
> Thanks for the deregulations!

There were no frequent flyer programs before deregulation. And, fares were set by the federal government, and the airlines were not allowed to undercut the fixed prices. It was only <i>after</i> deregulation that fares decreased and frequent flyer programs were introduced.

We got taken on this one this past March and didn't get the tons of miles we thought we'd have been due on a flight from Bangalore to the US. After that experience I'm pretty much done with United since their website, when booking, gave me no easy clue that (a) we couldn't book seats on Lufthansa until 23 hours prior to the flight, an (b) we accrued no miles at all.