LH doesn't want our money

[praa]

I know there are some readers out there with lots of experience with ticketing and associated T&C. If you have any advice, feel free to offer it.

A colleague booked a flight from Munich to LAX (in November) with Lufthansa through their website at the then cheapest available economy fare. About a week later, the boss decided that he could fly business after all and should upgrade his ticket. The LH hotline however tells him that with his fare, he can only cancel the economy ticket (incurring certain penalties) and then book a business ticket.

Now the logic of customer service tells me that if a customer approaches you and says he'd like to spend an additional EUR 2,300 you might want to help him do it. For if he has to cancel the ticket and is annoyed by your intransigence, he might rebook with another airline and find he's actually saving money, despite the penalty he's leaving at LH.

Has anyone got any arguments that might convince LH to keep an otherwise happy customer?

[Pteropsid]

LH, like many other airlines, has a number of special offers "no changes, no refunds( other than taxes and charges)" and it soulds like you've bought one of these.... so the first answer is hard "if it is cheap, there is bound to be snag :ugh:"

Talking to some hot line means that you get somebody with a list of faqs and the answers - whcih is why I call such things "The Unhelp Desk :mad:"...

Your travel agent, or your company travel agent, has a contact for a LH Agency Service Centre where one can get intelligent help - but first do a litle research and see what offers you can find in Business with one of the major carriers, and then pop the question about upgrading.

Good luck!

Pteropsid

[WHBM]

A principal reason is that, if this form of upgrade was accepted, it would form a backdoor route to make a cancellation of the original no-changes booking. Take a restricted fare, upgrade it to a full first class fare and pay the difference, then the next day cancel the whole thing and get the whole amount refunded.

[Hartington]

There are fares which offer no refund/no changes but which do permit upgrading. In such cases the upgraded ticket carries various caveats related to refunds. If the airline then refunds the whole value of the upgraded ticket without applying the required penalty then they have been hoist with their own petard (read the manual, terms, or in this case ticket).

[Pteropsid]

WHBM - there is no back-door here with "full refund"
- cardinal rule of ticket reissue ....
...original norefundable amounts remain non refundable
(Unwritten sentence ***Use it or lose it!*** belongs here:})
- whether additional money collected or not

[GroundedSLF]

Indeed - a lot of the upgraded tickets state "original fare penalties apply"

What I have always found works is to speak to a supervisor or manager in the sales department, and point out that you want to give LH more money, you dont mind the new ticket having the same restrictions as the old ticket, and you can also mention (if they say no) that you can get a refund of the taxes and fees, and just book XX airline in business for a cheaper fare.

Sales will normally find a way around most things - or better still book with a travel agent in the first palce and they should have contacts to get you round this type of thing.