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Lufthansa seat FRA - to ATH keeps disappearing

All, posting here b/c it relates to just the FRA/ATH and ATH/FRA legs of our trip. I am frustrated to tears at this point and cannot get help from Lufthansa. We leave in a few days and I thought I would post a Hail Mary question here since there are a lot of seasoned travelers in this group...

Booked a ticket through UAL for our trip to Athens from Chicago. Lufthansa is a Star Alliance Partner, so they operate two legs of our trip under their flight. numbers.

There are six legs: ORD-FRA, FRA-ATH, ATH-JTR, JTR-ATH, ATH-FRA and then FRA-ORD. The FRA-ATH and ATH-FRA are LH flights.

Paid for seats on Lufthansa. All set, right? NO, the seats on the FRA-ATH and ATH-FRA legs keep disappearing.

Eight calls to Lufthansa! On hold for 3- to 70 (!) minutes each time! And actually, on hold with them as I write this.

Each time LH reports, no worries, it is "fixed," but then day or two later, the seats are gone. I have called UAL three times, all three times they say we are booked, confirmed, nothing looks off on their end. My United and LH apps both show the flights are confirmed, we have seats on four legs that have stayed in place.

In short, Lufthansa says everything is fine, all set, end the call, then poof, seats are gone! This is not an equipment change, BTW.

Help? Anyone encounter this before? Short of driving out to OHare and talking to a Lufthansa ticket counter at the airport, I am not sure what to do. Thank you!

Posted by
6 posts

I'm so sorry you are dealing with this. It also happened to me. A Lufthansa flight purchased through United but I paid for seats directly through LH. After the 4th time of them losing my seat assignment and me calling and getting no explanation, I just bought seats again. Those have not disappeared yet after a few weeks but I check regularly. I'm planning to take both receipts to the airport and see if I can get a refund but don't know if that will work.

Posted by
310 posts

Thank you so much for letting me know it is not just me! I just spoke with Lufthansa again. And, once again, everything is in order, the agent has no clue why this is happening.

If my seats disappear again, will try your suggestion. I also found a thread on this on some FlyerTalk blog, but no solution noted. In any event, the seat map for our flight shows a lot of seats so I think we will be ok. It is just hassle that gets in way of enjoying the anticipation.

Safe and happy travels to you!

Posted by
11879 posts

Rather than buying a 2nd set of seats I would be inclined to print out my 'proof of purchase' and the itinerary that shows the seats.

Then if there is a problem at the airport you can show you bought them. Puts the burden on them to 'make it right'.