Economy Light on Lufthansa ?

Recently got caught with an intra-European Swiss Air flight and found out at Zurich that we had to pay 45 CHF for a checked bag since it was "Swiss Economy Light" flight. They are partners with Lufthansa. Welcome to the new normal.

My ticket for our upcoming Lufthansa flight, which I bought last Fall, says: "You have booked the Light fare. It entitles you to only one carry-on bag" However, later on it lists one free checked bag for each of us. It also lists the fare as Economy(K). I'll see what happens in 2 weeks, although we're planning to go only with carry-on going over anyway. Maybe one free bag was the rule in effect when I bought the tickets.

Does this correspond with what people have brought on board for Economy Light?

In a word, no. Lufthansa has always allowed one single carry on bag at 8 kg and one personal item. It was that way when I first flew on them in 2009.

US Domestic economy light is one single bag that fits under the seat. This is essentially personal item only travel.

In the end, each airline has their version of “economy light”. You’ll need to look that up on the airline website before you purchase your ticket.

We flew Lufthansa RT to Frankfurt in October of 2017. We both carried on going over, but on the way back, my partner checked her bag, and she had to pay for checking it. I don't recall what the ticket was, but it sounds like it must have been Economy Light.

I just completed an economy class open jaw trip from Seattle-Amsterdam and Rome-Seattle, both via Frankfurt on Lufthansa, and I did carry a Rick Steves Euro Flight Bag on board. They did not weigh it nor size it, in fact they barely looked at it long enough to put a baggage tag on it. The baggage tag requested that you “please place this bag under the seat in front of you”. I have a second, smaller bag that I carry in my Euro bag containing those items I might need in flight. It is similar in size to a purse/laptop case. When boarding starts I pull it out and carry both on board so that I can throw the Euro bag in the overhead compartment with little delay. I had no problem carrying both on board. I did check my main bag though.

With a base fare of $543 and traveling in the month of March I decided not to pay the $120 they wanted for seat selections. On all four flights I was able to get a window seat at the back of the aircraft, my preferred seat location. I am not doing that for my upcoming trip in May however.

By the way be sure and download the Lufthansa App. You can request a pdf ticket via email that you can print and use, or open the pdf file on your phone and use that, or there is a link in the email to download the ticket into their app and use that. After downloading my pdf ticket into their app, when I arrived at Frankfurt it had detailed walking directions on how to get to the gate of my next flight, and it was the most bizarre route I have experienced involving three elevators close to each other!

Thanks for the input! We will each get a free checked bag on the United flight over on Wednesday (paid for the flight with a co-branded credit card) but coming back it's Lufthansa to Munich then United home from Munich so it's under Lufthansa rules. Sorting out which bags to take to meet both airlines' rules under the new "Economy Basic" program. And once I figure it out ... they'll change the rules again!