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Discover Airlines out of its Frankfurt Hub, avoid at all costs. Way too many issues.

This is a review of Discover Airlines which used to be called Eurowings Discover which is a subsidiary of Lufthansa and I know many will dismiss this as a "revenge review" but honestly there were so many issues with our recent flight that the Rick Steve's community needs to be aware of the issues regarding this airline particularly out of it's Frankfurt hub. Furthermore, I usually have a thick skin and never complain but our experience with this airline was over the top.

I wasn't familiar with the airline but we recently used them on 26 September 2025 to complete a roundtrip United reservation to Dubrovnik on premium economy. Frankfurt with its bus transfers between gates and aircrafts is a challenging airport on a good day but Discover Airlines compounds this issue with poor communication and disorganization.

First of all, they lack a stand alone application and the Lufthansa app is just is a path to a buggy website for non-existent seat choice and difficult to obtain boarding passes. And phone customer service gets a remote call center with disinterested employees.

What made this problematic for us was a seat reassignment to bulk head seats without our knowledge. Some like these seats for more leg room but the sacrifice is under seat stowage of course.

The boarding at the gate was crazy disorganized, the most disorganized boarding process I have ever witnessed and this was similarly expressed by every person around us.

The stewards and food were adequate but not exceptional.

But my wife is Asian and as I was dealing with her carry-on luggage ahead of her, she was held back by a male steward who blocked her exit in an unfriendly matter and refused to address her while letting other passengers who were seated behind her to exit while thanking them and providing towels to them. Neither of which was offered to her.

I was puzzled why she didn't exit the plane behind me promptly. I was unaware what happened and she only confided to me much later about what happened. She, like me, is not a complainer and very personable. We don't use the term likely but the only explanation to us that seems reasonable is that she was discriminated against because of her race.

And to top it off our luggage was not transferred to the flight despite a greater than 4 hour layover. And the Orlando Discover representatives at the baggage claim first claimed it was our mistake.

We got our bags four days later badly scuffed up and one was damaged.

Don't repeat our mistake.

Don't use this airline out of Frankfurt if one can avoid it.

Posted by
48 posts

I am sorry to hear you had a bad experience.

We've travelled with Discover a number of times; it's one of the few airlines offering direct service from our hometown to Frankfurt, so the connections are good. It's Lufthansa's leisure/budget carrier, so we set our expectations accordingly.

Just wanted to note that i've had two occasions to ask Discover for a refund, and was more than satisfied both times. Once I prepaid for seats that didn't exist in a reconfigured aircraft. And once our flight was cancelled, delaying our return home 24 hours. In the first case, they refunded my seat fees immediately when I asked. In the second, they provided overnight accommodation + transport to the hotel + dinner. We needed to buy a few items for overnight as well as a meal at the airport -- none of which they are obliged to cover. Nevertheless, they covered all of the extra costs and issued the refund owing under EU Regulation 261/2004 within a couple of weeks.

Discover's website regarding customer complaints: "If a passenger has an unsatisfactory experience on one of our flights or with one of our employees, they may file a complaint with our Customer Relations Department. Every customer complaint will be read by a member of our staff and acknowledged in writing within 30 days of the complaint’s receipt. If our initial acknowledgement does not fully address the concerns raised by the customer, we will send a substantive written response to the customer within 60 days."
Here's where to send a written complaint: https://www.lufthansa.com/us/en/help-and-contact.

regards.

Posted by
3029 posts

I am confused about the relationship between Lufthansa and Discover. The flight out of Philly on Lufthansa now carries a dual number with Discover., along with the LH number I have used on 5 trips. We booked it last year on the Lufthansa website, as always. The plane was the same Airbus for the flight to Frankfurt, other than they have ditched the Airbus 340 for 330s, still the same preferred 2-4-2 seating that we love in coach. Where this broke sown for us was in Frankfurt Airport. Rather than Lufthansa's A Concourse the 330s used something between C and D, making for some hellacious extra walking, especially when our incoming return ran late. And the biggest shock -when we were finally delivered to our gate, it was a gate solely for proceeding down to the buses -which then bused us over to an actual gate and jetway. I don't recall being given any flak about our carry-ons.