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Lufthansa, Advance Seat Reservation

Posted by (PA) on

I just thought I would add what I just experienced with Lufthansa and economy seat choice. We fly out tomorrow from Philadelphia to London via Frankfurt on Lufthansa, in economy. We purchased these tix back in August (amazingly, $820 each roundtrip, returning from Amsterdam) and did not pay extra for the seats. We have been watching the seating chart since then, and noticed that a bunch of economy seats were already marked out, but this did not seem to change much with time. Noticed on Sunday, just before they froze out seat selection for the first flight, that MORE seats were open. I was sitting here at the computer and out of curiosity clicked on "online check-in" at about 2 hours early (flight is 5:45, this shouldn't have started until 6:45 PM) and it let me in.

And here's the big thing I am reporting. There were a lot more seats available than we had been watching. We could choose from the first row of coach and most of the way back. In fact, that's what it gave us, row 22, we moved back one row since seatguru pointed out some issues with the first row behind the bulkhead. Similar results with our connector to London.

Now this might not hold exactly for all their long-haul flights, but it looks like most people are not paying for their seat assignment and that one can wait it out.

Posted by
4402 posts

this is pretty much SOP now on all airlines.When you book they say you can choose your seat but most of them are unavailable - not because they're taken, but because they're holding back inventory that they are hoping they can sell to you later.

Also be aware that they are now claiming that a seat reservation does not in fact reserve you the exact seat you selected, just a seat somewhere on the plane. Esp. if they change plane types on you , then all bets are off. If you specifically want/need to sit near someone, you must go to great lengths to make that happen.

Posted by
506 posts

We booked flights from San Francisco to Rome, on United. Our out bound flight lands in Frankfurt and we have a 2hr flight to Rome. Of all four legs of the flight we cannot get seats yet for that little leg of our whole trip. We have had this many times. Most Short haul European airlines won't assign those seat until very close to the flight. They think Americans are crazy for wanting all these seat selection. We have never had a problem and always had great seats sitting with our partners.

Posted by
432 posts

I know this is not following the topic of this thread, but just a comment about bulkhead seats -- we selected these a couple of times and were very pleased with them. My husband is quite tall with long legs, so leg room is a huge issue for us. There is room to stretch out and the great thing is that you don't have to worry about anyone walking in front of you. We selected the emergency exit row seats in the middle section on one flight, and will NEVER do that again. While there is lots of room for your legs, every Tom, Dick and Harry used it as a pathway to the other aisles. Very frustrating and annoying to have people trip over your feet, block your vision while you're watching a movie, or in your way while you're trying to reach for something in the pocket of the seat in front of you. It was amazing how many people were annoyed when we asked them not to block our area. Now back to the thread --- we've had a similar experience with Lufthansa. While the results ended up being good for us, the experience was a bit frustrating - pre flight stressing about getting good seats in time added to all the other stresses of flying.

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