 Poster: A snowHead
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Having said that everything has been OK for me so far, my crossed fingers are now proven to be of little use. Lufthansa have just informed me (1252) that my 0655 flight tomorrow morning is cancelled. Their system offers a button to rearrange the flight, which takes me to a list of options. All of them show departure today, from 1625 (I'd need to teleport to make that one) to 1910 - no option to change to a different flight tomorrow, even though Skyscanner tells me that they have an identical flight at 0725 which I can book now through Skyscanner for just £443... Oh, and they've also offered me a flight to Frankfurt with a connection on Sunday morning for a total travel time of 39 hours and 40 minutes 
Because it was an early departure, I have accommodation booked near Heathrow overnight plus a week's parking from tomorrow morning, so flying today means cancelling the hotel at LHR, modifying the parking booking, and trying to find accommodation somewhere between Munich and the Zillertal for tonight. Not that attractive, but I may have to take it.
Currently on hold with their "service" centre, trying to speak to someone who can explain why flying 12 hours earlier is preferable to flying 30 minutes later...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Eeks
Good luck getting through. It didn't offer to allow me to do anything online for my cancellation other than, Accept alternate offer or cancel and accept credit note
Once got through to somebody they were able to sort of resolve (aside from losing my hold luggage)
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Oh joy...
After 15 minutes on hold I got through to their team in India, and was offered a flight on Saturday evening, which is unacceptable. I told them that I could buy a seat on the 0725 flight online, but they said that their system showed that as closed - funnily enough, a refresh did indeed make that one vanish as well, so apparently it has also been cancelled, or other passengers had already nabbed the remaining seats.
I pushed for an alternative which would arrive before noon, and they offered two suggestions - 0600 via Zurich, or 0650 via Brussels, arriving at MUC at 1010 or 1115. With options limited, I've gone with the Zurich flight. I have a confirmation email showing that, but need to checkin again because of the change of flight details - so onto the Lufthansa app to do that, but there's a problem... the app and website now show my outbound flight as 1530 via Frankfurt , arriving 2140.
Going back to the email, it shows the status of the Zurich flight as "waitlist" - viewing the booking details again on the website, it says:
| Quote: |
Before you can continue, please check the following:
Unfortunately, your current flight itinerary is affected by a flight irregularity. Please check "Flight details" for more information. |
It seems they've put me on the reserve list for this flight... what a complete shambles  Their system hasn't got a clue whether I am coming or going, and at this point neither do I.
Back on hold again - remind me never to even say the word Lufthansa ever again
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@ousekjarr, FFS
Really hope it works out
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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It gets better - after a 30 minute wait in the check-in queue, we are told that our tickets are not valid and we have to go to the ticket office. This is one poor woman handling all of the issues and idiots, with a queue of 4 people.
20 minutes later, and with our rebooked flight now closed, I'm told that despite having a confirmation email showing tickets via Zurich to Munich the computer says we are booked via Frankfurt this afternoon.
How can their system be quite this screwed up?
I'm offered flights at 0900. With little option, I accept. And then I try to check in on the app, where it says "Seat selection is unavailable" - but check in eventually completes after reverifying the passport and Covid details I had already given them for the original flight, and which are saved in the app.
I now have boarding passes, but the seat allocation says "WL*" - and you guessed it, the app now says "you are on the waiting list for this flight". Not confirmed seats, and the waiting list is processed 40 minutes before departure.
NEVER AGAIN.
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@ousekjarr, oh no. Really sorry to read this. I hope you get out on the 9am one
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Finally some progress - back to the ticket office, where the queue was 15 deep but at least they now had two windows open. Gave up on that, went back to the check in queue, spoke to the supervisor and explained the long tale of woe, and he stepped behind the counter and discussed it with another guy. The wait list entry is because every flight they have out of Heathrow is full today, but he reckoned we had a fair chance of making the 0900.
I explained that the ticket office told me I was confirmed on the flight, so having a standby slot wasn't good enough.
30 seconds later he produced two printed boarding passes, with seat numbers - and as they're in row 8 I presume we've been bumped to business class.
Now checked in, through security in 3 minutes, and awaiting boarding. The flight is shown as 20 minutes late, but I'll take that.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@ousekjarr, yay!!! However I selected row 8 for my outbound (and return flight initially but lost it when it was cancelled) being the closest to front that I didn't need to pay extra for.
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And we have arrived...
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I think with this and BA it shows why the "no frills" carriers are marginally better as they have modern systems - I suspect most airlines are steam (batch, remember that computer buffs) driven rather than real and proper online systems and they have sort of bolted modern looking front ends on - like many older UK banks.
Batch systems by their nature only update on a batch basis, rather than real time, say hourly or daily.
Having read all this it merely confirms my view that one does take risks with any of the airlines, other pages have covered cancellations at little notice by many others. I have travelled Eurowings and Swiss before to get free ski carriage but now wonder whether I am wise to do so in the future (and anyway at 60 something carting skis around has become rather too much hassle).
...and then I used to drive and reading about the Dover hassles, Le Shuttle's technical problems etc puts me off that as well. Mind you remember a happy four or five hours bobbing around outside Dover in a hoolie waiting for the ferry to be allowed in to dock in the middle of the night.
Has travel genuinely just got more tiresome since covid or I am I just getting older? Both 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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...and well done with your persistence
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So pleased to hear @ousekjarr, my trepidation is getting higher for my journey a week tomorrow
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You know it makes sense.
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| Alastair Pink wrote: |
| ousekjarr wrote: |
- anyone between the ages of 12 and 17 travelling out of the UK has to be booked on the Lufthansa system as an adult, which then causes them to be charged £13 for Air Passenger Duty even though this applies to adults only. When you specify the age of the traveller, a small note pops up advising you that you need to contact the service centre to arrange for a refund of the APD for that passenger, as the system is unable to cope with this level of complexity.
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That's ridiculous! |
Its crazy that any system can’t handle this. Same with Swiss Air, unsurprisingly, as they are part of the same group. Must keep their call centres busy which takes capacity away from real calls. I was told to only request the refund after the journey on Swiss was completed as sometimes the system takes their request for a refund and cancels the whole booking
But, even when part of the same group, at least Swiss don’t need notice to bring a ski bag and it’s included in non-Lite fares as well.
Nor are they bad at answering the phone ( had to call to reschedule after Switzerland banned UK visitors at Xmas), somewhere in the Philippines I think.
The best at answering phones through this whole pandemic I’ve found has been Aer Lingus, they could teach their stablemate BA something about customer service.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@ster, Swiss were terrible on the phone yesterday. Much better going through facebook- then someone in Zurich calls you.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Another warning. When you try and check in using website it then reports page not found. Follow link from email, that doest work
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, I'm back home and the return flight was relatively smooth in comparison - checked in the day before, changed our seats to an empty row since some muppet decided they really wanted to sit beside us, got an email from Lufthansa asking us to arrive early due to ongoing delays at Munich, and planned accordingly.
Our outbound "compact" rental car turned out to be nothing of the sort - after all of the rearrangements, Europcar informed me that they had no cars left, but as they were contracted to provide me a vehicle they would do so. They handed over a set of VW keys, directed us to the car park to collect it, and gave us the paperwork. It turned out their first attempt at a "compact" car was a VW Caravelle, all 9 seats of it, but as that showed an oil warning light as soon as I put the keys in I trudged back to the desk to reject it and asked if they had anything smaller. Their answer was a simple no - so I got the keys to a Mercedes Vito instead with another 9 seats but this was even bigger. Seemed a little excessive for 2 people, but we did briefly discuss setting up a local taxi business for Snowbombing in the hope that we'd cover the cost of the hire in a few days 
On return, I was very aware of the warning sticker on the windscreen declaring it to be 2.1m high, so when we got to the rental return entrance and found a 2.0m barrier with large warning signs I was convinced there had to be a different location for oversize vehicles. An attempted call to their help centre was dropped by their automated system twice, so I gave up on that and got out and stood by the side of the vehicle. Yes, it was taller than me, but I wasn't convinced that it was 2.1m - at the bottom of the sticker was a line which said something like "HWL 1.89m 2.05m 5.4m" which I guessed gave the actual height, width and length of the vehicle, so we crawled up to the barrier and my passenger got out and had a look. He was convinced we'd make it, with about 10cm to spare, so we inched forward and cleared the bar. Drop-off was then simple, but by now it was less than 90 minutes to our flight.
Check-in with a ski bag was simple once we were directed to the correct desk for outsize bags, and the bag drop one along couldn't have been easier, so we approached security with some trepidation. Three minutes later we were through - no queue, no fuss, and they now allow liquids, laptops and tablets to be left in the bag at Munich so much less hassle than previously.
We were at the gate 5 minutes after it was announced, the aircraft had apparently been there for 90 minutes and was waiting for us with the crew already on board, but the departure time was missed by 30 minutes due to a lack of gate staff to open up and check us through. There were a couple of announcements explaining the delay, and when the staff did arrive we were boarded quickly.
Heathrow T2 proved both very good and very bad on this occasion - passport control was 7-8 minutes, and on arriving at baggage reclaim our standard sized bag was already on the carousel. The ski bag however had to be collected from the end of the baggage hall, from belt 11 or 12. We got there to find a lot of bags lying around, none of them mine. There was no indication of which flights had been delivered, so all we could do was wait. After 30 minutes, I assumed it had been lost or not loaded in Munich, and went to find the Lufthansa baggage desk to register it missing. The sole person on duty (at 2330) angrily declared it present in the terminal, and told us to go back to 11/12 to check for it. We explained that we had already checked, and it wasn't there. Then the penny dropped - he asked if there were any bags on the belts. Yes, of course there were - several of them on each belt, with no owners in sight. He told us we had to remove everything from the belts to allow the next load to be fed through. Sure enough, once we'd personally removed 6 bags, the startup warning sounded and the belt kicked into life, delivering two sets of skis and a baby buggy from the Munich flight, including my bag. Once they were removed, two more appeared.
It seems that this is a fully automated system, which is incapable of coping with people. It needs either airport staff removing bags from the belts (what happens if I drop someone's box marked Fragile, or injure myself removing the 45Kg bag???), or at the very least a sign to say that all items must be removed from the belt before more luggage will be delivered. Technological solutions are all very well, but they have to work in reality - the Luton equivalent of two big guys shoving bags through a side door is pretty Victorian, but it is significantly cheaper and more effective.
As a result of this delay, we missed the last bus back to our parking. A £20 taxi later we were able to collect our car at midnight and start the 90 minute drive home, arriving a full hour later than hoped.
Will I use Lufthansa again? No, not unless there is no alternative. Easyjet is my normal first choice, and while they also have their problems, their systems are typically slick and reliable and they try hard to discourage you from ever having to phone them by making everything visible and accessible in the app and website, while Lufthansa seems to be the reverse. The flights themselves were fine - A320neo aircraft, comfortable, good service, and the parts of their IT system which worked well (app for checkin, boarding pass and gate notification, email alerts for gate notification and for luggage receipts) were good. It doesn't quite make up for the dire state of their booking system and the cancellation, and while the delay on the return was due to the airport rather than the carrier, it's still a negative customer experience.
My EU 261 claim for the outbound journey will be started today. I have no doubt that it will prove a painful experience, but they're not getting away with it.
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