Hello, I'm new to the forum and also new to European travel. I'm actually not a very experienced traveler in the first place....and I have a few newby issues and questions I'm hoping experienced travelers can help me with as I gear-up for an approaching trip. Warning, some of my questions will sound really stupid to veteran travelers I'm sure!
First off, a little preliminary info for you. I'll be traveling through Belgium, Germany and Czechia for two weeks, staring in late October. I booked Premium Economy flights on Expedia through United Airlines, which takes me from Denver, through Newark and arriving in Brussels. No issues there as I was able to choose my seats and all looks fine. Most of the issues I'm having seems to be related to the fact that United uses a "partner" airline, Lufthansa. My return flights are all operated by Lufthansa, starting in Prague, changing planes in Frankfurt then straight back to Denver .
My first set of questions - Reserving my seats with Lufthansa: United tells me I need to contact Lufthansa for this. Makes sense, but there's no way to do that online. So I called Lufthansa customer support. The conversation was difficult since the agent had a rich German accent. It seemed like she was prepared to reserve seats for me (I only really cared about the long 11 hour leg of the journey; the second flight that departs Frankfurt). We found a Premium Economy seat that I liked, but she then proceeded to tell me she could not book the seat because "the flight had not yet been ticketed". She also said that when a ticket has been issued, I'd need to contact Expedia to get the seat assignment since that is the issuing agency for my flights. I contacted Expedia, and they tell me this is not true, and that I'd need to get the seat assignment from Lufthansa. So I guess my actual questions are:
1.) can I get a seat assignment now for my flights that happen in early November? 2.) What does it mean that the tickets have not been issued and when would this happen? Other things that I've read online suggest that ticketing won't actually happen until I can check-in for my flight, 23 hours from departure. Is this true? 3.) Should I be using a separate confirmation code when dealing with Lufthansa? When I was actually able to logon to the Lufthansa website, I found a "booking code" that was different than the "Confirmation number" issued for my trip by United.
My second set of questions - Checking-in with Lufthansa: The Lufthansa app on my phone doesn't seem to work very well since I've yet to be able to actually register an account on the app. It will accept NO password that I choose and often tells me that I need to enter a valid email address as well (my email address IS valid!). The only way I've been able to find a way to potentially check-in for my flights is to jump online and access the www.lufthansa.com website. This is a little awkward and i'd prefer to have a working app since I assume my boarding pass will be a barcode on my phone (correct?). So I guess my questions are:
1.) what would be the best way to check-in for my return flights on Lufthansa? If I check-in on the website, will they send me a barcode on my phone? 2.) what is the "automated check-in" from Lufthansa? When i've traveled in the past, it was imperitive that you CHECK-IN, starting 24 hours prior to the flight. The description on the website sounds like it is "automatic". The one time I didn't manually check-in for a flight, my seat was sold to someone else and I was not able to board my flight.
Thanks in advance to any and all bits of wisdom anyone can offer!
First off, a little preliminary info for you. I'll be traveling through Belgium, Germany and Czechia for two weeks, staring in late October. I booked Premium Economy flights on Expedia through United Airlines, which takes me from Denver, through Newark and arriving in Brussels. No issues there as I was able to choose my seats and all looks fine. Most of the issues I'm having seems to be related to the fact that United uses a "partner" airline, Lufthansa. My return flights are all operated by Lufthansa, starting in Prague, changing planes in Frankfurt then straight back to Denver .
My first set of questions - Reserving my seats with Lufthansa: United tells me I need to contact Lufthansa for this. Makes sense, but there's no way to do that online. So I called Lufthansa customer support. The conversation was difficult since the agent had a rich German accent. It seemed like she was prepared to reserve seats for me (I only really cared about the long 11 hour leg of the journey; the second flight that departs Frankfurt). We found a Premium Economy seat that I liked, but she then proceeded to tell me she could not book the seat because "the flight had not yet been ticketed". She also said that when a ticket has been issued, I'd need to contact Expedia to get the seat assignment since that is the issuing agency for my flights. I contacted Expedia, and they tell me this is not true, and that I'd need to get the seat assignment from Lufthansa. So I guess my actual questions are:
1.) can I get a seat assignment now for my flights that happen in early November? 2.) What does it mean that the tickets have not been issued and when would this happen? Other things that I've read online suggest that ticketing won't actually happen until I can check-in for my flight, 23 hours from departure. Is this true? 3.) Should I be using a separate confirmation code when dealing with Lufthansa? When I was actually able to logon to the Lufthansa website, I found a "booking code" that was different than the "Confirmation number" issued for my trip by United.
My second set of questions - Checking-in with Lufthansa: The Lufthansa app on my phone doesn't seem to work very well since I've yet to be able to actually register an account on the app. It will accept NO password that I choose and often tells me that I need to enter a valid email address as well (my email address IS valid!). The only way I've been able to find a way to potentially check-in for my flights is to jump online and access the www.lufthansa.com website. This is a little awkward and i'd prefer to have a working app since I assume my boarding pass will be a barcode on my phone (correct?). So I guess my questions are:
1.) what would be the best way to check-in for my return flights on Lufthansa? If I check-in on the website, will they send me a barcode on my phone? 2.) what is the "automated check-in" from Lufthansa? When i've traveled in the past, it was imperitive that you CHECK-IN, starting 24 hours prior to the flight. The description on the website sounds like it is "automatic". The one time I didn't manually check-in for a flight, my seat was sold to someone else and I was not able to board my flight.
Thanks in advance to any and all bits of wisdom anyone can offer!
