This story is absolutely wild, and it shows an unbelievable level of pettiness on the part of Lufthansa. At the same time, the airline kind of shot itself in the foot, as a judge ruled in favor of the passenger, forcing the airline to change its policy (thanks to Oskiboski for flagging this).
Continue reading: Lufthansa Crew Rats Out Top Tier Flyer, And It Ends Poorly For Airline
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Interesting, it is bizarre that a FA decided to snitch, when they have no obligation and little incentive to do so, perhaps it's just German culture to be a stickler for rules perhaps.
Regardless, this is a positive outcome, I do also think there probably are reasonable things that could be required to show proof of intent of following through on the original ticket, i.e. hotel bookings, reservations, etc.
Incredible. The fact, the FA would take the time to report this to her higher-ups within Lufthansa blows me away.
You wrote from Greece to Saudi Arabia via Germany. Should it say from Saudi Arabia to Greece?
@ JD -- It was a roundtrip ticket from Greece to Saudi Arabia. The portion from Saudi Arabia to Greece was the return flight.
I think it’s a matter of time until hidden city/throwaway ticketing is explicitly allowed. And airlines will adapt just as they did without change fees.
The real question is what happens when the passenger skips the second or third segment but wants to utilise the rest of the ticket.
This also applies to any other airline operating in the German market.
They may have not updated their T&C, but the courts won't have different opinions.
Interestingly, this would seemingly allow even skipping the first segment of a ticket, as opposed to the typical practice of ditching the last one.
So typically German - obsess about the minutiae of rules and tie yourself up in knots trying to the follow them beyond any semblance of practicality or common sense. This couldn’t have happened to a more deserving company!
So very "curtain twitching" and "busy-body" . Many police mysteries are answered by canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses of anything unusual .
Doesn't this also mean that Lufthansa will see significant new losses in future as a result of people now being allowed to drop segments owing to changed circumstances? So, in their petty effort to get EUR414 from a highly loyal elite traveler, they've probably lost millions of euros.
I have a current payment issue with condor.
They double charged me for the prime seat. I paid the cost to select the seat upon check in online. Got the boarding pass for the prime seat.
Upon check in. Condor says they want 500 euros to fly for the prime seat. I’m like I paid for it. Here’s the receipt you issued. Classic German CS. Pay it cuz system says so. Or you don’t fly.
I paid it just cuz to get home. Deal with it later.
Condor CS refused to anknoledge any original online payment despite sending them their own receipts. So. They won’t refund anything.
Disputed with BofA. They sided in my favor. Thinking….ok done.
4 days letter I get a demand letter form condor revenue management saying there was a charge back of the entire amount(including the amount they say I never paid them all of the sudden). They want payment in 4 days or they will escalate and send to court and collections.
I sent all my documentation back to them. And they said. They demand money from customers who dispute CC charges. I’m like. That’s not in your merchant agreement. You can’t go after the customer if you lose with the CC processor.
This is where it stands. I paid nothing extra. But am I gonna get a bailiff in California all of the sudden or arrested upon entry to Germany?!?
Ben. If you want the full documentation. Email me. It’s also on flyertalk too.
Help would be appreciated.
Some years ago I was disembarking a LH flight from FRA-IAD, and the A330 parked at a remote stand. There were two moon buses that pulled up: one at the front door for first and business class, one at the rear for the back of the plane. I was hanging out by the front of the front door moon bus, and we were just standing there, and after the final FA boarded, she told me that someone on the flight had a laptop stolen, and that the police were going to be involved, and would likely make everyone open their bags for a check.
I didn't have the heart to tell her that no, that wasn't going to happen.
But I thought it remarkable that she didn't give it a second thought that police could simply search people's bags because they wanted to. Because I don't know German law, but in the USA, er...no. No they can't.
Is that a German thing? I don't know. I realize that this isn't analogous to telling on someone for not using their ticket segments in the order that they're issued, but it does show a blind allegiance to rules and perceived authority. Very strange.
To clarify. I still paid the amount of the online check in price for the seat. So I’m not asking for a full refund. I was still net charged the amount offered and paid via online check in.
I flew LH without issue, transatlantic a couple of times a year, for a decade or so pre-Covid. I'm not German, but I must look sufficiently so because staff always warmly greated me as such and were generally helpful and pleasant to my family and I.
One bad experience in 2022 started to sour that positive option. Flying through Frankfunt in first, I was refused entry to any of the lounges due to the Paul Ehrlich Institute guidance on vaccines (mine didn't count to them apparently). So despite having all approved paperwork checked with the airline in advance they gave me few options except sitting by the gate. Not entirely their fault but it was handled poorly imo.
Then a couple of years later, my family and I were subjected to monströsefraukaren flight attendant manager who gave our ticked seats away, threatened family members, generally behaved power mad. The airline could have cared less in response. Sucks, but I'll never make the mistake of giving them money ever again.
Airline check in systems generally verify this provided you are on the same carrier.
So if for example London- Frankfurt - Athens and you no showed London Frankfurt then apart from the fact the system will cancel the onward flight the staff at FRA would penalise you. However if you can provide evidence after the fact, you could ask them to reimburse you once you’ve travelled. I wouldn’t argue with the staff at the airport.
If you bought a new ticket say Rome Frankfurt on LH to connect FRA ATH it’s in
their interest commercially.
If you buy your ticket in Italy / on an Italian portal commencing in Italy you can use tickets in non sequential order. However the vast majority of people don’t do that.
Moreover if frequent fliers do this all
the time then it’s not an exception so the airline could penalise them. It’s recorded. If someone buys dozens of tickets a year and did it once, give them the benefit of the doubt. Germans are also notoriously litigious and far now so than Americans as they have access to legal representation via insurance.
Perhaps you should call it "Getting Spohr'd" Ben. A Lufthansa flight attendant informing on a HON Circle passenger to revenue enforcement. Over €414. During a family medical emergency.
One might call it Stasi-lite, but that would be unfair to the Stasi, who at least had the excuse of serving a totalitarian regime rather than Carsten Spohr's bottom line.
The delicious irony: in their pursuit of pocket change from a top-tier customer, Lufthansa managed to lose in court and establish legal precedent preventing them from penalizing any German or Austrian resident for skipping segments due to changed circumstances. Millions in potential future revenue sacrificed to extract €414 from a loyal passenger in crisis. Brilliant.
This comes as Miles & More announces "exciting changes" featuring dynamic award pricing tied to cash fares while maintaining saver-level availability restrictions. Translation: awards cost more, remain equally impossible to find, and Lufthansa expects applause. Meanwhile, they're installing two different business class products on the same 747s because apparently over-engineering Allegris wasn't complicated enough.
The pattern is unmistakable. Collective punishment of Jewish passengers. Attempted AirTag bans when customers documented lost luggage. Spohr's security team investigating a 21-year-old aviation fan for "spying" after the kid asked for a selfie and made a cardboard cutout. And now crew members trained to rat on even their best passengers.
Spohr has successfully transformed a premium carrier into a surveillance operation car crash with wings. How long before passengers simply choose airlines that treat them as customers rather than suspects?
"They want payment in 4 days or they will escalate and send to court and collections."
How much is Condor trying to collect from you? $500, or $500 x 2 (one payment for the online check-in payment, and one payment to board the aircraft)?
"They demand money from customers who dispute CC charges."
Not sure what that means. Do you know?
"You can’t go after the customer if you lose with the CC processor."
They can, actually; it's becoming more and more common to see receipts that include wording along the lines of "if for some reason the credit card processor doesn't make good on the charge, the person who made the charge will owe the money directly." This wording isn't required to allow a merchant to go after someone for payment, btw.
I recall commenter Oskiboski bringing this Dr. Böse story up in the recent TAP post.
That's the culture Spohr has cultivated - when your CEO travels with bodyguards and sends security after fans who ask for selfies, and Jews are collectively punished for the perceived misbehavior of a few, frontline employees naturally believe their job includes informing on customers.
I experience great schadenfreude every time Spohr's Lufthansa causes its own trouble, usually due to their misadventures in trying to skirt the law, screw passengers or just straight up discriminate against passengers based on their ethnicity. Never in my life have I had such a bad experience in first class on an airline, only to find that their poor service is incredibly common and seems almost predicated on inflicting maximum suffering. May as well be LuftKafka.
Agreed to you both. If only these experiences prompted change for the better. The lessons Spohr and his crew seem to learn are that they need to be more clever in how they screw their passengers.
Alert I will be appropriating "curtain twitching" in daily speech if I can from now on.
Shows that's what the bosses want from their employees. It's a feature, not a bug. If I didn't know any better, I'd think LuftKafka was an updated airline version of the Milgram experiment, to see how much suffering people will inflict and/or endure for a "premium" experience before they leave.
The flight attendant, let's call her Frau Kravitz, if ever identified, will be subject now to reporting of violations she makes during a flight. I hope he/she gets what's coming. What a complete d-bag.
Never tell an airline employee specifics like what you paid for a ticket, how you got in a premium cabin, whether you are going to avoid airline rules. Why do people need to brag to a flight attendant of how cheap their fare was, how they're going to get one up on the airline, or that the gate agent upgraded them maybe over someone else. Most flight crew could care less, many have no clue as to what the status levels include. But then you get the crew member like this.
That's no way to treat passengers, demanding proof. Luftkafka constantly lies, obviates and mistreats passengers and they're rarely forthcoming with information until compelled by force of law.
Frankly, I concur. As a general practice. I'd never engage in the kind of disclosure that this person engaged in.
Also, LuftKafka shouldn't be creating a culture of FAs hell bent on snitching on perceived minor transgressions of passengers that have nothing to do with their jobs (passenger safety).
Éla, re, why are you going to KSA anyway... and, what malaka routes through Germany to get there?! Have some pride... Hellas finally pays its debts, and you give MORE money to Berlin... oof.
The wild thing is that they did it in the past. If I remember correctly that was with a pax flying USA to Stockholm through Frankfurt who rebooked and skipped the Stockholm leg to fly to Hannover instead.
That's wild. I don't understand why LH thinks it's a good idea to sue customers.
People do that at their own risk. You may be rebooked through MUC if there's a disruption for example. So you may miss the new sector. But what's the point of suing customers?
TSA can search bags, as one's mere presence at an airport implies consent to have belongings searched. Note that the TSA cannot arrest anyone (though local police can).
Likewise, customs agents may search bags as well (and can make arrests, as we're seeing on the streets of the USA every day, as masked men with hidden identities accost and beat innocent Americans and legal residents, without any provocation or reason whatsoever).
In the case of Dulles, neither Loudoun / Fairfax County nor Chantilly police can search people's bags without probable cause (or a warrant, which requires probable cause to begin with, absent exigent circumstances, which is a rabbit hole nobody has time for here). Searching the bags of 200+ arriving pax from Frankfurt would be a fishing expedition, and generally wouldn't be allowed.
tl/dr - The local police aren't going to search everyone's bags for an allegedly missing laptop.
"How long before passengers simply choose airlines that treat them as customers rather than suspects?"
Fair question, and here's my personal take for which nobody asked... 🙂
I've tried to stop mixing up my FC travel, and stick almost exclusively with AF, SQ, and EK, depending on routing and timing needs. I used to really love LH (and to a larger extent, LX), but now that they're becoming the same carrier but with different logos and paint jobs...yeah, no. To be frank, none of the entropy we're seeing with Allegris and business class impacts me directly one jot. But I'm just not comfortable giving money (or points) to an airline that seems to be completely unmoored from the rudiments of business and how to offer a product. Now the marketplace will be seeing two types of business class hardware and what, eight options (and prices) for different seats? We could LOL were it not so pathetic.
All I can say in this regard is that, thirty years ago, I had an unexpected bill from a German telecommunications company after I left Germany and after I was told the account was settled. I wrote back asking for documentation of the bill. I was next contacted by a Dutch collection agency. When I talked to the person, she was sympathetic: "I know, they send us these bills to collect and it's clear they're just not communicating with their customers".
So, yeah, sounds like Germany hasn't changed. If they can't communicate to you, they can't communicate to collection agencies, and collection agencies have a contractual obligation to be there biggest jerks they can, but a legal obligation as well. So, if what you say is true, I would write them and ask them to specify exactly what the check-in upgrade fee was for and to indicate where, in that transaction, you were informed of the additional in-person fee. And ask them to specify that this is the company's final decision, not subject to appeal.
This last part is important, since you live in California, and appropriate representation in Germany will be costly, unless you hand the attorney a slam-dunk dossier.
But, as the HON-circle hero shows, you never threaten legal action, unless you don't intend to take it. You put yourself in a position where you act if you need to. Most of the time, you just need to let the other party know — without threats — that you believe you hold the cards ('inform me when informal negotiations are over'). The rest of the time, Germans gotta German, and you get to burn them.
They demanding the payment I paid via online check in. Cuz BofA adjusted the 500 euros to the online payment price. They decided to reject the original payment as it was easier to say it was a duplicate. Again. They charged me 500 euros and 300usd. The agreed price was 300usd.
This will not apply "Only" to passengers residing in Germany or Austria, as any lawyer for a passenger anywhere in the world will dine on the judgement, present the same arguments, quote the result in that particular case (what the French call "Jurisprudence"), all with a good chance of being heard and of winning the case.
If well exploited by passenger assistance groups, this may even reach the US and end the criminalization of those who book a multi-segment flight, only to defect at the connection point. The potential and consequences may be HUGE. Let us hope that the case becomes well publicized beyond OMAAT.
Same story, different side of it, while the "Luftansa Babies" (Swiss, Austrian, Brussels etc...) are expected to fall in line with Lufthansa's policies, this is definitely a case where Lufthansa picked up on Swiss's pettiness, nickel and diming, and arrogance. That they fell on their nose is sweet news and even fun.
There's something so German about being penny wise and pound foolish. An Air France flight attendant would not have even lifted a finger if they heard what they guy did. I realize LH is trying to make profits, but it should not do so at the risk of losing the loyalty of a long-time passenger.
On another note, agents in the Gulf are notorious for hidden city ticketing. They do it all the time, and airlines of course have to send a debit memo when they catch it. That is simply the culture there, so it's possible the guy didn't even know it would be against Lufty's Ts&Cs to buy a ticket.
German culture.
A few years ago, after a truly epic service failure (accused me of giving my rental car key to a non-valet, and eventually admitted they had given my car key and theirs to two halves of a couple who drove off earlier, losing me 4 hours) Steigenberger Leipzig had to rent me a new car and deal with Avis collecting the original one.
They put the cherry on the cake a month later by sending me an invoice for the part tank of petrol I had used to get from Berlin airport to Leipzig!
We in the hobby must standardize our usage with respect to Lufthansa: Spohr-nicated. Can we agree?
man they look stupid. imagine they are already making a list of what excuses are acceptable or not behind the scenes.victory, but somehow still a mess.
The T&Cs don't seem to reflect the court ruling 100%. Court ruled that skipping segments is possible as long as it wasn't intended before purchasing the ticket, whereas LH only seems to allow this in cases not caused by the passenger. But the way I interpret the court ruling, if I have a ticket VIE-LIN-PRG (as I currently do), I should be able to skip VIE-LIN simply because I decided to go somewhere else before Milan, and still retain LIN-PRG ticket.
LuftKafka can put together 10 trillion excuses in the same time it took them to put together the Allegris cabins - which they're still not fully implemented!
I will always remember Lufthansa's lack of customer service when the check-in for my return flight (in business class, not that it should matter) was held up because the check-in agent was looking for a ghost passenger who had the same name and age as my daughter. I guess there was an issue with an unused coupon, which didn't make sense as we had taken every flight on the inbound in the correct sequence without delay or cancellation.
The check-in agent wouldn't relent and basically asked me to leave. I kept insisting for the station manager even though the check-in agent refused repeatedly and talked condescendingly that it wasn't his problem that I didn't have a made up person. I guess he thought I was trying to pull some kind of fraud.
The station manager showed up, was empathetic and was able to solve the issue in 10 minutes by calling Lufthansa IT. The check-in agent glared at me the whole time and didn't apologize or acknowledge their mistake. A lesson learned about German customer service and rule following.
That episode wasted an hour of my time and taught me three things: 1. Arrive early to the airport 2. Insist on speaking to the station manager if things go south. 3. Lufthansa has no interest in helping the customer (also based on other incidents).
Quit already with the stolen valor. You never fly in first unless it's points.
The FA sounds petty. Lufthansa sound petty. People need to get a life. It's such a minor infraction, if intentional, that maybe you don't agree people should do it but unless people do it with regularity, just get a life and let it go.
I
If they can do this for the top-most elite tier member, then you can imagine the plight of other basic level members like me. Their customer service is appalling and actually non-existent. Furthermore, the glitches on their app and website can run into pages of complaints, which they do not seem to care about. Last but not least, try calling the contact center, and you will get someone from the Philippines who has no clue what to do.
Better yet, if you get someone from old Deutschland, you might get yelled at and then hung up on!
That's quite an amazing self-own. For 414 euro they were willing to fight a top customer?
Apparently Lufthansa has no loyalty to anybody, not even to their own brand integrity...
I've said it before - I don't understand why anyone keeps flying with this arrogant, chickenshit outfit. Vote with your feet.
According to Business Traveller magazine/website Lufthansa is 'best airline in europe' and was awarded so in their 2025 annual event.
Laughable.
(whispering: …perhaps, hear me out, ‘loyalty’ is dead, but, like, for most, if not all, airlines and companies with consumers, because we’re no longer their actual ‘customers’ in our modern shareholder-driven ‘hype’ economy… oh, and we’re totally in another global recession already, so, yeah, buckle up, buttercups…)
I’d give any airline at least a chance, but, once you get screwed, and it can happen with any and all of them, it really makes me not wanna trust them ever again. For me, it’s Finnair. For this guy/you, it could be LH. Others love each, probably because they’ve never gotten burnt. It’s all about how the company responds. When Delta whipped me hard after Crowdstrike, I thought I was out hundreds of dollars on alternative transportation (rental car after repeated cancellations); eventually, they did reimburse me, which was a pleasant surprise, but, like, I think they did that only because the PR pressure was so massive at the time. Who knows, maybe Ben’s post will help with a better remedy for this passenger, or not. We’ll see.
Our leaders are petty. Maybe the fish rots at the head. The trend these days is bad. Wish we had more responsible role models, generally. Ask yourself, how would a Trump, Putin, Erdogan, Modi, etc. handle this situation? Therein lies a potential answer as to why we’ve become so freaking ‘petty’ as a species… we keep elevating and empowering a-holes and authoritarians.
Woah, using points is now verboten? Psh. No need to gatekeep on here, bud. If you can get up-front, go for it, doesn’t matter how. There shouldn’t be ‘purists’ who demand you only have paid top dollar in cash for it to count.
Is that like a paid-content thing? Like, they pay that publisher to say nice things?
I can see it now: ‘Lufthansa is Best Magazine’ says ‘Lufthansa is best!’ *facepalm*
Oddly, it is not a paid content thing. It is a fairly reputable magazine.
However the judging is very obviously flawed. I mean it is not like Europe is blessed with a raft of fantastic airlines but in my experience Lufthansa is right at the bottom of the pile. Not even top 3 let alone 'best'.
We made some comments when the CEO of Lufthansa moved all the operations of the Zurich office to Frankfurt. We know that was and will be another big mistake for Lufthansa. Zurich operations were
efficient, they know what they were doing.
Some people may say this is a pitiful German way. Well yes it does still exist as we travel to Germany frequently, however, in fairness we observed some improvements over the last 15 years.
That said, we still run across the sticky German, ie; German rules.
The smartest thing for Lufthansa is to change culture, please find another CEO.
"WAS" at one time. Actually enjoyed it more than 15 years ago. I guess they are buying their awards now.
I learned by going thru so many Lufthansa managers years ago to solve a Miles Plus situation.
I wrote to them, including the CEO, if you want international passengers, then you need to have international people in your service departments, because the "German Way" does not work
Airlines really just shoot themselves in the foot with this stuff. Lufthansa also had such a case in Italy: https://liveandletsfly.com/skipping-airline-segments-italy/
The amount of myopia, wasted time and resources, and overall tone-deafness on display here is shocking.
I'm impressed the passenger lawyered up. He certainly paid more to win the fight than he would have by just "taking the L" and moving on. Conscience gets expensive. But hopefully his sacrificial act and final victory will put LH on the back foot the next time it wants to act this way.
Another lesson: Don't make small talk with LH staff. It ain't the Southwest of old. They aren't "folksy" and aren't your friends.
>Of course all of this raises the question as to how Lufthansa can prove intent with throwaway ticketing.
Well yes, that's the point. It SHOULD be hard to do so, unless it's super obviously in their lap (like the passenger is doing this 95% of the time, or whatever). And my goodness, for a top-tier elite who is in the air all the time sudden changes in travel SHOULD be expected eventually.
Nevermind this whole concept of pricing exists in the first place, that A->B->C can be less than A->B but somehow it's a horrible breach of contract you'll be fined for if you decide not to go to C.
What nobody has mentioned is how quickly and easily the airlines sell your empty seat to a standby passenger, especially if you miss the second leg based on one of their flight delays; especially if you have a premium seat. That seat in all likely generated more than the $414 when resold to a standby passenger but the airline wants to double dip.
It's not surprising given that LH as a whole thinks customers are their enemies. A normal person wouldn't go out of their way to report this to their corporate revenue management but lh cabin crew would. No surprise there. Then most emotionally intelligent staff wouldn't take this to court for the top tier customers but layers of people thought this was a good idea because they need to punish the violator so that the rest can learn from this case. Sadly very German way of thinking but not customer friendly, never generates more revenue.... And if these readers on this blog haven't had enough information to skip lh altogether, you are inviting yourself to troubles and humiliation if you choose to fly lh and support them. Thank god, I stopped flying with them since 2014 when they screwed up my parents and didn't even properly apologise for their mistake. I laugh when people get into nasty troubles with LH....could have just avoided all of those by flying with a different airline
Doesnt matter. Private business. They can do whatever they want. Anyone who has an issue with that can take their business elsewhere. Spoiler alert. They won't.
According to Lufthansa, the FA was prepared to give testimony as a witness to the Court...
I hate to make it political or anti-German, because I am not, however I can't help but feel that many pieces fall into place about what happened in history.
I took my business elsewhere, Eskimo. Also, LuftKafka only became a fully private business when the German government sold what was left of its stake in 2022. Also, they clearly cannot do whatever they want - the court has clearly stated that.
lars hints at an important point that I believe was made elsewhere. The decision to pursue this wasn't just the hero fa, but also several layers of management who heard the fa's petty little reportage and thought, "sounds right, better nail the bastard."
Truly. I hope LuftKafka looses money and they finally can that nitwit Spohr. Then he can flee the country - his family is quite good at that.
Welp, Herr Spohr is a rude man who once tried to get a 21 year old fan arrested for taking a picture of a cardboard cutout of him when he refused to take a picture, and then when that didn't work he had his private security men intimidate the man at a private apartment.
Standby passengers do not buy tickets...that's why it's called standby. It's a perk for working for the company.