Questions and Answers

Bit of a predicament here and am looking for some advice. I’m currently booked BUD-FRA-DTW-SFO in LH J, and UA F on the DTW-SFO leg. I leave at 640AM and arrive in SFO at 9PM all on the same day. My friend who is traveling with me came across the opportunity to change the route to drop one of the connections (BUD-FRA-SFO), but the downside is now the longhaul segment is on UA Polaris business albeit with just the soft product since the new seat won’t be introduced on that route till later in the year. Total flight time is shorter and there’s obviously one less connection to deal with (leave 930AM and arrive in SF at 730PM). Per the United website the cost is even less but TBD if they’ll give me a refund or not – 57.5K vs 70K. FWIW, both the LH and UA long haul flights are on the 747

I’ve never flown LH before and despite the more complicated itinerary, I’m hesitant to change my itinerary to match his since I keep hearing how awesome the LH experience is when compared to others, especially domestics like UA.

Is the food/drink/seat really that much better on the LH long haul that I should stick with them? Or is it going to the the same either way with United on a 747 that’s going to be retired this year?

Thanks in advance!

Personally, I’ve always thought that United J isn’t that bad when traveling with someone. The worst part about it is no direct aisle access, so if you know your companion, that is definitely minimized.

I’ve flown both LH J on the 747 and the Polaris soft product on UA J. Neither had direct aisle access on the sides but I sat in the middle section so it was fine. Yes the LH seat was a little nicer but if they’ll let you make the change for free and refund your points, I’d do that, just to cut out a connection and to get home earlier.

Hello FSM.

The LH experience is awesome, in First class. LH J on the other hand is a bit meh, and not worth to go out of your way for if there is more direct options available.

But not bad enough to go out of your way to avoid flying flying it either if it’s the most direct option.

Biggest problem with the seats are foot space.
[URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/07/30/review-lufthansa-business-class-747-8-frankfurt-washington/[/URL]

Would go with UA. Save some time and get the points back. Flew LH both F and J recently and highly disappointed in both flights. See if you can get a seat upstairs on the UA747.

[URL=’http://www.rewardflying.com/report-blog/2017/7/17/lufthansa-b747-8i-first-class-ord-fra’]www.rewardflying.com/report-blog/2017/7/17/lufthansa-b747-8i-first-class-ord-fra[/URL]

[URL=’http://www.rewardflying.com/report-blog/2017/6/13/lufthansa-b747-81-business-class-fra-ord’]www.rewardflying.com/report-blog/2017/6/13/lufthansa-b747-81-business-class-fra-ord[/URL]

(btw – OP here, couldn’t figure out how to sign-in when I started the thread)

Thanks for the responses all. As it turns out, the UA-only routing ended up going away by the time I got around to changing, however a better opportunity came up. I was able to get BUD-MUC-SFO all on LH for the same 70K in J. The MUC-SFO segment is on a A340, so definitely getting a better experience here than with an old UA 747. Added perk, I was able to convince the UA rep to not charge me the change fee (for the 2nd time on this itin!) since I’m status-less on UA, AND it’s a much more direct routing so seems like a win-win-win all around