Related Posts
More Posts
Jupiter just entered Aries. ✨
When the team wants to redline my deck

Additional Posts in Consulting
Anyone from EY willing to refer me? Thanks!
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.





Chief
Not a *A guy, but you most likely need to go through LH and find their flight there and see if you have the ability to bid for an upgrade. I don’t think there’s any other way (beyond miles/PP, but that’s fare and availability specific)
Rising Star
Good advice to go straight to Lufthansa. Going through United is very risky. These alliances don’t have IT systems that talk to each other. Best thing would be to tell your parents and upgrade it with them involved, otherwise, you may just be creating a headache for a lot of people.
Chief
Having done this, you have a few options:
1. The simplest option is to pay for an upgrade via Lufthansa. Use their Lufthansa booking confirmation and either process the paid upgrade online, or call United. Lufthansa will determine upgrade pricing dynamically.
2. Use their United confirmation code to rebook their flight in an upgraded cabin via United’s interface. This will use new ticket pricing vs. upgrade charges, but depending on the flight that could be cheaper
3. If you have PlusPoints, follow the steps here: https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/mileageplus/premier/lufthansa-ana-copa-upgrades.html. Some tips on this method: the ticket needs to have a LH flight number (UA can convert a codeshare flight for free as long as the corresponding fare class has availability) and if it goes through, do not panic if the flight no longer appears on the UA side as long as it shows on LH’s booking confirmation.
4. I’m not familiar with using miles to upgrade, but I don’t believe you can use United miles. Would contact Lufthansa about mileage upgrade options.
You can upgrade the codeshare by calling United and asking them to reissue the ticket with the native LH flight number instead of the codeshare. It's a common process for United to handle for upgrading Lufthansa using plus points
Rising Star
Conclusion is I was able to hack into their booking with the Confirmation number and buy an upgrade for one of the legs. But the other legs were booked as code share with united and there is apparently no way to upgrade in advance. They might be able to do it at the counter
Pro
Unlikely. You shouldn’t be able to modify flight of other people. But why don’t you call United ?
Get their account login info, log into their account and buy the upgrade? Or do you want to surprise them?
Get all of your parents’ info & flight seat map ready and try to call the airline directly. Pretending you’re your parent. They might take your credit card info over the call to make the purchase.
If you have the flight information, you should be able to do it online.