Needed to change a connection

For our 50th anniversary, in August ’06 my wife and I left for Europe on a 2-month trip. We utilized a travel agency in Colorado for airline, train and hotel bookings. Our drive in a rental car through France would end at Strasbourg, after which we would take an Adriatic cruise.

The ship would depart its pier in Venice, Italy, at 6 p.m. on Sept. 20. To make that, we had been booked on Lufthansa flight No. 6911 from Strasbourg to Frankfurt, Germany, on that same day, connecting with Lufthansa flight 4084 to Venice, scheduled to arrive four hours before our cruise ship left port.

The connection between the two Lufthansa flights at Frankfurt was shown as one hour and 15 minutes. Lufthansa flight 6911 from Strasbourg to Frankfurt, however, turned out to be not a flight but a bus trip. We learned this when we picked up our tickets from the travel agency shortly before we left. The agent said she had just learned of this development and was apologetic. No concern on our making the connection to the Frankfurt-Venice flight was expressed.

The bus would make three stops within Strasbourg to pick up passengers, then drive three hours to Frankfurt. Assuming that the (6911) bus arrived outside the Frankfurt Airport on time, with no traffic delays, we still faced hand-carrying our luggage from there to the departure terminal and checking in at the Lufthansa airline counter, followed by security checks, before proceeding to the departure gate.

We had earlier encountered very long lines at the Lufthansa check-in at Frankfurt. While we had been told by our travel agent that the connection time was sufficient, we could not risk this very tight connection for ourselves, and especially for our baggage, with a cruise ship departure at stake, so we elected to cut our Strasbourg stay short and go to Frankfurt on Lufthansa one day earlier, staying at an airport hotel overnight.

There was no Lufthansa agent or counter in Strasbourg, only a helpful tourist bureau. We therefore contacted our travel agent back in Colorado, who faxed back that, in order to take the Lufthansa bus one day earlier, we had to pay Lufthansa an added rescheduling fee. We agreed to. We then were informed that the paper tickets we had for the bus trip to Frankfurt could not be changed in Strasbourg. How and where we would do this plus pay the added rescheduling fee was not determined.

With time running short, I called the Lufthansa overseas operator myself and explained the problem. I was very firmly told that the only way we could change our reservations and take the bus a day earlier was if our Colorado travel agent “released” us back to Lufthansa. (Those tickets we had in hand had long since been paid for in full, along with the agent’s commission.)

Though our names each were on the ticket boarding pass portion along with the notation “Check in required,” Lufthansa insisted that these tickets had been purchased by our travel agency and not by us, so we could not change them without the agency’s approval.

All we wanted was to use the tickets one day earlier. We were not trying to cash them in (impossible anyway since they were nonrefundable).

We faxed our travel agency with our urgent request. There was, however, no response forthcoming from that agency throughout their workday in Colorado.

We elected to get on the Luft­hansa bus to Frankfurt a day ahead, without a travel agent’s “release” and without being able to pay the additional charge or even changing our paper tickets. (The backup suggested by the local tourist bureau was to scrap our Lufthansa tickets and take a later train that same day from Strasbourg to Venice.)

The next morning, thankfully, the bus driver, i.e., the only “Lufthansa” representative, did not look at the date on our tickets nor verify our identity. We kept quiet, hoping space would prove to be available and our wrong-day tickets would suffice. Before continuing to Frankfurt, this bus filled up to within one seat by its last stop in Strasbourg, with most passengers paying for and receiving their tickets as they boarded at each stop (most using credit cards).

We arrived at Frankfurt that day and subsequently the next day at our cruise ship in Venice with our luggage.

In summation, we wonder how, when we were in Strasbourg where there was no local Lufthansa employee, we could have gotten a travel agency in Colorado to reissue paper tickets in Europe.* We would have gladly paid a ticket-change fee, if it were possible.

DOUGLAS B. JONES

Moab, UT

ITN sent copies of the above letter to the travel agency in Colorado and to Lufthansa (1640 Hempstead Turnpike, East Meadow, NY 11554).

Lufthansa’s reply to ITN follows:

Lufthansa certainly regrets the trouble the Joneses encountered on their trip. However, the majority of their problems lies with their travel agency and not with Lufthansa.

When their travel agent made the reservation between Strasbourg and Venice, the respective booking system should have reflected that LH6911 is indeed operated by a “BUS” and not by an actual plane. In Lufthansa’s Amadeus system, the pertinent listings appear as “LH6911 XER-FRA 08:30 — 11:15 0/BUS” and “LH4084 FRA-VCE 12:25 — 13:40 EO/321.” The agent would have seen this in their own reservation system as well, whether it were Amadeus, Sabre, Apollo, etc. The type of operation should also be printed on all itineraries and/or on paper tickets.

Regardless, the bus-plane connection between Strasbourg and Venice is one that Lufthansa serves on a regular basis and is enjoyed by many cruise passengers.

The Joneses were fortunate to have made the bus connection a day earlier without any problems. They held highly restricted, nonrefundable tickets from Strasbourg to Venice that were purchased by (the travel agency) on their behalf.

When Mr. Jones called our call center from Strasbourg requesting the date change, it was clear to our agent that the Joneses’ travel on Lufthansa had yet to begin. In order to protect their itinerary, the Luft­hansa reservations agent adhered to standard data protection guidelines that state that for any wholly unused ticket, the reservation itself (and any corresponding changes) reside with the booking travel agent. Otherwise, any person claiming to be Doug Jones could have tried to make this change over the phone.

The “release” in this situation was simply the travel agency’s making the requested date change in their reservation, taking a credit card for the respective change fees and reissuing the Joneses’ tickets. Lufthansa was simply trying to protect them and their trip.

In principle, we advise passengers to avoid purchasing highly restricted, nonrefundable tickets for same-day cruise departures. If you do purchase such a ticket, be sure to have all the respective terms and conditions of the fare explained in advance, including what to do if you find yourself in a similar situation like the Joneses.

We hope they will give us a second chance on their next trip abroad.

JENNIFER URBANIAK, Communications Manager, N.A., Deutsche Lufthansa AG

*ITN wrote to Lufthansa again, saying, “Let’s assume that the travel agency had successfully released the Strasbourg-Frankfurt bus/‘flight’ tickets to Lufthansa and the Joneses were free to change the reservations to the previous day. Since there was no Lufthansa office in Strasbourg, how could they have changed the tickets they were holding before they stepped onto the bus? Could they have gone to any travel agency and done this?”

“The reservations system then generates a list of passengers who are booked for that day’s bus trip, so the drivers physically carry a list of who is booked for that day. If there were not enough seats to accommodate the Joneses on the bus that day, it would have come down to this list — and not the printed tickets. People carry paper tickets and make changes to their reservations (electronically via phone) all the time. At the end of the day, whatever is issued in our reservations system is what we go by.”