Having flown millions of miles, I thought I had experienced most everything when it comes to the airlines. But a week before my wife and I were scheduled to fly from to South Africa for a long-planned tour/safari, Lufthansa pilots and cabin personnel went on strike. Our outbound (non-refundable but reuseable) United tickets were for code-shared Lufthansa flights from LAX to Cape Town via Frankfurt.
Hearing nothing from Lufthansa or United, and our flight now less than a week away with all Lufthansa flights halted, it was time to look at a backup option should the strike continue. Initially we hoped that the strike would be settled and our flights would not be affected, but as we got closer to our departure date and read about the chaos at Frankfurt airport and the planes and crews stuck around the world, we hoped Lufthansa would just cancel our flights so we could get a full refund and take another airline. Even if the strike did end in time, the mess it had created would likely linger on and impact our trip.
With the strikes being called with only 24-hour notice, what would happen if we got to Frankfurt and our flight to Cape Town was canceled? I could imagine being stuck in Frankfurt with no easy way to get to Africa in time for our tour, as there were few other options from Frankfurt. Meanwhile, news reports were describing chaos in the Frankfurt Airport with stranded passengers unable to contact Lufthansa.
We decided we needed to book a backup and it had to be a refundable fare. I found and booked a flight on British Air from San Diego that was much more expensive than the Lufthansa flight, but less than many of the other last-minute fares.
Then the waiting began and my analytical mind engaged looking at the what ifs, and mapping out a plan for choosing between the Lufthansa and BA flights. On the Saturday before our Tuesday departure, the unions decided to halt their strike for a day to engage in talks, but warned they still could call a strike with a 24-hour notice. I waited for an announcement from the talks on Saturday, but there was total silence. When I checked Lufthansa flights in and out of Frankfurt on Sunday, many were still being canceled.
It was now Monday morning, the day before we were to depart. The safe bet looked like taking the BA flights to avoid the uncertainty of Lufthansa and using the United/Lufthansa tickets for future use. I investigated what those rules were -something I’ve rarely ever thought about, and found them to be very limiting.
Our $12,000 tickets needed to be used within one year of booking, but only for a single trip on a Star Alliance airline. If we used them for a $5000 trip, we’d forfeit $7000. With no big trips planned, lending the airline thousands of dollars for many months and having to take a vacation on their conditions was not appealing nor really affordable. We needed to decide within the next few hours as our cancelation required a 24-hour notice.
I had been tracking the two Lufthansa flights we were on and found them to have resumed their normal schedule over the weekend. I checked our flight from LAX to Frankfurt and looked at the aircraft‘s routing before LAX (using Flighty ) and it was running on schedule. So the plane from LAX to Frankfurt would be at LAX on time and the flight from Frankfurt to Cape Town was still scheduled.
We thus decided to take the Lufthansa flight and canceled our BA reservations. With no strike called on Monday and apparently talks continuing, the risk of a last-minute strike seemed to be diminished.
Fortunately, it all worked out. But we were also glad that we had booked our return flights using mileage on American/British Air and were free of Lufthansa once we arrived in Cape Town.
What did I learn? I had never really dug into what a reusable fare was, and now I know, and it’s less than what I thought. One would assume a credit is a credit, but the airlines think differently.
I was also disappointed that Lufthansa paid no attention to the uncertainty and anxiety they put their customers through. They never reached out during the strike to explain what options we had, never explained what would happen in the event of a canceled flight due to the strike. I lost a lot of respect for an airline I used to favor.
Also, code shared flights added to the confusion. United was as much in the dark as I was and referred all questions to Lufthansa, who could not be reached during this period due to hold times of many hours. Codesharing also meant different reservation numbers for United and Lufthansa- neither has a record of the other- and switching between sites to access reservations and to choose seats.
I even asked AI for their recommendations several times along the way, after providing them the details. Both Gemini and Claude kept pushing me to take the BA flight and avoid the risk of getting stuck in Frankfort. But they did little analysis to assess the changing situation and often relied on old news reports. Ultimately I learned it’s up to us to take responsibility, assess the risks, and come up with alternatives.
Another way to search for flights
On my return home I discovered a new website called Mindtrip Flights that lets you search for flights by just describing what you want using natural language – like our once valued travel agents. You can say, “Find me the best roundtrip business flight between San Diego and Paris for a 7 day vacation in June,” or “Find me the lowest business class fare betweeen San Diego and somewhere in Europe for 7 to 10 days in October.” It returns with specific itineraries after looking at the the options. It essentially does what my wife – a skilled self-taught travel planner – did when she searched for the South African flights discussed above.
I tried it out using our recent itinerary and it zeroed in quickly on several options and presented them in a table. Compared to our manual searches, it provided many of the same options in less time and also suggested something we hadn’t done: looking at splitting our ticket to get to the East Coast on a separate ticket and then take a flight from there. But Mindtrip also missed the low cost option of using Turkish Airlines. Mindtrip is free to use and seems to be a good way to quickly see many options or search when you have flexibility with dates and destinations.
