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Tauck air with Lufthansa, gift of time breakfast
I am aware that I can try to call Tauck with these questions but until I can get through maybe others can tell me their experiences with my 2 general questions......
Next week we are flying Lufthansa from Dulles to Frankfurt and thenon to Berlin on a short flight . When Tauck booked these flights they told me they are not able to get us seats on the short flights that are within Europe. How do we go about getting assigned seats on the short flight?
Is breakfast included with the gift of time stay?
You all are a wealth of information. Thanks for sharing your experiences!
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Birder49,
Sometimes on very short connecting flights your seats are assigned at the gate. This has happened to us a few times. You also might try viewing your "view trip" that Tauck referenced when sending you the confirming e-mail of your flights and fares and select your seats then if you can. I am fairly certain that the former statement is correct, however. Either way, rest assured that you will have a seat!
Yes, breakfast is included with the 'gift of time', as well as with pre and post tour stays at the Tauck designated hotels.
Have a wonderful tour!
I've never booked a flight with Tauck, but if you have the confirmation code, you should be able to go to the airline's web site to reserve a seat. If you are on multiple airlines, such as United and Lufthansa, there is often a secondary confirmation code for the second airline.
Whenever I've had a GoT, yes, breakfast was included.
Breakfast is also included if Tauck books extra nights at their hotel whether it's Gift of Time or you are paying for extra days. It's part of their contracted room rate. It's why it can sometimes be hard to compare Taucks rate with one you book separately.
As BKMD said, if you go to the carrier's (Lufthansa) website and sign on with your Name and PNR (booking code) you should be able to select seats. We have done that with Air France and KLM (both Skyteam). We have never tried with Lufthansa. I'm not sure what happens if your class of carriage charges for seat selection.
Thank you all for responding. We have been on two other Tauck tours so you would think I could remember about the breakfasts and other details but 2019 seems like a million years ago.
I have been on the Lufthansa website serveral times to verify our long flight seats and make sure there are no changes in flight times etc. If it were just me traveling I wouldnt care where we sit on the short flights but my husband is very tall and needs to be on the aisle. I will see what happens. Thanks again!
Are you flying in business class? That is often the difference whether you can book seats early, and not only with EU airlines. We recently ran across that with Turkish Air. Business passengers could book seats from the start of the booking window, all others had to wait until check-in to select seats. Are business class seats on Lufthansa intra-EU flights like those on AF and KLM- standard coach seats arranged in 3 - 3 with middle seats blocked?
Alan, the EU business class seating depends on the plane model. Both of our flights there last year - one on AF and one KLM were 2-2 configuration. The seats weren't larger though like the ones on Delta's conus flight.
Yes, some are now using newer A321's and 737's which have nice 2-2 business seats. I was able to avoid the whole issue for our most recent and upcoming trips- no EU connections and wide body aircraft all the way- JFK to IST, JFK to ATH, and JFK to ZRH. Had there been connections in AMS, CDG, FRA, etc. the second legs in non-business seats would have been relatively long compared to what we fly from home to JFK or ATL.
At the start of COVID, flights kept going away before our first attempt at J&E was finally cancelled. Before all flights to Amman finally disappeared completely, Delta had us on a flight with Transavia, an all-coach, budget Air France subsidiary I had never heard of.
We are traveling premium economy. (I wish we were going business but alas that is not the case but I can dream as I read about everyone else traveling in business) This afternoon I did try to get to seats for the short flights on their app and it told me the travel agency we used (Tauck) had to do it. Oh well. They are both just a little over an hour flights.
As an aside, we got the tickets months ago to make sure we got the seats we want in preium economy on the long haul flights. I recently looked at the same flights on different dates over the next few months and they have few if any seats left in premium economy.
I appreciate all your help and always enjoy the postings that you all share on all aspects Tauck.
Last time I flew British Air (about 4 years ago, nonstop DEN to LHR), even in biz, they charged something like $200 for advanced seat reservations! Penny wise, £ foolish, IMO, I've never flown BA since. And to top it off, it was an ancient 747 in need of major renovation. I read their 747s have since been retired, so when I get around to rebooking my cancelled ESW trip, I'll likely be stuck with BA and hopefully the travel experience won't be as bad.
Premium economy is a very good compromise. We used to fly economy, then later premium economy. We saved the money difference in business class because it meant we could stay longer on the tours, hotel nights are far cheaper than business class prices and it gives the chance to recover from jet lag. We were able to afford an extra tour a year from being frugal about flying. Now we mainly go business class because if we don’t, our children will with the money we did ‘t spend 😂😂😂
We also have flown economy,premium economy and now only business or first.I still remember the long flights from India.to US in economy class when they allowed smoking!Our luck would be we had seats on the last row of non smoking!Money is only paper ;if you have it spend it.Like British’s comment about kids spending what we don’t!One big advantage in addition to the comfort aspect is if you fly business you deplane first and get to the next flight a bit quicker!We are booked on this trip on late August.Birder49,please share your experience . Thanks
My intro to Biz/First was my second Tauck tour in 2016 - Australia/NZ. I was chatting with my younger daughter on the phone, saying how I was dreading the 15 hour flight.
She said, "Why don't you fly business?"
I said, "Great idea. It's your inheritance!"
Biz is like power windows. Once you try it the first time, you can't go back.
BKMD - Yes, BA charges for assigned seats in business class, however, if you book your flights with Tauck there is no extra charge. This was a nice surprise for us. We are leaving from DFW to LHR next month for our trip to Northern Spain as Tauck was able to get an airfare from Tucson to Barcelona and Porto back to Tucson for $3500.00 each. When we were checking the airlines ourselves the best fare was $5200 each, a big difference.
British - you are so right! Don't want to leave the kids too much! 😂
Our current philosophy is...fly business at the beginning of a trip, to hopefully arrive well rested. Dealing with jet lag is hard enough. Fly home coach or premium economy, especially if it's during the day, since we're not going to sleep anyway. I'm usually so stuffed from all the dining, that I don't even care if they feed us.
I figure, I'm going home to my own house, my own bed. My own cooking. A few hours of discomfort won't kill us!
Hey, years ago, we flew coach on Quantas to Sydney using points...I'm not sure I could do that now - but it was free!
Flew to Australia on Premium economy. Good idea about changing from business to economy, especially on a daytime flight. When we went to New Zealand another time, we flew their premium economy too, a good compromise when you want to save what you might spend on businesses class for another Tauck tour.
Several years ago while booking flights with Tauck I tried that - business class heading to Europe and economy comfort coming back. The price decrease wasn't all that much. Maybe if you book on your own.
I do agree with those that say once you fly business class you'll find it hard to go back - at least on long haul flights. I can't say I slept more than I normally do but I arrived feeling much better. I can do a Southwest economy seat on a short flight, but no way I'm going back to economy for the long hauls. Maybe a premium economy recliner seat but last I checked they were almost as much as business and some flights were actually more.
My husband squawked a bit last year when I booked the BC seats but he liked it way better than economy and enjoyed the free drinks and better seating in the skylounges. When booking our flights for this year I got another squawk then I offered to seat him in economy if he wanted to save the money. That ended the discussion.
I agree with much that has been said. We just started flying business and for long flights I’d rather spend the extra for comfort. We’ve had experience with arranging coach air reservations thru Tauck but having to upgrade our own seats; then the airline changes the flight and/or equipment and don’t have the same seat upgrades available. We’ve already booked our air for next January’s Best of Hawaii, and for the 9-hour flight (non-stop) from ORD, we opted to pay mega bucks for business class comfort. Next week, we are off to Israel/Jordan on Lufthansa business class.