Can I pay for seat on Lufthansa if I have United Basic Economy

[BlueberryPie]

Last time I flew a United codeshare operated by Lufthansa, I had upgrade to regular economy so I would have a free checked-in bag and a be able to chose my seats in advance (I didn't care about the no fee refund). to my consternation, when I tried to pick my seats, the United site redirected me to the Lufthansa site, and on that site you have to pay $50+ to reserve your seat. When I called United they said it wasn't their problem, it was Lufthansa rules, and purchasing the upgraded fare was not just about free seats.

I'm flying form Denver to Luxembourg in August and I see some flights advertised for $800 on United, but they are Basic Economy and they want $200 for regular economy. Even though the flights have a United code, they are operate by Lufthansa (to Frankfurt) and Air Dolomiti (to Luxembourg).
So rather than pay United $200 for a free checked bag but no free seat reservation on Lufthansa, I'm thinking about getting the Basic Economy fare on United. The bag fee is $60, so still well ahead of the $200 surcharge, but does anyone know if I could then pay for my seat reservations with Lufthansa? Even if I pay another $50 on reserving a seat to Frankfurt with Lufthansa, I would pay that about the same as the United class upgrade, but I would get to pick my seat.

I can't seem to find the answer on Google, although I see plenty of pissed off people complaining that after paying United for regular economy, they still have to pay for seats with a partner like Lufthansa.

EDIT: Or I can book the flight directly with lufthansa, they call it "Economy Light", which has similar restrictions for luggage and booking change, but I cannot find anything that says whether I can still pay for a seat or not.

EDIT AGAIN: here it says that you can purchase a seat, but the asterisk says there may be a fare difference, so I still don't know

 

[DrRoy]

Your best bet is probably to book with Lufthansa. That should give you the most control over the details of the ticket. However, we have a route booked through a cruise line on American operated by British Air that did not have seats selected, and the cruise air people said we would have to wait until checking in to get seats. We were able to go online with British Air and get seats.

 

[rodi]

British Air, booked through American Airlines, doesn't let you pick your seat until 3 days before... unless you pay a fee. This was even true for business class.

 

[audreyh1]

British Air, booked through American Airlines, doesn't let you pick your seat until 3 days before... unless you pay a fee. This was even true for business class.

Ugh!

Business class is usually packed and I would want to wait until the last 24-72 hours to select our seats and just hope it’s a good seat let alone together.

 

[OldConch]

British Air, booked through American Airlines, doesn't let you pick your seat until 3 days before... unless you pay a fee. This was even true for business class.

Pretty sure you can select seats at check-in which is 24 hours prior and it doesn't matter if you book through BA or a partner. We've flown BA business, rolled the dice and were seated together towards the back of the cabin. Also flew BA first and were allowed to select seats at time of booking. FYI, I'm currently One World Emerald through Alaska Airlines and can call in and select seats for free.

From BA website -

You can choose your seat for free from 24 hours before departure when check-in opens, unless you’ve booked a Basic ticket (economy, hand-baggage only) where your seat is allocated to you.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

I believe British Air also takes your One World status into consideration when determining when you can select seats and how much you pay for them. I will note that my following experience is when I booked directly on the BA website and not on American's website.

This week, I booked a flight from Pittsburgh to London on BA's website. I decided to do it on BA's site rather than American's because of this exact ambiguity about when I could select a seat. I was booking Premium Economy on a plane that has a 2-3-2 configuration in that class. I despise not getting an aisle seat and did not want to get stuck in that middle seat in the 3-seat part.

I had found on this page...

British Airways - Information Page

where it says "You may be entitled to choose your seat for free if you fall into one of the following groups..." and then it lists the various One World statuses. One World Emerald and Sapphire both say you can select a seat for free at the time of booking. So I thought this would be great, since I am currently Sapphire. However, I will revert back to Ruby before actually flying.

However, when I went thru the booking process, even after plugging in my American Airlines frequent flyer number, it did not let me select my seat during the booking process. I was disappointed, but went ahead with the booking.

However, immediately after I booked it, I went into the reservation and found that I was indeed able to select my seats for free that same day. My flight isn't until May, so I'm 3+ months out from departure. I was able to snag the seats I wanted for both directions of my flight.

BA must have used my AA FF# and looked up my status and that gave me free seat selection. I was quite pleased. What I don't know is if I will get miles for this flight credited to my AA FF# or my empty BA FF#. It allowed me to enter the AA FF#, so I assume that means they will credit miles to that account. But who knows. I'm past the working years where I accumulate much in the way of FF miles outside of credit card rewards. I'm pretty much stuck on my Million Miler Lifetime Gold status unless I bump it up with credit cards and other bonuses like did last year.

 

[Sarah S]

I did the reverse booking on American and entering my ba ff number. Ba got the miles/ flight segments so hopefully it will work for you