[mpjo]

I am a student, and spent this summer studying in India in order to develop my field experience. My school arranged my flights so I had no choice as to which carrier I went through, but I do travel a lot and had never travelled with Lufthansa previously, so was looking forward to the experience. The flight cost me about $1500 to fly from Canada to India, but I paid about $250 extra in order to have a week long stop-over in Germany on my way home. The flight to India, though exhausting, was pretty seamless. Upon my return home, I checked the Lufthansa website numerous times to verify the acceptable amount of luggage (and weight) that I could carry with me, as I wanted to overload on my luggage to bring more things home. The Lufthansa website states a) Students travelling with Lufthansa for the first time are allowed a third piece of luggage free, and b) A third piece of luggage can be brought (if client is not a student) for a nominal fee. I arrived at the airport packed and ready to go, head up to the front counter and am informed that because of my week long stop-over in Germany, that I already paid extra money for (even though I had a connection there anyway and it was on my way home) my piece of free luggage was not only cancelled, but there were additional fees that went above and beyond the nominal fee mentioned for non-students. They informed me that I would have to pay 37 Euro per KG of overweight luggage. I am a young girl, stuck alone in India, with no idea how to get my things home. They don't accept debit at the counter, and I had no money on me as I did not plan this, not knowing about their ridiculous policies for stop-overs. The man behind the counter was smiling this evil little smirk at me, quite content that he was able to hold this kind of power over someone and was not even remotely kind about it. I did what I felt I had to do, backed away from the counter and went to throw things out of my suitcases. I ended up throwing what amounts to $1000 CAD in clothes and gifts in the garbage. I went back up to the counter, now well underweight, and get the same smirk-faced attendant who tells me that he now has to include the weight of my carry-on luggage in my overall weight. As I had all of my breakable statuettes and my laptop in my carry-on it came to about 36 pounds. I had thrown out everything I owned except for the expensive souvenirs and gifts for my family and friends, but was still overweight because of his insane addition of my carry-on luggage. I ask to speak to his supervisor, and when he is called over, the attendant speaks over me in Hindi, a language that I obviously do not understand, while I am crying my eyes out, stressed to the max and trying to figure out what the heck I am going to do. The supervisor advises me that I will have to pay the difference, so I am so exhausted and emotionally spent at that point that I am like- point me to an ATM, I will attempt to get the money and pay this. I am then shuffled off to a line for customer service desk, in which I wait for half an hour while the agents behind the desk ignore me and answer phone calls. Finally when I am crying so hard I feel like I am going to pass out (as I am obviously stressed over money and terrified I am going to miss my flight and be trapped in India), and am attracting notice from other clients in the terminal, do they finally take notice of me and ask what is wrong. I explain it to them, they tell me how much it will cost for my luggage and send me off to get the money. I return to the same line, in which they ignore me for another 20 minutes to answer phones calls, and then I finally am able to pay the money to get on my flight. I had to run at full speed through the terminal, JUST got through security, and made it to my gate as the second to last person to board the plane. I was physically ill for 3 hours of that flight due to all of the stress and pain that this company and their unbelievable customer service and policies caused me. Upon arrival in Germany, I went up to the customer service desk to try and get this figured out with some people who could explain it to me properly, and was moved from desk to desk to desk for 3 additional hours, and then eventually told that there was nothing they could do as I had already paid the money and it was in India which was international, so I would have to go through the Indian corporate office to deal with it. Yeah. Right. In the end, I got to the airport 4 hours before my flight, and made it just in time. Overpaid for my flight originally by $250 in order to have a stop-over in a place that I was already stopping at, lost about $1000 in clothes and gifts that I threw in the garbage, paid $886 Canadian in order to get my luggage home, and then had to have money express wired to me from my savings account in Canada, as I had used my money for Germany to pay for my luggage. All in all my flight to India with Lufthansa cost me $3695.00 CAD, in order to sit in coach, in the tiniest seat I have ever had in my history of travel, and be fed what amounts to tasteless sludge. I was a young, female, single traveler who they treated with the utmost disrespect and disregard. This took place four months ago and it still makes me want to break down when I remember how hopeless, used, and pathetic this company made me feel. I will NEVER, EVER, EVER deal with them again, and I am doing everything in my power to get word out to the public about this. For future reference, if you ever get hold of this letter, you money-grubbing, evil Lufthansa executives, you may want to put these details on your website in a place that is accessible for customer use, and not hide things in miniscule writing behind your huge advertisements about free luggage. I work for a major company in the travel industry, and there is no way, under any policy, that we would ever treat a guest like this. This is hands down, the worst company, even outside of the travel industry, that I have ever dealt with in my entire life. Keep in mind that I am being extremely polite in the is letter, because what I want to say would shock and awe you. Cudos to you Lufthansa, for sucking.