US Airways Dividend Miles - Experience w/ Splitting a "Throughfare"?

Hi all, I'm booked on a continuation flight next Monday, which the agent referred to as a "throughfare," where the plane lands in DCA and continues on from DCA to my final destination. There are seats open in F for the first half (origin-DCA), but not for the second, so I wasn't cleared for the upgrade at the Silver window (today). When I saw F seats available for the first leg (available to be ticketed, not just empty seats), I called to see if they could split the ticket into two segments so that I can be cleared for the upgrade. They (didn't have the Silver phone # with me, so it was regular US I believe) told me that because it's priced as a direct, they cannot. Anyone ever have any success with achieving this, or any suggestions of avenues to try?

Secondly, I'm doing Trial Preferred right now, and had expected this part of my trip to count as 2 segments--2 takeoffs and 2 landings. Given this experience of it being priced as a direct, do you think it will count as 2 or just 1? Thanks!

A "direct" flight is 1 segment, even if it has a stopover. You can book the same physical journey as two segments and get two credits, but it will likely cost you more.

To split one into two would probably involve a change fee and fare difference. And because an F seat is not available on your trip (i.e., the whole trip), you can't be upgraded.

These are just some of the reasons to avoid "direct" flights.

A "direct" flight is 1 segment, even if it has a stopover. You can book the same physical journey as two segments and get two credits, but it will likely cost you more.

To split one into two would probably involve a change fee and fare difference. And because an F seat is not available on your trip (i.e., the whole trip), you can't be upgraded.

These are just some of the reasons to avoid "direct" flights.

And because for all this convenience they may still tell you this isn;t the plane for your second flight get off and go to another gate.

You can do a dummy booking for a multi-city trip to obtain the cost of the new ticket:

AAA-DCA
DCA-BBB

Then add $75 change fee and subtract the price of the existing ticket and you will have the cost of doing this which, after all, only gets you F on the first segment with a bottom-tier shot at the other.

If you stick with what you have now, you may still clear if something opens up on the second segment.

You can do a dummy booking for a multi-city trip to obtain the cost of the new ticket:

AAA-DCA
DCA-BBB

Then add $75 change fee and subtract the price of the existing ticket and you will have the cost of doing this which, after all, only gets you F on the first segment with a bottom-tier shot at the other.

If you stick with what you have now, you may still clear if something opens up on the second segment.

$75 change fee, Since when.

Thanks all for the advice. Splitting it by reticketing it myself unfortunately isn't worth the cost.

Originally when I was looking at F seats, there were only seats open on the ROC-DCA leg (continuing DCA-PIT, flight 3405 on 6/4). Now when I try a fake F booking, I'm able to select seats for both legs, which to me implies that there is at least one being held back. I see 4 open but I realize some might be upgraded folks who didn't choose yet...I don't have KVS so I have no way to confirm. Are there any free tools out there that would allow me to see what's truly "available"?

I would be more concerned about missing out on the segment, if you were counting on it for your challenge. If your only alternative is now to purhcase another unplanned flight in the future, then you really want to do anything you can to get this one to work. Best option would probably be to Move Up to an earlier flight. Since 3405 is the only single flight number between the two cities, any other combination would work to get you your two segments.

Regarding getting two segments - I seem to recall that the strategy of asking the GA to reprint your boarding pass at the stopover point would trigger a second segment. I don't know if you had to ask for a different seat or not, or even if this still works.