jsloan

This doesn't make sense. What I would do is call UA and ask for the OZ confirmation number, and then look up your reservation at OZ. I imagine you'll find that you're still confirmed in their system. I have a reservation in June that's missing an NH segment when viewed from UA.com; when I look at NH's website, it shows up fine. I think it's just another website glitch.

As long as you're ticketed, the airline is responsible for delivering you to your destination.

SEA1K4EVR

You need to keep pressing them.. if they can't get partner award space for you, at minimum they have an obligation to open up space on UA operated flights SIN-SEA and put you on those.

LTBoston

+1. Same thing happened to me with SQ. I disappeared from the UA system but my reservation was alive and well in SQ F.

channa

They can also book you in a revenue class for the flight that they dropped.

maxinkuckee04

OZ is saying they never got the ticket number from UA and UA is saying OZ took 2 months to cancel it and that is not ordinary so they are saying it is a glitch on OZ's side.

spgaston

Call UA and demand that they call OZ while you wait on hold. They need to straighten it out amongst themselves not put you in a position to keep calling each airline over and over again.

username

See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...elling-me.html

hirohito888

Good advice. I was scheduled to fly a TG/OZ business award ticket in 3 days. Checked my reservation and the OZ segment was gone. 2nd time it happened in 10 days! First time I was able to get my business seat back with availability.

This 2nd time, they had no availability, but I was able to get supervisor who got in touch with OZ. At first, the only thing they could offer was a Y seat, which I wasn't satisfied. But after a few min of complaining, the agent told me they found a business seat for me. So in the end, I'm back with original itinerary and seats, but still a frustrating 25min.

Now to call OZ to make sure my ticket is still good.

pdxp2b

I have a confirmation e-mail from 5/10/12 for my flight that leaves today to South Korea and returns to the U.S. on 9/25. Luckily I called to inquire about choosing seats on a few of my segments last night and happened on the information that my return flights were unavailable on the 25th. I had received NO notification nor advisory to that effect.

This is my first time booking a flight with United and I learned about this information by accident the night before a 6 week trip to Asia begins. The United agent who answered my first call was chewing gum during the call and took 45 seconds to respond to my request if anyone was there when she picked up the phone because she was busy chatting with her co-workers.
I was informed the segment's schedule had been changed, and that this flight was operated by Asiana, not United, so I would need to contact them to re-book. No assistance in this matter was offered, even when I made it clear I had no idea about the protocol in such situations, e.g. rescheduling an award ticket booked on one airline that partnered with another. The agent was clearly eager to get me off the phone rather than assist me.

I called Asiana, they found the record of my flight but told me all the return segments of my ticket operated by them had been cancelled and I would need to re-book with United. You can imagine my frustration. I had done my part researching and booking 3 months ago, and now no one would help me fix a problem that inadequate communication and poor notification protocols between United and Asiana created. As my Asiana call was directed to someone whose grasp of my native language was dubious, I called United again.

This call was answered by "Danny" in Manila, who spent one hour and 8 minutes talking into my ear while he attempted to re-book me. I appreciate his efforts, he was put in a poor situation by disorganization and made the absolute best of it. He probably wrecked his call queue and call average, but he actually helped me to the best of his ability. After about 30 minutes when it was clear many of the routes were full at the award level I booked, I couldn't grasp why I wasns't offered an upgrade to better routing/availability since the mistake wasn't mine but the time being wasted certainly was. This would have been the right, simple and quick thing to do as it doesn't make sense that I should suffer for the ball being dropped.

The "resolution" is that I now have much, much worse flights than I did, with an overnight in one airport required, along with a 7 hour layover in another--5 segments total to get me from Korea to the west coast. I accepted this last night because resolution to a 68 minute call with a tier 1 CS in Manila can only have so much hope for a great resolution.

I haven't yet taken a United award myself and I'm absolutely appalled at the disorganization shown by United in keeping a reservation I made months in advance and equally disturbed by the total disinterest in assisting a customer whose reservation United booked, was then changed, and never even informed. I wasted an hour and a half of my life on a very important night because the first CSR I spoke to had no interest in helping me, and the 2nd wasn't impowered to help correct the mistakes that United or its * Alliance partner made.

This is essentially what I sent to United, have received no response. I'm sure FT has much, much worse stories, but I thought I'd share my first experience with United and award travel...

pdxp2b

**TLDR return leg of my award trip was cancelled, I wasn't notified and accidentally found out when I went to choose seats on one leg. Spent 1.5 hours on the phone and got a crap "solution".**

USFdonWill

pdxp2b, welcome to FT!

Sorry to hear that you had so much trouble with your award ticket. First, you will probably not get a response for at least two weeks; do not expect anything too quick. Second, what kind of schedule change occurred that caused the cancellation? Are you certain that your Asiana segments were ticketed? Do you have a e-ticket number and Asiana confirmation number?

Edit: If this is your first booking with United, how did you come upon the required miles?

pdxp2b

Asiana told me that the three flight segments they were operating had been cancelled. 20 minutes later the 2nd United CSR I worked with rebooked me into two of those same "cancelled" legs. The transpacific portion had a schedule change but other than that they should have all still been available.

I was assigned an e-ticket number when I booked the award with United that included all segments, I didn't get anything from Air China(operating one segment outbound tonight, no problem) nor Asiana, I didn't think they would require a separate e-ticket/confirmation for a segment if that's what you're saying?

First *award* booking with United, not first booking.

Boghopper

You wouldn't get anything from them unprompted. Unfortunately UA is so incompetent that you have to call up every airline in your itinerary and have them check that you have both an itineary and a valid ticket with each of them. A month later you have to do it again, and again, and again, until your flight leaves. Otherwise you run the very real risk that UA will mess it up and then refuse to fix it when it's time to fly.

chinatraderjmr

Bog hopper is being overly optimistic . I came every airline, every 2 weeks. My last award included LH & TG flights. As soon as I booked it, I got my tkt #. Then the next step was calling LH & TG to assign seats, confirm they had the tkt #'s & get the booking reference #'s from them. (it's a good idea in this first call to also make sure the OAL's have your contact info in the record. (once that's done you can breathe). But don't get complacent. Call each airline to reconfirm at least every 2 weeks

BearX220

The protocol is that when partner segments go south, the airline that booked you -- United -- is responsible for fixing your itinerary. End of story. The agent that blew you off was evading her and the airline's responsibility. You should raise hell. Not only about the lack of notifications (UA seems never to notify customers about anything anymore; the posters above are correct -- you have to recheck your bookings again and again) but the agent's refusal to do her job.

OT, but about notifications: I have been flying DL and US more lately for obvious reasons. When a DL itin changes I get a detailed e-notifier with the changes bolded. Last week I had a late-running US segment and I had three proactive notifiers, to two of my phone numbers and my email. From United, when there are sked changes, delays, cancellations: total silence.

bobbybrown

This is the same old United-Asiana communication problem. Asiana cancels all.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...elling-me.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite......-korea.html

When I made United award reservation a couple of months ago, rep. kindly told me to call Asiana by myself in a few days and tell them my e-ticket number, otherwise my ticket might be canceled. She knew this issue clearly. It seems not all of them knew the problem, though.

I do hope there appear an award seat with better schedule for you. You will be able to change without any penalty.