LufthansaFlyer

Simply not true. I'm just a PG and have had long sell success on 3 out of 5 bookings this year and late last year. 2 of the 3 were for 2 tickets (wife and myself). 2 LH F trips, and 1 LH C.

BTW, you can not waitlist a long sell on LH.

andrewket

Perhaps this is a silly question.. but what is the point of a long sell? If it's revenue tickets and not award, why not just book with LH directly?

Andrew

LufthansaFlyer

Long sell is not forcing a reward seat to be opened. Its asking the airline (Lh in this case) to "sell" the seat to UA if its available, but not updated on 3rd party searches like ANA tool or UA's site. In one instance I called at noon and no seat was open. At 3p, I called and booked it. It's that fluid sometimes.

Long sells are for award tickets.

This is EXACTLY IT!!

MSPGabe

FYI I wouldn't use the term Long Sell with UA. Long Sell in the SHARES world is selling a segment without looking at availability.

So instead of:

A LAXMUC-LH
N1Y1

It's:

0LH453Y19JUNLAXMUCHK1*LH

First thing I thought you were talking about was the long sell command above. I've never heard the term used otherwise.

SEA1K4EVR

This has also been referred to as a "manual sell" for award tickets and it was something PMUA agents could/would do for quite a long time up until a couple years ago when it was expressly forbidden by the airline. Manual or Long selling ran counter to UA's policy of Starnet blocking so agents were told not to do it and risked their jobs if they did. I expect that policy is still in force and you won't be able to find anyone to do it for you.

LufthansaFlyer

What would you recommend we call it? I've always referred to it as a long sell and the agents understood what it meant. I would hate to confuse them if I can avoid it!

I know that US specifically forbids this activity. At least they claim they do but people have had success with US DM as well.

fastair

Why would you "HK1" instead of a request command uch as "NN1"?
"Long sell" is the correct term, or "manual sell" I've heard/used as well.

Thunderroad

Thanks to you two and the others who've shed light on this phenomenon, but are we actually talking about two different things here? LF seems to be talking about a situation where the award flight is available but for whatever reason not appearing on a given site. It seems that SEA1K is talking about a situation where the award does appear as available on a site, but that Starnet blocking means/meant that UA would block an MP member from redeeming miles for it. So, if I understand this correctly, the OP and LH are just talking about an itinerary that UA will allow mileage redemption for, but that it will only appear if the CSR is specifically asked to search for the date and flights involved.

Do I have that right?

Regardless...LF, how have you been able to know to ask for )and somtimes get) such specific award itineraries, though? Do you simply go fishing, or is the LH or some other site helpful in indicating award availability even it can't be found at UA, NH, EF, whatever?

MatthewLAX

60-70%? Forgive me for being dubious.

Do you see the NH space first, then call UA to manually book it if it doesn't show up on .bomb, or do you just request the space out of the blue, or perhaps do you see what M&M has made available to their own members, then try to get on those flights? (which would truly be an amazing, though time-intensive loophole if that worked).

You see the phantom O space all the time on .bomb, I assume. Have you ever checked to see if this matches with M&M member space?

sinoflyer

I think HK1 forces a different response from the CRS than NN1, since HK1 states that 1 space is already confirmed while NN1 requests for 1 space. Also, with the segment showing HK1, you can end the record and, even if that segment eventually turns to "UN1," it stays in the PNR. With NN1, if no space is available, I don't think the segment gets recorded into the record.

Another thought, "UN1" might fool the next agent who is unaware of the situation. They might mistakenly assume that pax's space was lost due to schedule change, etc., because they theoretically had a confirmed seat (even though they actually never did).

MSPGabe

I've had situations where when I used NN when booking a DL flight it didn't stick, whereas the HK did.

UrbaneGent

I've actually had this done before a couple of times. It's a forced request but not how one would think. Let's say LH123 shows F9 but 0 award seats.

I call agent, agent tells me there's no award seats in F. I ask her if she could put in a request, or "push" the request for an F award. She sends a request to LH and within 3-5 min she gets back a yes or no.

I had it done several times with LH, SQ and recently when I wanted to use miles on Air China for a C Class seat PEK-ULN. She sent the request and it came back open...on both legs, which showed closed on computer! She didn't open a seat, she just sent a request to the airline and the airline either approved it or updated it.

Now whether the individual airlines look at the inventory and decides to open a seat or it just needed to be updated, I don't know. I assumed the former. That someone received the request at say, LH, looked at the flight and decided to open a seat and approve the request.

Am I correct, Monsieur LufthansaFlyer?

UG

chinatraderjmr

I know your trying to help him and everything you say is true. I learned about long sells from someone like you. The problem is he has no Status. The HNL call center is for status Elites only. Used to be strictly 1K, now it's mixed but he will never get an agent in HNL. Since its COs policy not to allow that, every CO and off shore agent he gets will say no or not even know how to do it. Your giving good advice to a Platinum or 1K. Not a GM

RufussCkingston

Well last night at 11 pm pst I got a Houston agent who ended up transferring me to some very knowledgeable gentleman in what he said was the Tampa Support center. We talked about flyertalk and how it gives people all this info, some good, some absurd.

Alas he attempted to do a NN request, but got a pop up that said LH award reservations can only be made from available inventory and that there was no way for him to override it.

He also said that a HK request was a no-no in this situation as it does not actually communicate with the other airline. It is used In a situation where the agent gets a verbal confirmation over the phone and he needs the PNR to match up with the flying carrier. You could say it is a blind hard coding. Used for example when a flight is canceled and UA calls up and asks the flying carrier what are you doing for the customer who's ticket we issued. If they say they put them on flight xxx in x class on x day, the UA agent does an HK to reflect this and mirror the changed PNR on the flying carrier.

RCK

LASUA1K

I never knew what this was until today. But just a week ago, I was looking for ORD-ATH award flights and no saver available, I had a non status friend, that booked a saver award after asking for a supervisor several times. He got ord-fra-ath both ways on a saver. I didn't believe him as the same day, I called and nada.

He does spend over 100K on the United Mileage Card.