PV_Premier

yes, you should. can you see the awards online for desired dates/flights? (perhaps not due to the current performance issues on the website)

Kacee

The published benefits say you should be able to.

Do you see YN inventory?

exerda

I can't get anything to show up right now (nor since about 5:00pm today).

However, when I did search earlier today--this is for DEN-SGU, which is a SkyWest UA Express flight, and which I've booked awards on several times before including one for Friday I was trying to change--the award search engine wouldn't show any flights, and the revenue one showed it like it was some kind of partner metal flight with just the revenue buckets. No X, XN, or YN.

Phone agent claimed it was because it was a "partner flight" and thus wasn't eligible as an award.

My thought is the site and inventory behind it may just be screwed up at the moment, and I'll try again periodically.

But I did want to confirm I'm not crazy and that as a UA 1K, I should be able to book the last seat on the plane as a standard award if necessary (and indeed, the flight I had booked for Friday was a standard award, since IAD-DEN connecting to it lacked saver inventory). I had always thought that was the published benefit...

findark

You are correct - last seat availability for standard awards, and should have the booking code YN. I have very occasionally seen inventory that doesn't match last seat (I think for domestic first - F1 JN0), but it sounds like there's a bigger bug with UA IT here.

I can't get .bomb to work at all right now, so if I were you I'd just HUCA and/or wait.

sbm12

Happens some times depending on how the regional flight is loaded in the system IIRC. Usually they can figure it out and get it done properly.

mduell

I wonder if it's a route SkyWest is flying at risk rather than fee for departure.

exerda

I finally got the revenue version to display again, and the details say:

UA 5032 Y9B9M9E9U9H7Q0V0W0S0T0L0K0G0N0X0

X is there and is 0 (obviously no saver award), but, sigh, no YN.

I may at least put a fare lock on the revenue ticket to ensure a seat, and keep trying back to see if it shows up correctly to book as an award.


Could be--maybe it changed to at-risk very recently?

PV_Premier

No XN bucket means it is loaded as a partner flight and not as a UA metal flight, so the agent is sort of right. You might be stuck paying for this one with real $.

exerda

I think the agent is right, as far as that goes, but that UA's systems are wrong. Unless it possibly going to an at-risk OO flight (which I'm not sure is the case but seems at least plausible) makes it no longer work as a United flight in terms of inventory and award redemption. The flight itself is now loaded to the end-of-schedule AFAIK and is on every date I checked showing only saver awards (if X is available) or no availability.

I also just realized that FareLock apparently only works on roundtrips (I'd never tried it on a one-way). So yes, I may be stuck paying revenue for the flight that I had as an award for Friday.

Shame UA couldn't force open inventory on my alternate dates... it's not like we're talking some *A partner...

ETA: OK, so that was just .bomb being flaky on me; I tried again, and FareLock is perfectly available for a one-way.

PV_Premier

i used to fly SMF-ACV a bit...which was operated at risk. thinking back on those days (with an admittedly crummy memory), i believe that if you could not get a standard award, you couldn't get one at all...so that is a plausible explanation, again IF my memory serves me correctly...which is far from guaranteed.

if someone knows a route that is definitely operated at risk that would be the best way to test. i'm *pretty* sure that DEN-RKS is operated at risk, but not 100%.

fastair

I think you are correct. St George is SkyWest HQ, I m pretty sure that is one of the few flights that is 100% theirs.

mduell

To be clear, I don't know if UA is actually supposed to treat at-risk vs fee-for-departure flights differently for standard awards, but it's a plausible reason why the flight may be listed differently in their system and appear as a partner.

Kacee

It may be what's happening, but it's certainly not consistent with the published benefit:
Award Types

exerda

Agreed.

I think they are treating at least this route (suggesting it's at-risk, I guess) as if it were some non-United Express partner. Like Silver or Great Lakes or Cape Air... except they're still marketing it as a United Express flight.

Once the furor dies down regarding the storm, if the IT systems aren't "fixed" regarding the flight (and from the earlier posts in this thread with the merge, that doesn't appear likely), I will try to press the matter. I don't look forward to paying nearly $500 o/w for a route on which I held an award previously.

yojimbo

I am a Chase cardholder, and the UA web site recognizes me as such.

I am trying to book an award ticket from EWR to North Bend, OR (OTH), connecting in SFO. There are many available seats for sale on both the EWR-SFO and SFO-OTH flights, but several phone calls to UA have produced the same answer:

1. The "last seat" policy is that eligible premier and Chase customers are guaranteed access to Standard Awards if there is a seat available for sale on that flight.
2. The SFO-OTH route does not have standard awards, only saver awards. (this is not a reference to availability, rather that the route only ever has saver awards)
3. Therefore, UA is not required to provide award availability on that flight, even though there are seats for sale.

In other words, UA is saying that, because Standard Awards are never available on this route, the "last seat" award policy does not apply to this flight. This does not make sense to me. Am I missing something?