zagy

I have the following flights next week:
Ticket 1: VCE-FRA-IAH-SJC
Separate Ticket 2 (next day): SFO-PVR

Ticket 1 is a J class P fare and Ticket 2 is a J class award on AV LifeMiles. Both IAH-SJC and SFO-PVR are on UA.

I was actually hoping to skip the last IAH-SJC part of Ticket 1 but couldn't find any award availability for IAH-PVR (current price for the ticket is 400€ for O/W in Y, which is a no go).

So I'm now stuck with a pretty bad routing for these two flights:
FRA-IAH arrives early afternoon, then a 7 hour layover at IAH and arrive at SJC at 11:30 PM and have to get to SFO for the 9AM flight to PVR.

I know that this is probably a silly idea and am 99% sure it doesn't work but it doesn't hurt to at least ask.

I wanted to know what are my chances of going to an UA agent at IAH and asking if they could rebook me to an earlier IAH-SFO flight?

I'm guessing things like these don't work as I could just as easily say: "why not change my IAH-SJC flight IAH-PVR". But one can hope

Thanks for the help...

Kacee

Your 99% no-go figure is about right. Definitely against the rules to change destination without repricing the ticket and paying change fee. Your best hope is some type of weather or mx delay/cancellation which would trigger much broader change options.

FlyingIsCool

It never hurts to call and ask. If you have status, it might help.

Maybe call several times (hang up and call again if the first agent wasn't helpful)

cmhua777

I can't see them putting you IAH-PVR unless there is an operational issue (e.g., IAH-SJC cancels).

You can SDC to an earlier flight, assuming there is an earlier flight, even if you have to make a connection. You also might be able to snag a IAH-SFO flight if you talk to a nice agent.

aacharya

Can you see how much the P change fare would be to route to SFO instead of SJC? Or, as I imagine, the SJC was a really cheap option?

PV_Premier

if seats are available on IAH-PVR there's a reasonable chance you could change your award ticket to that when you reach IAH (or maybe sooner). a week out X/XN will not be open but a day out, they might be offered.

another option to consider is to try to see if the last IAH-SFO flight of the day has X/XN available and call in to change the award to have it be an overnight in SFO, then throw away your IAH-SJC ticket. this will not work if there is a early AM IAH-SFO flight that would arrive in time for you to meet MCT for the SFO-PVR flight, but if there are no IAH-SFO options that early in the morning, then this is overnight in SFO is a legal connection from the perspective of a UA award, i think...

if you do the above, i would not do it too far in advance because UA systems may detect them as conflicting bookings and cancel both tickets.

SunLover

There was a time long long ago in a galaxy far far away when an employee at either UA or CO with some basic business acumen, using their best judgment, might look at a situation like this in real-time and think:

*The IAH-SJC flight is relatively tight
*The IAH-SFO flights are relatively open
*SJC and SFO are co-terminals
*So why not get you moving sooner and kill two birds with one stone!

But these days most flights are packed, and the front line employees are less likely to exercise any common sense latitude.

That said - it never hurts to ask when you arrive at IAH, and it might be worth a reasonable SDC type of fee. Not having the added complication of checked bags floating somewhere in the system is always a plus, so my advice would be not to re-check your bags to SJC before talking to an agent about your proposed rebook.


SunLover

cmhua777

Do you have to fly the IAH-SJC leg or can you skip it? If you can skip it (i.e., it is the last segment of the entire ticket), then you could buy a flight IAH-PVR on another airline. UA's fares are high on that route, but US/AA have 200 Euro fares for most days.

Save the hotel and rental car in the Bay Area (assuming you need that), as well as the AV miles, and pay to fly AA IAH-PVR.

zagy

Thanks so much for the responses!

Called UA just now and the change from SJC to SFO would be $450 per passenger

The revenue ticket was part of the really good *A sale a couple of months back, where you could get US-Europe-US for about 1000€ in J (a P fare class). An amazing deal and I managed to use this ticket in two trips. First one in June for geting from US to Europe and now the second one to get back to US before heading down to South America.

I had to be flexible with the airports, so the ticket was BOS-VCE-SJC. Major hubs like JFK, SFO, ... didn't work. And back then (about 3-4 months ago) I actually had plans to spend a couple of days in the SJC/SFO area before heading out.

With new plans, I did plan to skip the IAH-SJC part of the ticket and get a AV LifeMiles IAH-PVR award but for some reason, there's no Saver availability on August 6th in either J or Y (despite 9+ seats in J).

Prices to buy IAH-PVR on August 6th are 410€ with UA and 320€ with US for IAH-PHX-PVR in Y, which is a lot. I see IAH-PHX on the 5th and PHX-PVR on the 6th for 180€ in Y but I'm guess then I would just be buying us an overnight in Phoenix...

I'll still follow your suggestion of first checking the bag only to IAH and ask one more time at the airport and see how it goes.

I guess we'll just have to make the most of that 12AM-9AM midnight migration from SJC to SFO... any suggestions on how to best spend those 9 hours? I know that the first Caltrain from SJ towards SF goes at about 5AM...

channa

1. If your record is flagged for IRROPS, it will allow airport changes. So if FRA-IAH is late, even if you'll make the connection, it will allow you to re-checkin and then you can pick alternate airports.

2. Forget the Caltrain. The Monterey Airbus runs SJC-SFO for $20, door to door. Make a reservation from IAH if it looks like you'll be needing that: http://montereyairbus.com/ride/index.php/schedule

zagy

The first one goes at 5:30AM... what can you do at SJC during those 5 hours? Any lounges open?

Kacee

You're kidding, right?

SJC is not only a small regional airport, it's noise curfewed (no departures/arrivals) between 11:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m.