RandomBaritone

I'm scheduled to fly BOS>EWR>LHR early Thursday morning. I hate redeyes, so I'm booked on UA's day flight out of EWR, departing @ 9:15am.

Unfortunately yet another storm is approaching the northeast Wednesday night/Thursday morning, and I'm worried it'll wreak havoc with my schedule. My presentation in London isn't until Friday morning, but I'd be miserable if I ended up having to rush straight from LHR to the conference on no sleep -- if I made it at all.

The storm is only expected to dump 3" of snow on EWR and BOS, but I noticed that last night's storm, with a similar snow total, caused the cancellation of the very 6:30am BOS>EWR flight I'm scheduled to take on Thursday.

What do folks suggest? At the very minimum I'll show up at BOS two hours early, so I can SDC onto the 6am flight if that looks more promising; today's was delayed, but unlike the 6:30, it did eventually make it to EWR.

I don't have much experience with IRROPS on UA. How much warning can I expect if one or both of my flights are in fact canceled?

FLYDCA

If routing via IAD is an option there is a daytime flight to LHR from there too.

channa

BA has a nonstop day flight BOS-LHR.

If your flight gets delayed or canceled, push for that flight. Don't take no for an answer, you sometimes have to fight with UA to get them to do what they're supposed to.

mkr

Eric Westby ,since you would only have 1hr 16 min connection time at EWR on your original itinerary (which is cutting it close) have you considered a SDC to Wednesday night from BOS, either routing through IAD or EWR? You would be out of BOS and miss any potential weather problems Thursday, get a night's sleep, and take an am flight to LHR on Thurs. Of course, I do not know your available time for Wed.

You can start checking for SDC at 6:32 AM on Wed. Since your profile states Gold, there is no SDC fee.

You did not state your fare bucket.
Your fare bucket has to be available to avoid paying additional fare, but most fare buckets open up 3 hours before the flight. I checked, and there is very good availability Wed.night in all fare buckets at this time from BOS-EWR on the flights at 7:24 PM and 8:19 PM. (1 1/2 hrs to EWR). There are also flights at 4:07pm and 6:34pm, but they are very full at this time. The evening flights from BOS-IAD are regionals.

If it were me and I could go Wed. night. I'd shoot for the 7:24pm flight for a SDC. If I got it, then I would keep trying for the 6:34pm or 4:07pm afterwards if the fare buckets open up, planning to get to the airport early on Wed.

uthornsgo

+1. The equipment on the daytime flight is old and crap. I've had those morning flights to london cancelled because of maintainence and I would stay in Boston and actually hope you get cancelled there so you can take the BA flight.

RandomBaritone

Thanks to all, especially channa and uthornsgo! Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined UA would put me on a BA flight, especially as a result of a weather delay. I'm only Gold -- why on earth would they do me such a favor? Where is it written that they're, as you put it, "supposed to"? What are the magic words I'd say to get them to consider such a thing, rather than simply delaying me 10 hours at EWR?

If I did fly BA, would I still get UA PQM and RDM?

The Wednesday night option definitely occurred to me, and you're right, I could SDC for free. I also considered flying to EWR early then staying at the Marriott overnight on my own dime, but then I'm completely screwed if it's EWR that melts down: stuck at a hotel when I could be waiting at home.

EnvoyBoy

I'd agree with the poster who says go the night before. I'm on that flight at least once a month and always fly in the night before to risk a misconnect in the morning.

And unlike the last poster, I've never had that flight cxl. As matter of fact, I think it was one of the only flights that made it out a few weeks ago when the snow was coming down. We were delayed and had to be deiced and came into LHR at least 90 mins late but it went out.

channa

Star Alliance rebooking rules required that all carriers rebook if your flight has an irregularity. If you have a delay that appears that you will misconnect, or a cancellation, they must rebook you.

Order of preference is that they rebook on:

1. Original carrier (United in this case);
2. Star Alliance carrier;
3. Other airline (OAL)

They are to rebook in the customer's best interest.

Since this route is served nonstop only by an OAL, it's not likely that a UA or a Star Alliance carrier will get you there faster, so it is in your best interest to get rebooked onto BA, should there be an irregularity with your flight.

As for getting them to do it, there are no magic words. Some may be resistant, others may not. It's luck of the draw. Don't take no for an answer. Escalate or redial until you get what you want.

As for mileage, you will not get the UA miles automatically. You can write in after the fact for original routing credit and get your miles.

mduell

While they can, they mostly won't. Don't have time for it (it's a heavily manual process), no space available (without any obvious signs of checking), etc a million excuses. There's no published rule/agreement they will (the only public source I know of is the *A employee handbook) and no one with a lot of motivation to help when they won't. Rule 24 (E) in the contract of carriage explicitly says it's at UA's sole discretion to reaccomodate on another carrier.

My takeaway here is know that UA rebooking you on BA is possible, but expect to really have to push for it.

lhrsfo

Flying SFO-LAX-LHR the other day, my flight to LAX was showing that it would leave 15 minutes for the connection. I met a flat out refusal to put me on the later non-stop. I tried at check in, at the UC and at the gate and, yes, there was space on the non-stop. In the end they held the LHR flight for 10 minutes so I made it, but my bag didn't.

The net result of employee intransigence was that I was a very unhappy customer and UA had to pay for my bag to be delivered.

So it's not only refusal to book on OALs, it's also refusal even to lift a finger to help a customer.

RandomBaritone

See, this is the UA I know. Thanks for the reality check.

If the storm were only expected to be bad at BOS, I'd take the advice to leave for EWR the night before and eliminate one possible point of failure. Unfortunately EWR is supposed to get hit too.

On the plus side, I seem to be alone in loving those daytime flights to Europe; there's loads of space on my current flight and on the BA daytime nonstop from BOS. So if the BA flight is in fact the best option, they won't be able to make the excuse that it's full.

Unless my flight is canceled before we head to the airport, this will probably also be done in person at the BOS UC, so perhaps they'll be a bit more sympathetic if I'm there, bag in hand, talking about my Friday breakfast meeting.

blue3715

All travel is screwed in snow storms...

I hear the Ringling Bros circus is in Boston. why not head over and see if they will shoot you out of their big cannon?

channa

That's ridiculous. They're supposed to rebook in known delays.

How much of a fight did you put up? Sometimes you have to kick and scream a bit to get what you deserve. Think of UA as an insurance company, and modify your behavior accordingly.


Did you also buy some interim clothing and toiletries? #MakeJeffPay

So it's not only refusal to book on OALs, it's also refusal even to lift a finger to help a customer.[/QUOTE]


No, but they can lie and say they don't see it. In which case you'll need to lie and say you called BA and they said they were wide open and willing to take you.

Then, they'll say if I can't see it in my system, I can't book you on it. To which you'll need to reply that SHARES doesn't always show you real time inventory, you need to call BA, because if you can't see it, but it's open, you can still book it if they manually confirm.

Then they'll say they don't know how to do that, and you'll need to direct them to call the Helpdesk, because you've had it done before.

Then if you're lucky, they'll realize you're not backing down and say, "Oh it looks like 1 seat opened up, let me grab it," and you'll be on your way.

It's a game you gotta play with United Continental Holdings.

RandomBaritone

It might be more comfortable that way! No upgrades on this trip, so I'm in steerage.

On the plus side, though, assuming my original flight takes off as planned I'll have unlimited room in E+, as long as the FAs keep it clear of poachers.

kirkwoodj

Avoid EWR.