Changing a multi-airline award ticket
Apr 29, 2016, 1:48 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 23
Changing a multi-airline award ticket
Sorry for the long post – I have several related questions!
A few months ago, I booked a Croatia vacation as a UA saver award (open jaw: arriving in Zagreb, leaving from Dubrovnik), followed by a 2-day stopover in Istanbul. Now, with the increased security risks in Turkey, I am reconsidering the Istanbul trip.
For now, I am continuing with Istanbul. But I may change my mind if the situation evolves as I get closer to the travel date (Jun 17). One concern is that I find it difficult to find good alternatives with saver awards: I am trying to find both DBV-<new stopover> and <new stopover>-SFO with 1 connection rather than 2, and reasonable connections (not 40 min or 6 hours). I find many standard, few saver awards. But there seems to be more saver award options next week for example. Do you think that if I wait (even until 7 days before), I will get luckier? I expect that getting into June, demand will be higher and there will be less award tickets overall – but I understand that some airlines (including LH) release saver awards the week before. Any experience on this?
UA’s web site does not let me change my ticket – it errors out when I select the segment I want to change and tells me to call instead. Is it normal?
Before calling, I like to determine the best option. I have been searching for one-way award tickets: for example DBV-VCE on 6/17 then VCE-SFO on 6/20. The web site gives me several options as saver awards. But when I called yesterday to confirm that such a change was possible, the agent told me that several of the flights I saw as available were actually not possible. The agent could only select the worst ones (with multiple short or long connections). Any idea why? Should I use other search criteria to get the same results the agents do?
Finally, when I called UA to check what my options were, the agent actually performed an itinerary change – even though I said I was not ready to change. Bottom line: I lost my initial routing DBV-IST and IST-SFO. The agent was sorry, unlucky me! After 1h30 on the phone, I have the right cities and days – but different flights with longer connections (the direct IST-SFO on TK is replaced by a IST-FRA-SFO, actually a standard award). After reading such stories on this forum before, it happened to me: don’t call to mess with a multi-airline itinerary! Should I have pushed UA to re-instate the TK flights, or should I consider myself lucky?
Thanks
A few months ago, I booked a Croatia vacation as a UA saver award (open jaw: arriving in Zagreb, leaving from Dubrovnik), followed by a 2-day stopover in Istanbul. Now, with the increased security risks in Turkey, I am reconsidering the Istanbul trip.
For now, I am continuing with Istanbul. But I may change my mind if the situation evolves as I get closer to the travel date (Jun 17). One concern is that I find it difficult to find good alternatives with saver awards: I am trying to find both DBV-<new stopover> and <new stopover>-SFO with 1 connection rather than 2, and reasonable connections (not 40 min or 6 hours). I find many standard, few saver awards. But there seems to be more saver award options next week for example. Do you think that if I wait (even until 7 days before), I will get luckier? I expect that getting into June, demand will be higher and there will be less award tickets overall – but I understand that some airlines (including LH) release saver awards the week before. Any experience on this?
UA’s web site does not let me change my ticket – it errors out when I select the segment I want to change and tells me to call instead. Is it normal?
Before calling, I like to determine the best option. I have been searching for one-way award tickets: for example DBV-VCE on 6/17 then VCE-SFO on 6/20. The web site gives me several options as saver awards. But when I called yesterday to confirm that such a change was possible, the agent told me that several of the flights I saw as available were actually not possible. The agent could only select the worst ones (with multiple short or long connections). Any idea why? Should I use other search criteria to get the same results the agents do?
Finally, when I called UA to check what my options were, the agent actually performed an itinerary change – even though I said I was not ready to change. Bottom line: I lost my initial routing DBV-IST and IST-SFO. The agent was sorry, unlucky me! After 1h30 on the phone, I have the right cities and days – but different flights with longer connections (the direct IST-SFO on TK is replaced by a IST-FRA-SFO, actually a standard award). After reading such stories on this forum before, it happened to me: don’t call to mess with a multi-airline itinerary! Should I have pushed UA to re-instate the TK flights, or should I consider myself lucky?
Thanks
Apr 29, 2016, 7:33 am
#2
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: CLE
Programs: UA Gold, HH Diamond, Marriott Gold
Posts: 3,659
1. UA can't unilaterally reinstate the TK flights. TK must have saver award availability. When an award flight is cancelled, the flight may or may not go back into award availability. (There must be a better way of saying it.) You can keep looking and see if saver awards in TK open up.
2. Check the fees. Your profile doesn't say whether you are elite or not, but there are close in booking fees.
3. I haven't seen your itinerary, but for the ones I'm watching, I do see saver availability open up close to the date both on UA and on partner airlines.
4. I have often run into the problem that what the agents see and what I can see on line are often different.
Good luck
2. Check the fees. Your profile doesn't say whether you are elite or not, but there are close in booking fees.
3. I haven't seen your itinerary, but for the ones I'm watching, I do see saver availability open up close to the date both on UA and on partner airlines.
4. I have often run into the problem that what the agents see and what I can see on line are often different.
Good luck