zrs70

A while back, UA/ *A changed the way awards book work, in that we used to be able to change awards by segment.

Advice on FT would often be to secure the long-haul F/C segment with miles, then change the short hops as better awards open. That all changed, and now if we are holding, say, LAX-FRA-VIE (on LH), and we decide we want to go to ZRH instead, we can't simply change the final FRA-VIE to FRA-ZRH. The entire booking has to show fresh inventory.

It's really annoying.

I was in a situation this week where I needed space from Switzerland to LAX. I was holding F space on LH from MUC to DEN. But I wan't crazy about the flight time from Basel to MUC. When a better flight from BSL opened, I couldn't change it at all because I was already holding the space.

Again, really annoying.

I ended up making multiple reservations, holding 2-3 bookings at a time (glad I have lots of miles. And glad I get free changes on awards). But I must have booked and refunded 8 times. UA can't look upon this nicely. I just didn't want to give up the good space.

transportprof

Does the final booking cost more miles when doing it in multiple segments? If the answer is yes, then UA is likely happy with the outcome of their new approach to mileage bookings.

jmd001

I’m looking at booking a pair of premium seats on a BSL-VIE-LAX-SFO itinerary using UA miles (“I” inventory). BSL-VIE arrives at 9:30 PM; VIE-LAX is scheduled to depart at 10:00 AM the next day. The BSL-VIE and VIE-LAX legs are on OS.

Can I extend the stopover at VIE by a couple of days with no change in miles required (assuming “I” inventory is available on the flight I want to take)?

Not related to a stopover, but WRT the same itinerary: The LAX-SFO leg is on UA, but currently only has “XN” inventory available. Do I automatically get waitlisted for “I” inventory or do I have to request it?

Thanks.

WineCountryUA

No, a stopover creates a travel / award break and the next leg needs to be a seperate award or qualify for the free excursionist benefit.

Must manually request
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ns-issues.html

findark

Unsure of your usage of "at". You would stand a decent chance of being able to do this after you have flown BSL-VIE, assuming there is I space on the desired new flights (a big if). You would pay any applicable change fees, however.

concordian

I have a question on how best to use Excursionist perk for my trip:

IST-ABS(Abu Simbel in Egypt)
ABS-ASW
ASW-CAI
CAI-ATH

Main goal is to go from Turkey to multiple places in Egypt(Aswan, Abu Simbel, Luxor) and fly back to Athens or somewhere in Europe.

Also, i booked SFO-IST already and if I book one more one-way return to US, will I get another excursionist perk(somewhere in Europe)?

pushmyredbutton

Your excursionist perk has to be a one-way flight; it can't include any stopovers (connections are ok, so long as the booking engine offers them)

In your first scenario, you could book:
IST-ABS
ABS-CAI (free)
CAI-ATH

But if you wanted to include both ABS-ASW and ASW-CAI, I believe it should charge you for one of those legs, and the other one would be free. Others may chime in with more first-hand experience.

And yes, if you book an IST-US flight on the same reservation as your SFO-IST flight, yes, you would have another free excursionist perk (you could even likely use this one for the other ASW-CAI or ABS-ASW)

So ideally your trip could look something like this:
Itin 1
SFO-IST
ASW-CAI
IST-SFO

Itin 2:
IST-ABS
ABS-ASW
CAI-ATH

Obviously you'd make the dates spaced so the segments would work together.

concordian

Does return need to be from IST only or from anywhere in Europe(open jaw) like ZRH\VIE to SFO?

jsloan

It can be from anywhere that's convenient. Your itinerary will be eligible for the Excursionist Perk if it starts and ends in the same region (North America) and the free flight is entirely within another region (Middle East). So, if you book them all on one ticket, with SFO-IST / ASW-CAI / VIE-SFO, there will be no charge for ASW-CAI.

pushmyredbutton

Correct, and to sweeten the deal, your final leg doesn't even need to start in another region. Since you started your travel in the US, the only rule would be that your travel end there. So if you have an unrelated EWR-SFO or SEA-SFO coming up, that would be create the eligibility for the excursionist perk too.

nwflyboy

I'm looking at booking a flight next summer using United miles from SFO to IST on TK and then continuing on (also on TK) to my final destination in Europe the next day. My question is about what my options are to add on an additional leg (say, from IST to DBV).

I can book the SFO-IST leg when it becomes available. However, the continuation (IST-DBV leg) would need to be the following morning after we arrive (inbound flight from SFO arrives 5 pm, next TK flight out to DBV departs the following morning). Because of the combination of the long SFO-IST flight plus the required overnight layover in IST, the booking availability window for the IST-DBV leg will actually open two days later than the SFO-IST leg.

I'd like to grab the seats for the long flight right after they load (would rather nail that down ASAP). But that means the IST-DBV leg won't be available then - I would need to wait two days until that leg loads. By then there's a chance the TATL seats might be gone.

My question...

Can I book the SFO-IST leg (or have it held), wait 2 days, then add on the IST-DBV leg? If so, can I do that without an additional fee (alas, no status)?

My guess is that they would impose a change fee ($75 per ticket) because we would be making a change to the destination.

Is there any way to accomplish this (that is, secure the TATL flight right when it becomes bookable, then add the second leg 2 days later when it becomes bookable)?

Separate but related question: the extra leg from IST-DBV would be within Europe, so as I read the reward tables, it should still cost the same number of miles, whether our destination is IST or DBV, no?

Thanks for the clarification and help.

findark

Lacking any status, I think your best bet is either

(a) Just wait for the whole itinerary to become bookable. TK is historically very good about releasing I space, so of all possibilities I think it's a reasonably safe bet.

(b) If you *must* book right away, it may be easier to just book a cash ticket to DBV at a later date. But really, consider (a).


Your logic is correct that SFO-IST-DBV is the same number of miles as SFO-IST.

jsloan

The problem is, recent history is spotty on two fronts -- it can be difficult to get UA to allow you to add a leg to an award without pricing it end-on-end, and even if you can, they may only be able to do it if there is still inventory on SFO-IST.

If the flights that you want show up via a single SFO-DBV search, you'd be able to get them for the North America to Europe price. However, if they don't -- if you or the agent have to piece them together using multi-city search -- it's quite likely that they will charge you an additional set of miles for the IST-DBV leg.

nwflyboy

Thanks, findark and jsloan.

I worry that with constant devaluations and rapidly expanding crowds of people chasing diminishing availability, things get snapped up so quickly nowadays - if a flight that works for me is bookable, I generally prefer to grab it right away rather than waiting and finding that it's been taken by someone else. Yes, TK availability is pretty good, but I can see how quickly things tend to disappear. If I wait 2 days (until the booking window opens for the connecting flight) that risks the TATL. Thus my dilemma.

Getting a bit more creative...Does UA allow award bookings to be canceled (with no penalty) within 24 hours?

WineCountryUA

Yes, but be careful relying on the award inventory returning after canceling.