cvarming

I guess you are flying on September 16th or 23rd. The only scheduled alternative on the 16th leaves IAH at 7pm. If you can wait till 9am the next morning, then get you can get the non-stop to PDX, or if you can wait a day in IST, then there seems to be seats all the way on the 17th. I would call US first thing monday morning.

TWA44

Thanks. Yes, we are flying on the 16th. So are you thinking the United flight was cancelled? What would be the simplest online way for me to know that? They can't just take away my award seats on a flight, can they?

Update: I did find this on Flightmapper:

FLIGHT SCHEDULE FOR Sept. 16, 2013
Direct Flights:
Mon,Tue,Fri,Sun 17:25 Newark Liberty, New York (EWR) C 20:10 George Bush, Houston (IAH) C
UA 1712 Non-stop Boeing 757-200 (752) 3:45 Effective 2013-08-27 through 2013-10-25
Daily 21:00 George Bush, Houston (IAH) C 23:36 Portland (PDX)
UA 1712 Non-stop Boeing 737-800 (738) 4:36 Effective from 2013-08-27
Non-Direct Flights:
Mon,Tue,Fri,Sun 17:25 Newark Liberty, New York (EWR) C 23:36 Portland (PDX)
UA 1712 1-stop 752/738 8:21 Effective 2013-08-27 through 2013-10-25

But ITA does NOT now show the flight we had originally, which was United 1712.

If we must stay overnight in Houston, can we use our passes into a US lounge that came with the US MC card to hang out there, or do they limit how long one can stay in a lounge? It would be from whenever we cleared customs (7PM or so) until when we had to get our morning flight. I guess we could just get a hotel, but that wasn't what we had in mind originally. Thanks again.

Air Rarotonga

If a flight is cancelled?

Call US to clarify this. We cannot help you with this matter as we don't have the details about!

TWA44

Please see the post above yours. I had been updating it with more info when you posted. It looks like maybe the flight did get cancelled.

How in the world can they change it to a flight that leaves before we even arrive? I was under the impression that if a flight was cancelled or changed, they'd put us on something else that worked. Do they then go back to square one, looking for available award seats, or do they have more flexibility given the cancellation? Thanks again for any light you can shed on this.

cvarming

Try to find the flight on United.com. They don't sell revenue ticket to the flight anymore so I guess they slashed it.

cvarming

When United or US Airways cancel flights they will often open up award seats to accommodate you, but there has to be a scheduled flight they can open up seat on. I recommend you search the internet for "alliance liaison". Do notice that there are plenty of seats open for IAH-PDX on the 16th and 17th, so the real issue is the schedule not availability.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

errors happen. Putting pax on a flight that leaves before the one that arrives is not uncommon. I agree you would think it shouldn't happen - but it does.

You will generally be limited to finding award availability, but the first thing to do is call US Airways and ask them to have a look at your booking. They will advise you of the options.

If they can't do anything immediately to satisfy you, come back here with their proposal and get some feedback. I have had UA flights cancelled bedfore on a USDM itinerary and they (US) have been pretty accommodating in finding alternative flights - but it may involve a connection for example. Of course all change fees are waived so there is no issue with that.

TWA44

Thanks for all the input. Seeing award seats both on the next day's IAH-PDX flight and the entire itinerary from IST-PDX on the following day, I thought I'd not wait til Monday and call ASAP.

Here's what I learned:

> United cancelled the IAH-PDX on 9/16 although it operates on 9/17

> We can't move to the next day without US re-doing it all, which, for us, would end up costing us an additional 20,000 miles each. That's because the award mileage was misquoted to us (the first agent priced it incorrectly) and after a lot of time on hold, US agreed to allow us to book it for 20,000 less miles on each ticket.

> We could either leave at 9:10AM on 9/17 from IAH, or at 5:45PM. We opted for a day in Houston since we've never been there, and if we need to spring for a hotel room, we might as well see a bit of the city too. Going from a week in IST to a day in IAH should be an interesting culture shock for two Yankees who now live in the Pacific Northwest!

I was also told that the computer just puts in a flight when your booked flight gets cancelled, and they then depend on you to call in and say it won't work. Good thing AwardWallet informed me - I wonder when US might have gotten to it? I doubt I would have looked at it to check it very soon, given we don't depart until August 20.

Never expected we'd extend our trip by a day in Texas, but we have the time and prefer that to spending more miles. Thanks again.

drzoidberg

Thanks everyone for your patience & help!

Booked my first USDM-Star Alliance flight for departure in July.

Business class for 2; IAD-ORD-VIE-IST-BUD-MUC-CLT-DCA. I'm glad I get to sample the new Austrian Business Class and Turkish Airlines lounge which I've heard so much about.

One (hopefully) final question; our last leg from CLT to DCA is on Economy, because there were no business class seats available. How will this, if at all, affect our check-in baggage allowance if the preceding flights were all in Business? (BUD-MUC-CLT in Business on LH, CLT-DCA in Economy on USAirways).

I believe I get the benefit of the larger bag allowance:

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

I have never had an email from USDM for a cancelled or rescheduled flight... and this is going back over three years or so and dozens of flights. Not sure if that is solely because I only fly partner airlines. It pays to check your itineraries frequently, especially on long haul flights where there can be equipment changes.

imverge

Booked 160K

Toronto > Istanbul AC (J)
Istanbul > Maldives TK (J)
Maldives > Singapore SQ (J)
Singapore > Tokyo NH (J)
Tokyo > Washington NH (F)
Washington > Toronto UA (Y)

Looking forward to trying SQ (J) & NH in First Class ^

burlax

There is a lot of time until July. Keep checking availability on CLT-DCA ( you can do this for free on .sux if you don't have EF to set up an alert ) , and when it opens, call in and ask to change the last segment from X to O.

Check how many tickets your itinerary has. If one, LH should be able to interline your bags to DCA.

Yi Yang

I can see aviablility and book seat in Aeroplan system/United System/Lifemiles System, all agents in US told me nothing on that day and nothing on ALL NIPPON AIRWAYS

I am wondering how can this happen and I reserve my ticket in UA system without any UA miles. So I am still hoping it will show in US system...

Air Rarotonga

It's a well known problem that US sometimes does not see NH flights...

Read this thread for more information (or perform a search there):

Star Alliance Award Bookings Using US Airways Miles - FAQ and Help Thread [MERGED]

pogonation

Some NH regional flights are unable to be booked by US. Think this applies to flights operated by their subsidiary airline, Air Japan. If it is for a longer flight operated by ANA itself then that is strange.. Is it in 2014 by any chance?