I too use this strategy and today found UA cancelled my HOLD flight (6/18 SFO-LHR 12:31 ~ 7/9 LHR-SFO 2:10) before the scheduled 11:59pm expiry time tonight. I'm US west coast but the current time is 8:44pm and the hour deadline on HOLD flights is based on the city of departure; SFO in my case.
This evening I had gone online to check and the same flight at the same fare wasn't available but the following day was; I moved the entire itinerary forward one day (same price) and put a HOLD on this new itinerary, which gave me time to talk with the family to choose; they chose the original itinerary.
I phoned MP and got a wonderful agent who after speaking with her supervisor, granted my request to honor the original itinerary at the original fare (fare had gone up $228/ticket - that's a lot of shoes!). Afterall, it still wasn't 11:59pm, April 27th.
While I'm happy with the outcome I'd like to share a few things for FT members in the event it helps them:
- UA didn't originally want to grant my request, but I believe knew they weren't fair (3 of 4 of the pax traveling have status) and honored it. There isn't any notification that -should you put a similar flight on hold that the prior one will be cancelled. Though I do realize the airlines 'backdoor' us with rule and regulation changes.
- The agent explained the UA system searches for duplicate bookings and cancels the first one. Well, my bookings weren't duplicate; similar yes, though they were for two different days - we are, afterall, flying SFO-LHR - can't do that two days in a row!
Perhaps a way round this is to HOLD a second itinerary under a different MP account i.e., spouse/traveling partner.
- I've been able to HOLD flights for years, and have done so successfully up until this week.
- I find it curious that the first time this has happened to me is after the original post (no blame
just an observation) came up on FT. Has anyone else had similar issues?
- When the original itinerary was reinstated by MP, it didn't come up online - I was told that I could pay the $20 service fee per ticket to have the itinerary ticketed while on the phone with the agent - I said no and was graciously transferred to the ICC Web Desk. The gentleman was very pleasant, found my itinerary online, took payment over the phone and (after checking with his supervisor) gave us our requested seat assignments in E+. Wanted C, but was too frugal to pay $1700+ for the "chance" to upgrade. BTW, we paid $855 non-stop - not bad really.
I've been watching fares for this trip for months and decided to push the button. I don't recall direct flights SFO-LHR being this low in ages and with four seats to purchase thought it wise to push the button now.
If anyone thinks I shouldn't post this, I believe the cat is already out of the bag and UA is well aware of HOLDS. I'll not be offended if you want me to remove this post, send me a PM - I'm just trying to share my experience.
Goodnight!
Petal