vip66

I have a year-long trip to Spain, then on to Singapore. Booked a saver award this morning with the following routing:

NYC - BCN, BCN - SIN, SIN - NYC (a 4 months stopover in BCN, then another 5 months in SIN).

I was quite happy this worked. (Although it could not be done online for whatever reason, had to call reservations.)

But now I am trying another routing and they told me it is invalid because it has both a stopover and an open jaw:

NYC - BUD, BCN - SIN, SIN - NYC

Individual flights are available and I know open jaw and stopover should be combinable. But the supervisor kept insisting that's why the routing is invalid.

I was wondering if the problem is with the zig-zag pattern (east, west, east, west)?

Any suggestions?

Update #1: I called again this am and got the same response. This cannot be priced because it includes an open jaw (BUD-BCN) and a stopover (SIN). The rep checked with a supervisor and s/he could not get it priced either. So are open jaws + stopovers not allowed any more, maybe recent change?

Calling for the n-th time, I am also getting statements that my current booking (NYC - BCN, BCN - SIN, SIN - NYC) is illegal and that whoever did it should not have done it. They start by claiming I am crossing two oceans (which I am not because the SIN-NYC is through FRA). This is really frustrating!

Update #2: So I was finally able to make the change. Wow, how surreal! I was at 23h 45min past my original booking, on the phone for 2h, and they were ready to charge me the $25/pp change fee (and I was close to just requesting cancelation and redeposit.) And this change was done by a rep who originally claimed my booking was invalid (well, the ticketing did the change, she just sat there...).

Case in point: UA reps mostly have no idea what the actual rules are. So they start by saying "No, can't do it." Sad.