Originally Posted by
jiajun
Thanks for your reply, very useful info. What's the difference between "end on end" and a side trip? It looks like side trips are allowed but end on end is not allowed.
I guess "end on end not permitted" means that I cannot book any roundtrip ticket on United departing from EWR during the days of my HKG-EWR reservation? What if I was staying in EQR for 6 months? I wouldn't be allowed to take another roundtrip from EQR at any point in those 6 months? Or only if such trips would result in a lower total fare? Is there specific definitions of end on end and side trips as defined by United?
Would I still be breaking the rules under the following scenarios?
1. EWR-SDQ on another airline
2. JFK-SDQ on United
3. EWR-SDQ and SDQ-EWR booked as one way bookings on United.
4. Staying a few days in EWR before going on to SDQ
A side trip is where you have a stopover or other segments which cause you to transit the same connection point twice on a single fare component. You cannot do a side trip on that fare, as it also prohibits stopovers and limits connections, but it would look like HKG-AAA-BBB-AAA-EWR on the through fare. The permission of side trips is probably from a template also copied onto fares the permit stopovers, where that routing would make more sense.
As far as the rules, it gets a bit fuzzy. To come after you, UA would probably have to show (a) there was a more expensive fare construction that would have been required if the itinerary were on a single ticket, and (b) you knowingly booked in way which circumvented the fare rules. Technically speaking, (2), (3), and (4) would qualify for this. But in no case would I worry about getting in trouble. The only time where this is a big enough issue for an airline to try to penalize you is where you are evading minimum stay restrictions on a round trip fare. Say you want to fly A-B-A for two Tuesday nights in a row. You can save by booking the first and last segments as an A-B-A RT, and then the middles ones as a B-A-B RT. If you do this repeatedly, then you can get charged/sued by the airline. But for a one-off, and specifically not a back-to-back ticket, I would never worry.
Consider leaving one day or more earlier from HKG and one day or more earlier from SDQ, if your schedule allows this. That should help you in case of any delays. You won't have as much time in SDQ, unless you extend the overall length of your trip.
If I understand the schedule it's a forced overnight in EWR both ways anyway.