Originally Posted by
findark
A UA reservations agent should be able to override the lack of inventory and force new segments regardless of inventory without opening J space to anyone else. This does require special authorization to sell beyond J space, but should be standard procedure in the case of any INVOL rebooking where the human can see the pax already has the segment HK in that cabin. (requires a decent agent, hence sometimes HUCA)
But it sounds like OP is making a voluntary change, so this is moot - I agree that it's extraordinarily unlikely someone would do this for a voluntary change.
I think your overestimating what a standard UA agent can do, even in an invol situation. A standard agent has
no ability to overbook a flight, whatever change they make must have inventory available to book into. A lead has the ability to lift the overbooking restriction temporarily in certain situations to get someone on a flight (typically to correct an agent error or specific policy exception allowing for the overbooking restriction to be lifted), though again I do not believe the system allows them to restrict this to a specific individual/itinerary. Regardless, in the case of lifting the overbooking restriction to break married segments, the policy actually states they
must contact revenue control for permission, and revenue control has the final say, so it's not actually a case of HUCA (which is what OP is probably seeing having called 6 times now). If revenue control says no, there's nothing anyone in reservations can do to change that situation, its one of the situations where they truly can't do anything, aside from OP cancelling the ticket, hoping it all goes back into inventory, and being able to reselect the new flights at the current fare prior to anyone else taking them.