Another drawback of going to the airport is that often, at least in SYD, the UA reps there aren't willing/capable/interested in helping you. Last May I needed to revalidate paper *A award tix (had some segments change on NZ), and I was told by the UA reps at the airport that the old ticket was fine. They absolutely refused to touch them. AFAIK (and as I was told by UA reps on the phone), if there are irregular ops at NZ and my ticket receipt and itin. don't match the actual itinerary, I may very well be SOL. I had to have the tix revalidated at the first UA ATO after I began my journey, which was in HNL. Of course, once I got there, I was scolded for not taking care of that prior to departure .

Anyway, too bad about this closure... I seem to have read in some other thread that it's possible to use a bump voucher by sending it to UA (somewhere near Chicago). I've availed myself of a similar option when ticketing reservations on AA, and, so far (keeping fingers crossed), it's worked out relatively smoothly, but of course, AA is a different airline... Does anyone, in the US or elsewhere, have any experience with mailing bump vouchers to ticket a reservation on hold with UA?