Originally Posted by
JetAway
What interest does UA have, financial or otherwise, if a partner segment is dropped from an award fight? Revenue, I get. But award, I don't see how it's worth the trouble. Is it clear that the CofC covers non-revenue travel? Are there any examples on FT of UA (or any airline) pursuing this for one-off award travel?
The US DOT has pretty consistently held that award tickets are revenue tickets (see, e.g., the handling for denied boarding compensation among others) and the UA CoC
Rule 3 Application of Contract
These rules constitute the conditions of carriage upon which UA agrees to provide Domestic and International Carriage and are expressly agreed to by the Passenger. These Rules are also the tariffs filed by UA in accordance with certain government regulations.
Note there's no reference to cash payment or distinction between a traditional or award ticket...
The "financial" interest UA would have is in whatever they have to pay the operating carrier for the reservation; the "other" interest would be the general integrity of their inventory management and ensuring to the extent possible no seat flies empty. Practically, however, if done once or infrequently it's unlikely to catch UA's attention -- its when it's done with frequency that the algorithms are more likely to perk up.