Originally Posted by
kanlis
Had couple agent say excursionist perk only applies to ticket that travels 2 different regions. So SFO-ORD, HND-ITM, ORD-SFO would not qualify (SFO-HND, HND-ITM, HND-SFO would qualify as it goes through two regions). reading through United's website, 2 regions does not seem to be required. I can price both of the above excursionist perk without issue, yet when I call to ask, they say it needs to go through two award regions for it to be valid. Any thoughts/risk to do something they don't advise/don't think it should be valid?
Originally Posted by
jsloan
UA didn’t think through their rules when they wrote them. The “must be two different regions” thing was always the spirit of the rule.
As evidenced by the examples they provide, both requiring travel inter-region, and the text before the first example stating "the Excursionist Perk preserves the benefit of the stopover policy". Can't exactly have a stopover without travelling to a different region. So it wouldn't surprise me at all that their internal documentation/agent training is to require inter-region travel, even if that didn't get translated into the public web/programming, though the programming could be a bug for how it determines if something is supposed to be an excursionist segment.
If you reverse to Kanlis' example that clearly shows the unintended nature of the current implementation. SFO-EWR alone will price at 15k ish for XN. If you sandwich it between a RT TYO-OSA awards, it will price the 3 flights at something like 12k.