Greg,

I have access to JL's booking system, Axess, which largely relies on SABRE, because I want to pick a certain fare class to book a flight. With Axess I can. ITN is useless for a person like me who doesn't have a U.S. address for credit cards.

If you make a booking for a UA flight via Axess, you get two PNRs, one for Axess and the other for Apollo. That's the only difference, I think. PA and PB doesn't show on the Axess screen -- only HL (for waitlist).

If you want to upgrade with miles, then UA will usually take over the entire reservation and make it inaccessible from Axess, which looks quiet messy on the Axess screen, though.

Dr. Miles,
My tickets are usually economy. Very occasionally I fly business for SEL-NRT-SIN or BKK or HKG.

NW has published discounts for C and Y on these routes. They are cheaper than NRT-SIN or NRT-BKK or NRT-HKG and all allow stopover at NRT.

Last year, NW used to give Platinum mebers a seat guarantee for these C tickets if you book 48 hours before or something, even if no seats were available. But this year, they changed the rule to give this guarantee to only J-class ticket holders. J are for transpacific business class that may cover intra-Asian routes.

I've never done Q-class waitlisting from SIN but I could try myself as I can make a booking record myself but if NW in SIN intervenes, they may just cancel it, though. I have made Q class waitlist reservations from BKK and TYO.

I had operational upgrades occasionally in intra-Asia flights, maybe 4 out of 30 flights in two years. Three were from C to F (not much difference, except the seat) and one was from Y to C.

When upgrading with miles, I usually look for a route with C inventory availability and make a booking, so I rarely had a problem in this area.


[This message has been edited by Chiangi (edited 07-13-2000).]