Flight Change Causes Misconnect - How to maximize miles?
 

I have a MR scheduled for September. Basically, what happened is UA changed one of my flight segments so that instead of arriving at EWR at 1:25pm, I don't arrive until 1:30pm. This, normally, would not be such a big deal.

However, UA partner Shuttle America Airlines (dba United Express) changed my EWR-ROC segment, such that instead of departing EWR at 4:29pm, it departs at 11:29am instead. OOPS! So I won't be arriving until *after* my flight departs.

I got a message when I logged into UA.com that says I can change flight segments that cause a misconnect with no change fee. Given that this is a mileage run, I would like to maximize my mileage. Have I just been given a gift that I can use to increase mileage even further?

For example, would I be able to add even more stops between SFO (my home airport) and EWR? And if I rebook a segment, would I rebook into full Y or B class, thus getting 150% mileage? (If I can get Y/B mileage, I might be able to get more miles for SFO-EWR direct than I would have gotten for SFO-IAH-EWR on the original itinerary). Or, is it possible to book a direct SFO-EWR and request Original Routing Credit for going through IAH as originally scheduled? How can I maximize my mileage in this situation?

similar conversation here

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...le-change.html

I just rebooked a September SFO-EWR for a 5 minute change and was able to get SFO-IAH-EWR for about an extra 500 miles. Because availability was wide open, I only moved up from N to G. If you wait until closer to departure date, you might be able to do better, but only if there's nothing lower available.

Also, in my case, ITA said the cheapest available was Q, and yet they booked me into G.
Similarly, United.com well let me have the SFO-IAH in L, and the IAH-EWR in Q (so together I have to book Q).
So I think they can stick you in a fare that they wouldn't otherwise sell.

For me, I'm just going to keep adding a connection every time they change something :)

Darn, looks like SFO-LAX-EWR actually gets FEWER miles than SFO-IAH-EWR. And the flight from IAH-EWR is probably the first of the day. Only way I'd want to take a SFO-EWR direct flight is if I got rebooked into Y/B for 150% mileage. And the thought of leaving SFO earlier the day before and spending the night at IAH doesn't appeal to me either.

Of course, I'd be willing to take SFO-HNL-LAX-EWR as an alternative, but I don't think UA will let me have that :)

I had a similar situation on Saturday where I was given a 43 minute UX->UA mainline conx at IAD where even tho it's legal, it's a misconx waiting to happen so I did my homework and found some alternative routings adding additional segments here and there* and called to see if I could get it changed. First agent was a no-go (and I was really being greedy in the routing ;)) so I said leave it as is knowing I would would apply F/t rule 101 and call back later in the day ;).

I called back and got a great agent and where she couldn't do the routing I was looking for, she got "creative" ;) and found me something that worked (and even tho the fare buckets didn't change, I did pick up a few more EQM's in the process ;))

Original routing was 9/21 same day turn SFO-IAD-CLT-IAD-SFO (with the ugly conx CLT-IAD-SFO) which was changed to to 9/20-9/21 SFO-IAD (redeye)-IAD-CLT-EWR-SFO

So with all of that, I would say to do some homework, find a few alternative routings (and hopefully with more but not fewer EQM's ;)) and call in (and if the agent can't do it, tell them to leave it alone for now and then call back-but try and call back at a totally different time of day so you can perhaps get a different reservation center as with me, my second call got me HNL ;))

*<hint> SFO-LAX is always a good starting point ;)