Hogwash. APIS data is in no way transmitted to ICE until the manifest is finalized (IE, until after the flight departs).

I believe that for some time (and maybe still) after the manifest was finalized, the information was transmitted and only then a flight could take off.

As the discussion is not specific to UA, please follow it in our TravelBuzz forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, United and TravelBuzz forums.

Although it sounds quite clever I feel bad for the airlines eating 2-6% of the F ticket price each time someone does this.

At $15k 6% = $900

Up to $900 being eaten by the banks, CC processors and card company. Makes me cringe even during good financial times.

Because UA refunds often take ridiculous amounts of time to process. I'm ok with waiting the 10 days that they quote me on the phone, but I'm not waiting 6 months like it can easily take, all the while I'm out the cost of the ticket and UA is earning on the float:td: On day 11 I'm calling Amex to find out if there's a pending reversal (there never is), and as soon as I'm done pretending to be surprised, ask to dispute the charge. I've never lost.

There is some story on FT of a person who was upset at how an agent didn't let him into a lounge in FRA while waiting for a friend, so he went to the LH ticketing desk and bought a full F ticket and walked back to the lounge and surprised the matron. He waited for his friend and then promptly canceled the $10,000 ticket. There was much arguing whether or not this was ethically correct in the thread though I will leave that up to you to decide.

Well for the LH FCT in FRA that "might" be worth it for a VERY long layover if you have such a credit line available... But I would never even think about going through this for the UA IFL ! :eek::eek::eek: