icculus631

Looking for advice. I have a roundtrip star alliance award flight on United from RDU-DEN-OGG. There was a schedule change larger enough to allow me to change to a different flight free of charge so I requested it and the ticketing agent complied but said it would take a couple hours for the travel desk to reissue the new tickets. Now it has been a day and my reservation shows no active flight segments and help desk says that the seats are unavailable. I know there is space on the flights and UA was going to give them to me until they realized I had booked the original reservation with Turkish airlines. I was also told that my original flight wouldn' t be modified until the other reservation was booked but after talking with another Turkish airlines person it sounds like the seat has been given up. Any suggestions on how to get this resolved quickly. I still want to travel but need to either go on the original flight or new ones that the Turkish agent said they would book me on.

ISTFlyer

There is a thread about *A awards here: Everything You need to know about booking Star Alliance awards with Miles&Smiles

For your question, unless there is X fare bucket availability for Economy and I fare bucket availability for Business Class, TK would be unable to rebook you on another United flight.
Unless your flight is within the next 15 days, TK would not rebook you on a flight without award availability, however, you could still take your original fights unless you cancelled them.

In addition, calling UA would also not be useful as they would refuse to touch a booking issued by a third-party agent which in this case is Turkish Airlines.

icculus631

I didn't cancel anything but it sounds like Turkish might have when they tried to change me to the new dates. The flight was originally scheduled for 19 days out the flight I want to take is 17 days out. should I wait 2 days to call back since then it would be within 15 days? When I look at the reservation on United's website all the names are still their and I can see the fare code just no active flight segments

WineCountryUA

This is the downside of booking partner award flights from a different program.

If this was an UA award issue ticket, UA internally can (and does) force new award space to accommodate the new itinerary. However, as a TK issued ticket, TK must make any ticket change and TK can not force open UA award space (this is a generic issue, as UA can not force open TK award space),

It is possible for TK's Star Alliance liaison (if TK has such a service) to contact UA and make such as request. It is rare for this to work but occasionally it does work.

ISTFlyer

To check if your ticket is cancelled or not, you could try to log in to your reservation on the United website and check the status of your ticket.
And unfortunately, if you want a rebooking, you would need 'X' fare bucket availability for Economy and 'I' fare bucket availability for Business.

icculus631

no flights appear when I open the reservation on United. Just the passenger names and if I click fair code it shows XBP00N1SCH for both flights
so it says
rdu-ogg XBP00N1SCH
ogg-rdu XBP00N1SCH

ISTFlyer

It looks like TK screwed up your reservation then.
Good luck solving the issue.

Often1

This is 100% a TK issue to repair. I would pour a large stiff drink and keep the bottle nearby for refills and then call TK and put the phone on Hold + Mute.

ISTFlyer

In addition, before calling TK, I would suggest to have a plan that is likely to work.
Calling them and asking "What are my options?" would not be the best way to solve the issue.

icculus631

thanks for the advice! I was told I needed to fill out a customer feedback and then customer relations would look at it. Unfortunately they are saying 2-7 day turnaround. The worst part is they aren't even willing to escalate to a supervisor.

336

IF you would get any answer within 7 days you could consider yourself already extremely lucky.
HUCA, and the best of luck to you.

icculus631

I have but I'm not having much luck. It seems like every agent I speak with does the same thing and requests award space and then it gets denied. I don't know if anyone is calling united to work things out. I thought it would be easy since it was a schedule change on United part that was the cause for changing. I have probably called 10 times since yesterday.

Often1

TK cannot force UA to open award space, but it can make the request through its *A liaison system. That typically takes at least a business day. If you are getting an immediate "no" that means nobody is making the request. Call back and make the specific request that TK's *A liaison reach out to UA. If you get the verbal equivalent of a blank stare, that becomes one more route to speak with a supervisor (recognizing that you have tried in the past).

If that does not work, the next step is a three-way call with TK and UA. UA has no obligation to help and cannot reissue TK's award ticket, but UA can be decent in these situations and may open the space on your request at which point the TK agent should be able to see the space and reissue the ticket.

All of this is work which TK should do, but if it won't, you are stuck doing it.

ISTFlyer

My suggestion for the OP would be to find a flight with 'X' or 'I' fare availability and to be asked to rebooked on an available flight bookable with TK miles if the travel is a must.
As the OP is scheduled to fly within the next 2-3 weeks, I would not suggest him to wait for TK to contact UA or vice-versa. It might be too late when TK tells him that there is no award inventory so his only options are a mileage refund and his only option to travel would be a last-minute revenue ticket.

icculus631

I may try the 3 way call and sending a second feedback request. We are traveling with extended families so the dates are a crucial part.