cordelli

Anybody can buy passes online, they are not tied to a date or time, if you want to buy ten today, you can buy ten. You can also buy them at the club when you want to use them




When status posts. So no, it won't kick in for the remainder of the flight, confetti won't fall from the overhead or anything. Once the miles post and you make it, the next flight after that will have staus.

Status is good for the remainder of the year you earn it in, and all of the next year. It takes many people a full year to qualify, remember that you can not carry over any qualification for status, in January everything resets to zero. If you can earn it by say June you get six additional months of benefits, but it it takes you until December that doesn't mean it's wasted.

Don't believe so

You will have a zone printed on your ticket based on status. None of the rest matters, when they call your zone everybody in that zone goes. You could get there early and crowd the gate for when they call your zone, there are plenty of threads about gate lice who line up hours before waiting for their zone. But when you buy doesn't matter. At the lowest status on United, you will never be among the first few to enter, so don't hold your breath.

Sometimes there are issues, but for the most part there are not for seat selection.

Forums like this and others out there will usually list the deals

MSPeconomist

Note that much of the above answer is specific to UA. In particular, some other FF programs are not based on the calendar year but when you join or first credit a flight. Also, DL status miles rollover above the level needed for your elite tier. Sometimes when you purchase a ticket through a third party website, you don't get full (or any) miles.

obscure2k

Welcome to Flyertalk, LDRTraveller. Please continue to follow this discussion in the UA Forum.
Thanks..
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

LDRTraveller

I'm off to work right now so I will have to reply later. Thanks for the answers!

Minos

Seems like I cannot find the answer to this question.

I have an award and I would like to change the date of the return leg. Are there any constraints regarding how far one can delay the return?

Is there a 330 days / 360 days / one-year since booking /since outbound limit?

I am wondering whether I can pick any date for the return now as a placeholder and later change to something than is more than 365 days away from ticketing.

Any pointer to a rule somewhere on UA?

My regards,
Minos

WineCountryUA

United air travel award rules

jackal

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

I'll add a few other points to the answers given above:

The day passes bought at the club are $50, while they are $45 if bought within the United app on an iPhone/Android. So if you have one, take advantage of the discount and buy it there. That said, I think most people here would agree that the United Clubs are not worth even $45. (If I didn't already have access, I'd probably pay at most $15 to get in, and even that's pushing it) All you get for that $45 is a chair that isn't hard plastic, possibly no power outlet, crappy snacks, and a mediocre free drink selection. Take your $45, put half of it back in your wallet, and go grab a seat at a restaurant or bar instead to while away the hours.

If you fly UA, miles typically post in the middle of the night 3 days after your flight. If you fly a partner, it can be anything from several days to several weeks before your miles post. Your status is updated when the miles post to your Mileage Plus account.

As alluded to above, your status is good for all of this year and next (and actually the first month of the following year). So, status you earn tomorrow is good through January 31, 2015. Status you earn on December 29 is good through January 31, 2015.

Think of it this way: the status you earn now is valid for next year (2014). If you earn it early this year, then they let you enjoy it for a little longer (the remainder of this year, too) than you technically qualified for.

While the status is good for this year, next year, and the first month of the following year, the counter itself resets on 1/1/14. You'll continue to enjoy any status you earned this year through 2014, but you'll need to begin the requalification process again in 2014 to qualify for 2015's status.

If you don't earn the same level of status in 2014 that you did this year, you'll continue to enjoy this year's higher status through January 31, 2015, at which point your status will drop. If, however, you earn a higher status in 2014 than you did in 2013, your higher status will take effect immediately and continue, then, through 1/31/16.

No, with an exception: a connecting flight. You are allowed to check in 24 hours before the first flight of a particular leg departs. If your leg contains two subsequent flights, you will be checked in for those subsequent flights when you check in for your first flight, even if they don't depart for 30 or 40 hours after you are checking in.

Since "battlefield" (at the gate) upgrades are tied to check-in time (instead of date/time you booked the ticket) this can be a nice way to break the tie when waiting for an upgrade. Still, it can only possibly advance you a couple of spots in line--all others sharing your status level in higher fare buckets and everyone with higher status levels will still be above you.

Other than upgrade tie-breakers, I don't believe checking in early gets you anything. Except if you're Silver, in which case, I suppose it would give you a head-start over other Silvers in moving up to an E+ seat (since Silvers cannot choose E+ seats until check-in).

Book paid F, get upgraded to F, or make sure you attain at least Platinum status. Otherwise, you'll be in Group 2. As long as you're in the first half of Group 2, you should still have plenty of overhead bin space to choose from. Aside from overhead bin space, though, there's little reason to board early--unlike Southwest, since your seats are assigned in advance, all getting on the plane first does is leave you sitting on the plane longer.

There's a whole thread on UA's revised boarding process (which many hope will change yet again), but as of today, the current boarding hierarchy is:

Preboard: "those needing more time," military (either active duty or in uniform, depending on the gate agent's interpretation), and Global Services super-duper-elite members who spend way too much money on United (thank you for subsidizing my cheap fares!)
Group 1: Premium cabins (First/Business as applicable), 1K, Platinum
Group 2: Gold, Silver, Mileage Plus Club/Explorer card holders, and other PremierAccess holders
Group 3: Back 1/3 of economy (likely soon to be changed to all window seats)
Group 4: Middle 1/3 of economy (likely soon to be changed to all middle seats)
Group 5: Front 1/3 of economy (likely soon to be changed to all aisle seats)

Yes. Almost every reputable online travel agency will let you pick a seat. Even if it doesn't, your reservation should automatically be listed in your UA account if your frequent flyer number was entered, and you can pick seats there.

There are exceptions, though, with certain consolidator fares and other ultra-discounted fares, but these are rare and not usually sold by big-name travel agencies like Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, etc.

Note that unless you have a reason to book through a travel agency (such as needing to book a multi-carrier ticket or something), most of us would recommend booking directly on United's site. Cutting out the middle-man tends to make things go smoother in some cases. Yes, a travel agency can step in and help if there are problems, but IME, they tend to cause more issues than they resolve. (Problems that this is a factor in are rare, though, so in practice, it likely doesn't matter.)

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Hope this helps, and please feel free to ask any other questions you may have!

Minos

Thank you. This is what I thought also. However the following is why I asked the question:

On August 9th 2012 I purchased an award on UA for a flight on the 20th June 2013.

And in October 2012, I changed the date (phone) for the June 20th flight to August 29th 2013 and a return in early September. This is far more than 365 days after initial purchase.

I believe this was after a change of schedule on one of my flight. Maybe they bended the rules because of that. Has this been documented before?

How come?

WineCountryUA

Yes others have report getting extension beyond the calendar year limitation so it is possible but when this will be done is not a publicly published policy. If you had mention it in the original posting, would have provided a more complete answer but you just asked for the published policy.

Are you wanting to extend that itin every further out or is this a different case?

alex_b

It is also possible that the agent reissued the ticket for another ticket with a new 365 day validity but either didn't redeposit the miles or waived the redeposit fee. Strictly not permitted, but due to a schedule change it makes sense from a customer service point of view.

LDRTraveller

Hmmm that's a disappointment... Maybe I could convince one of the flight attendants to throw up some confetti if I bring my own.

But thanks for clearing all that up

Yes it helped a lot, thank you for the detailed answers and the clear explanation on the status/miles thing. It all makes a lot more sense now

I don't know if you or anyone is interested in my story but I'm gonna tell it anyway. The reason I'm not booking directly from the UA website is it saves me about $120, I really don't like using a middleman but another reason is the UA website does not give me the connection I want. It will be my first
time flying alone to visit my girlfriend in the US. I'm 24 and I love flying, the whole experience just always really excites me but I do want it to be as enjoyable as possible. I've decided that it would be best taking the AMS - IAH - PBI route, because the airplane is nicer and I really hate rushing for things. So the 5 hour layover and spending a while in the club lounge will be perfect to take a shower and figure out where I need to go and actually enjoy the trip with the least amount of stress (maybe take some pictures etc). That's also why I'm not checking any bags and want to be sure there is enough overhead compartment space

[/QUOTE]

Minos

Actually no. Was just thinking about it because I have another itinerary for which I would like to confirm a couple of segments (the inbound and outbound international legs) but I wanted to put one segment ( the free one-way in an international trip) at a placeholder date for now because the booking window is not yet open and the trip will occur more than 365 days from now.

This led me to investigate this question because I remember having a ticket that as extended beyond 365 days after a change following a schedule change that was not working for me. Back then, I changed the dates and was able to extend beyond 1 year after a schedule change,

Maybe I could try my luck again and put the "free one way flight" at a placeholder date for now i.e April 2014 and wait for a schedule change to move it later in November 2014.

Sounds risky but I don't really want to lose a one-way that I know I will be using later. And I don't want to wait anymore to book my international travel because availability might dry up.

Think I am between a rock and a hard stone!

Surface Interval

I am trying to piece together an award ticket from JNB-CLE this July 2nd. I need to be home by the 3rd as I need to be someplace on the 4th. One option is JNB-JFK-LGA-CLE in Y. Tough to sit in Y for 15.5 hrs, even if it only costs 40k. That said, my preference would be in J. I've have found JNB-GRU for 45k. Adding the likes of GRU-PTY is 40k if purchased separately. When I try to combine I get 85k. Not what I would expect considering a similar itinerary via Europe kicks back down to 60k.

Question is: are there limitations for Africa to USA via South America that prohibit this type of routing? Any tip how to get around this?

italdesign

How often can we book an award segment over the phone that shows no availability on united.com? I saw such a segment one night (Y), didn't get to book it right away, when I looked at it in the morning, it was only available in F. I called anyway and the agent was able to find me a Y seat. Is this normal?

WineCountryUA

the agents use a different system than customers do and the two do occasionally seem to get out of sync -- seems it can go either way.