Fees waived for non-elite flyer award ticket pax booked with elite members miles?
 

I am booking an award ticket for my mother to fly on UA metal using my miles (either UA Premier Exec or CO platinum). I read in the CO forum that she would not have to pay baggage fees on CO metal using CO miles. For UA metal, will she have to pay baggage fees if I book a ticket using my UA miles? What about CO miles? I prefer to book from my CO account because there are no fees if the ticket needs to be cancelled.

Can you please provide the link where it said no baggage fee for CO metal using ELITE CO mile for non-elite pax? I am interested in utilizing that. Thanks.

Beleive there is no written policy but a long standing "glitch"

awards using UA miles -- no baggage waiver for non-elites

awards using CO elite miles -- baggage waiver for non-elites based on elites privileges
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/conti...les-elite.html

Ticket with elite miles = elite status
 

When an elite uses their miles to purchase a ticket, the person ticketed gets elite status for that trip. I'm not sure where it is written, but I've used this a number of times. most recently on a trip to Hawaii. My (non-elite) wife and son were on tickets from my miles and they both got status including the option to have three bags for free.

They also get elite branding on the boarding pass and the option to pick from the "premium" seats.

This does not happen if I buy my family tickets, only if I use my miles.

FWIW
DLM

PS, It does NOT extend to EUAs...

Great! This is something UA should inherit after the two systems are merged :-).

anyone has experience with award ticket booked for non-elite person on LH using CO miles as Plat?

I'm CO Gold, not Plat, but my experience is that even though my benefits pass on to non-elites when they're on CO metal, the benefits do not pass on to other *A airlines.

Recently, a non-elite traveling on a ticket I purchased with my miles got all the benefits--most importantly, baggage--going to Germany (started on CO metal), but as her return trip started with an HAM-AMS segment on LH, she could only check one bag on her return. Something to think about when purchasing tickets for others if the baggage allowance is a key point for you.

Exit row seating was automatically available during seat selection for CO metal on CO.com.

Is this still the policy in the new UA? will non elite get all the benefit if miles are from elite members?

As previously posted, this is not necessarily policy, but the "glitch" still exists. Booked 3 of my family, none of whom have status, on a trip last week and their boarding passes all showed 1K and they were not charged for baggage.

Booked a award ticket for my sister to TPE, outbound was on StarAlliance partners, return flights are on UA. She called and asked me if I can change the flights to non-UA as UA charges $70(?) for second piece of checked luggage.

I seldom check any luggage so not aware the allowances. Looks like other airlines (AC, OZ are the ones I checked have award flights available) have allowance of two pieces free checked-luggages.

Just found this thread and seems it is possible for her have my benefit such as exit row and baggage fee wavers. Appreciate more data points if you have experience of non-elite who took the award flights had your benefits.

Also if to change the ticket to other airlines, is the luggage allowance will be based on the carrier who operates the over-the-water flight or the carrier at the initial check-in point?

Thanks for your help.

If the ticket is with your miles, she will get your status. It happened once this month with my daughter and her boyfriend (domestic) and once last month for my wife (international). This includes baggage allowance. But note that this is an unpublished benefit.

SHARES inserts member's M+ number onto eticket of sponsored award traveler??
 

Title says it all. This is the first sponsored award I've booked for an unrelated friend since 3/3 switchover, using my miles for his free ticket. I carefully put friend's M+ number into the booking record. The resulting e-ticket correctly took miles from me and shows his name as the traveler, but shows my M+ number, not his which I entered. Is this the expected behavior? It also let me seat him in E+ even though he's a GM. As I recall that was the supposed policy for PMUA, although I'm not sure I got it to work properly in Apollo. Is that indeed the current policy for sUA -- E+ access is available to the traveler based on the status of the mileage owner, not the status of the traveler?

That's right. It's a limitation in SHARES about how they handle the FFN for awards.

And not only do they get E+, they get free bags, preboarding, and if you're an appopriate CC holder, they may get upgraded as well.

Plus if this is int'l, the BP will likely show your status, and that's often enough to get into a UA Club.

Of course none of this is published, nor is he entitled to any of it. But it's really quite lucrative if it plays out for him. Of course it may not be lucrative for other bona fide Elites who have to compete for E+ or upgrades with someone who shouldn't be getting them in the first place.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9650; en-GB) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.524 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

I'm not sure this is new to SHARES. The UA issued NZ awards for my family showed my status (1K on the UA sectors, UA*G on the NZ sectors).... And this was last year.

This was true in CO-land, too. The flier took the status of the member where the miles came from.

I have booked a few award trips for friends and relatives since 3/3 and they've almost all been upgraded (on segments like ORD-ALB that aren't so elite heavy) on at least one part of the trip.

How does it work in reverse? I am getting a saver award ticket from my GM kid and her MP number shows on the eticket instead of my 1K MP number! Am I loosing my *A Gold benefit when I fly in this ticket?

Probably. Bring your card and fight for whatever you can at the airport (bags, security, pre-boarding, etc.). And probably forget about upgrades.

But this can be overriden. It's rare that folks want to, though. Go into the traveler information, and save the FF as nothing - then go back in and enter yours.

If this is true, then the traveler will be flagged as an elite flier, thus rendering him/her ineligible for TOD upgrades. Result is that they will remain in their E+ seat like any other elite.

So, all joking aside (and I have been following hundreds of threads on this topic), is it _stated_ policy that COdbaUA does not offer TOD to elites? Or only one's strong suspicion that the system is currently operating that way, whether by blunder or design?

Awesome, so I should feel comfortable telling my MIL that she will, in fact, get my Plat baggage allowance for her trip to Korea in a couple of days. Apparently, she took it upon herself to call her travel agent and also UA to confirm her baggage allowance and was told 1 bag at 50lbs, and now she's freaking out because she packed way more stuff than that.

No let her panic for not listening to her elite and generous son in law.....typical asian mom. And yes I am asian but my parents will listen when it comes to anything concerning flights...and won't call the airline.

I have booked an award ticket for my wife using my miles, and my attempts to change the FF number to her own number failed. If I would replace my number with hers, the system would allow me to do so, but if I would thereafter open the reservation again, it would just revert back to my number...

that's good to know....
 

Because I used my miles to get an economy ticket for my daughter. Hopefully she can check her bags without having to pay her fee.

as stated upthread, it's been this way for awhile. my parents were thrilled with their free checked bags and 'elite access' status when they came on CO to visit in december.

I see this as a good thing. I'm glad my kids can access Elite/GS security line when things are crazy.

This is my experience too--that we can't change the FF# of an award ticket to a different account. In the CO days, I was explicitly told that award ticket benefits were based entirely on the account from which they came.

That said, I think it may be possible for an agent to somehow manually override this. Today, I cancelled two award tickets (one for me, one for my gf). One came from my Plat account, one from her GM acct. However, they both had my FF#. My guess is that during a manual change made in the past, an agent found it easier just to manually add my FF#. So, it seems someone has this power, though I have no idea who. ::shrug::