krjminor

Has anyone noticed limited saver availability to GCM over the summer? We vacation there on miles every year, and this is the first time we've had issues with saver awards not being available. We can get a flight out but none back in August. There is literally ONE day in August with a return saver flight. We've always had tons of options before. August is low season for Caribbean travel. United, of course, was most unhelpful when I asked if this was a computer error.

DirtyDan

Hello FT,

Attempting to burn the last of my UA miles on a F class trip from BKK to SYD, then C back from BNE to BKK. I made is all the way to the payment enter button when the .bomb released its horrible phantom squid ink all over my plans.

With *A not showing up on Expertflyer, and BKK not an option on the ANA search site, what's the best way to keep checking to see if TG award availability opens... keep trying to make a booking every day??

Thank you,
DirtyDan

Asiatraveler15

My experience to that region is the awards can change daily.
So yes, keep checking.

Kacee

Huh?

You can definitely search for award flights to/from BKK on the NH website.

I really don't recall issues with phantom TG availability on the UA site. It may well have been that someone else scored the seats you were trying to book before you were able to complete the transaction.

UA website has historically been an accurate tool for checking TG award availability.

DirtyDan

Kacee - You caught me, I typed the wrong airport. I meant SYD is not an option on the ANA search tool (it's neither in the SE Asia drop down nor is it in any other relative list). Even today the .bomb shows Saver award availability from BKK-SYD but after I hit the "purchase" button, I get the error - contact customer services window.

AT15 - thank you for the advice.



Update: I may have been something on my end*. Logged into .bomb this morning and now I have no fewer than 9 ticketed itineraries. Maybe a glitch with the VPN or something, who knows? A quick call to CSR - a wonderful woman with a Southern twang - thank you Miss S. - confirmed the one I wanted and deleted the other 8 (which is quite funny as I do not have miles for 2w flights let alone 9.) Now is ticketed and confirmed.




(*epitaph?)

Kacee

NH lists SYD under "Micronesia, Oceania."

af fp

Hi,

I have been monitoring award availability for a few weeks on a particular route, and although it changes daily, it seems to never change during the day (unless someone takes a seat away). So is inventory only released once per day? Sometime during the night?

Thanks!

wangy26

I am looking for a round trip from Washington DC to Shanghai around Oct/Nov 2015. My date is flexible. This is not a peak travel season to that region. Right now I can buy economy class on United for ~$1000, business class for ~$4000. I can also use 70K mile to get economy saver award ticket for every flight. However, there is no saver award (which will cost 175K) ticket for business class for any date or any flight. Ideally I would like to get a business class seat with best value. Here are my questions:

1. Have all business saver award seat been booked this early already? Or United usually won’t release business saver award seat until very close to the departure date. Does anyone know which one is the case? Three years ago I had to book an award ticket for the same route in a few day notices due to a family emergency. I was able to get business saver award ticket on both ways and it was even a summer peak travel season.

2. If I booked an economy saver award ticket now can I change it to business saver award ticket later if it becomes available? Is there any waitlist you can be put on for that? What is the chance that business saver award seat will be opened up at later date? Do I have to pay any fee for that change and how much? I would use my sister’s mile and she has gold status.

3. The other option is to buy an economy ticket and request mile+ cash upgrade. Is there any way that I can find out how much cash + mile that I have to pay to get upgrade to business class for the ticket that I would buy?

I don’t do upgrade or book award ticket that often. I know some of you are very experienced travelers and know how these things work. I would really appreciate it if you can help me on this.

Thanks very much for your help!

mahasamatman

If any were ever made available, yes.

There is no pattern as to when (or even if) they open award seats. Sometimes it's far out, sometimes it's close-in, and sometimes it's never. They try to figure out if they'd rather try to sell the seat, and if they think they can, they won't offer it as an award.

If you pay the miles for a Business Class award, you can book the Economy seat and waitlist for the Business seat.

Somewhere between 0% and 100%.

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...e-pricing.aspx

Kacee

Keep checking regularly. It's very likely that you will find a business award, particularly if you have some flexibility on travel dates and routing.

Alternatively, you can book the economy award and waitlist for business. Not all phone agents know how to do this, so it may take several tries to get this done.

Note that the business saver award will cost 140,000 miles RT on United, or 160,000 miles if you want to fly a star alliance partner.

FlyWorld

This can only be done by phone, right?

Is there a way to verify that the WL was entered into SHARES correctly?

Is a Y seat confirmed at time of doing this?

How does one find out if the WL clears and what does it clear into? Is the clearance of these as unreliable as clearance into R?

JVPhoto

Random Date checks with BF Saver

10/1
10/4
10/8
10/19
10/25

I stopped there and actually just only clicked those dates and they all had space.

Edit: Done on a browser not logged in as a 1K.

764toHI

I had no problems booking PVG-EWR on a BF saver award this past October (had to co-pay + miles on the outbound) but YMMV

wangy26

Thank you all so much for your help! I will do some more research to compare various options per your suggestions.

JVPhoto,

I did find quite a few availability of BF on 10/1 which I didn't check first. I was only looking for second half of Oct and first half of Nov; which has none or very limited availability. Oct 1st is national holiday and the week immediately follow that will be crazy crowded since a lot of people will travel during that time.

JVPhoto

I also searched putting in WAS and not IAD.