I'm in the process of booking flights ORD-ORK for my sister and want to apply GPU (SWU) to the ORD-LHR portion. Is it possible to have the ORD-LHR booked in W and the LHR-ORK booked in K? (to possibly save a few $)

Sorry if this is common knowledge, or already explained, I tried searching several different versions of the keywords without success.

Thanks!

It's possible to book it this way, but it may or may not save money.

You'd be breaking the fare in LHR, so you'd be paying for ORD-LHR + LHR-ORK which may be more or less than the ORD-ORK W fare.

Thanks for the quick response! Would I book it as multiple segments? or call this one in?

There's really no straightforward answer.

I would search it on itasoftware.com and see how it fares out.

If you multi-city it on united.com, they may or may not have rights to sell that LHR-ORK sector as standalone, so it may not come up. Or, if they do, the codeshare classes they sell may be higher than the fare on another carrier that they may or may not offer on the website (e.g., it may fare differently as ORD-UA-LHR-UA-ORK than ORD-UA-LHR-BD-ORK or even ORD-UA-LHR-BA-ORK).

Also, the lowest fare on LHR-ORK may be non-combineable with other fares (like your ORD-LHR), so it may be in your best financial interest to actually buy two (2) tickets. BUT if you do that, you're at risk if there are IRROPS and you miss the other flight, so you may be safer buying it on one ticket.

You really have to play with it and see how it prices. Then, if you can't get what you want at united.com, use a third party or call in. A third party will be challenging to get the W space, so an agent may have to help. If you have to call, though, since your sister is presumably non-Elite, that would hit you with a call center fee, which may supersede the savings.

Confused yet?

Great info! I guess I should have pounced on the W that was only $100 more than the K on Monday! I think with the limited knowledge I've learned on FT, I'm not equipped to figure this one out on ita. Will have to discuss with her whether the $400 price difference is worth possibly not getting the upgrade. Haven't been able to find any R availablilty for this trip.

Thanks!!

Price it on ITA Software, see how they break it. They're pretty good at finding the best combination.