mindrisa

Hoping someone can provide some advice for me. I have a roundtrip flight booked. Outbound: SAN-SFO-NRT Inbound: NRT-SFO-SAN. On the same day as my inbound flight, I now have to fly to CLT. I would rather fly from SFO-CLT and not take the SFO-SAN portion. I will not have checked bags in my name (I can put them in my wife's name and she can pick them up in SAN). I am not doing this to save money (hidden city) as the CLT trip just came up. Will there be any issues booking the SFO-CLT portion as a separate ticket and skipping the SFO-SAN portion or should I call and let United know I won't be taking the SFO-SAN portion? I don't want to have to pay a change fee as it is not worth it. Thanks for your help!

fumje

You should be fine skipping the SFO-SAN leg. Do let UA know once you get to SFO, by airport agent or phone. Don't make a habit of doing such.

Also be aware that if you have a significant delay in NRT-SFO, your separately booked SFO-CLT may be considered a no show.

Kacee

Well you're going to have conflicting bookings (SFO-SAN and SFO-CLT), and that always raises the risk that UA might cancel one of them. I try to avoid this by either canceling a segment or booking on a different airline (here, AA would be the obvious choice), though the risk of a negative consequence is relatively low.

In advance of travel, you'll have to pay a change fee (and refare the ticket) to drop the SFO-SAN segment.

fumje

I will say that I have messed up and had a conflicting booking exist for at least two months before I noticed and made the change. So it is theoretically possible that UA would notice and cancel NRT-SAN or SFO-CLT, but I think it's practically unlikely. If SFO-CLT is booked so that it's timed after the SFO-SAN arrives, then it shouldn't be at risk of flagging for conflict.

Generally, though, I agree that the correct way to make this work is to actually change the NRT reservation into SAN-NRT out / NRT-SFO back and then reserve SFO-CLT separately (or even SAN-NRT out / NRT-CLT). And actually, on that line of thinking, I would guess the SAN-NRT is a deep discount fare, but it's generally not impossible to have SAN-NRT-CLT be cheaper, so it's worth investigating.

Often1

Nobody here can accurately predict whether UA's anti-fraud software will spot and what action it will take if you make an "impossible" booking (which is not simply that #1 arrives in SAN before #2 departs from SFO.

If your travel to CLT is important, you are creating risk. That is easily averted by flying AA into CLT (a hub). If UA is a necessity, then there will be change fee and some fare difference. You can figure out whether it is cheaper to cancel the SFO-SAN segment and book a second ticket, or change the first ticket. You may even find UA willing to waive the change fee.

piemel

I think I messed up.

I booked a NRT-SFO round trip W class rather than the one way as it was impossible to book as a W fare as a one way. Basically roundtrip was cheaper than the one way.

I drop segments from time to time. I just do a no show maybe a handful of times in the past 5 years.

The SFO-NRT segment is tmrw and I cancelled on the website using the cancel/refund function. Curiosity got the better of me. The system generated a message saying that customer service would have to review the cancellation and would contact me in a week by phone or email.

Am I in 'trouble' here?

physioprof

There is always a boilerplate message that comes up when you cancel a flight saying something to that effect. The message is neither here nor there with respect to whether you are in trouble.

WaytoomuchEurope

Have a ticket booked on 016 ticket stock with OPM for a couple of weeks from now. Turns out I have travel leading up to this date and it would make more sense to fly to the destination city directly from another trip. The travel leading up to this trip in question is on 014 stock.

I still want the same "return" flights to get me home as planned 5 days later.

Can I make any change here without incurring cost to the party that booked my ticket?

If I just don't show up for the outbound flight the return flights will be canceled, correct?

jsloan

You may be able to pay the change fee yourself, but the answer to the underlying question -- can you just cancel the outbound without re-faring -- is "no."

Correct. Barring a significant delay or cancellation on the outbound, which would allow you to call up UA and ask them to refund the outbound flights and just keep the return, this is exactly what would happen.

threeoh

Sounds like your OPM ticket is AAA-BBB-AAA and you expect to be in CCC (and don't want to return to AAA to catch your flight, and would prefer to fly CCC-BBB-AAA).

I think this really depends on the fare rules of your ticket, and the exact destinations (is this int'l? Does this market have one-ways that are more expensive than r/ts? What are the relative distances? Does CCC-BBB-AAA qualify as an open jaw? Is this a BE / light fare? discount economy? full fare flex ticket?) I think without the fare rules and destination, no one here can answer definitively (except to say that if you no-show AAA-BBB, that will trigger downline cancellation, as you suspect).

Also, is the ticket purchased with United or through a corporate TA?

I'd call United and ask about two options:

(1) Cancel AAA-BBB and preserve BBB-AAA. (You'd then buy CCC-BBB on your own dime.)

(2) Change the ticket to CCC-BBB-AAA

For each one, ask if it is possible, how much it would cost for change fee and/or fare difference, and whether you could pay out of pocket.

Obviously I don't know who bought the ticket or what your relationship is with them, but you could also consider asking them to make the change and paying the difference.

flyme2theriver

I have back to back trips scheduled coming up in a month or so. My inbound comes in on Friday morning to SFO and my outbound is SMF in the afternoon connecting through SFO to SIN. On the chance that my inbound flight is delayed can I jump directly on the SFO flight?

WineCountryUA

dothemath

*I am not sure if this is the right place to post, feel free to move where appropriate.*

A family member had recently booked a business round-trip to Texas with United. Something came up and she had to change the first leg of the trip, so she took a different flight with a different airline (but didn't notify United). Today it was the time for the return trip from Texas, but United said the trip was voided, because she had skipped the inbound flight, so she had to buy a new ticket! How's that okay?
She had to pay up in order to get the flight, but is there anything she can do now to get her money back? Any help would be great.

Mwenenzi

"trip was voided, because she had skipped the inbound flight" That is normal with most(all?) airlines.
If she had notified UA before the first skipped flight it may have been different. They may have been able to refare as a oneway.

tom911

When you purchase a United ticket, you're bound by their conditions of carriage. Here's the section that allows them to cancel the ticket when you don't show up for the first segment:

https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...-carriage.html

Ideally, the passenger should call UA prior to travel if they're going to miss the first segment, and then workout what it would cost to fly only part of the itinerary. There could be a significant price increase if you're going from a round trip to one way, depending on the market.