WineCountryUA

HCT is a very specific travel hack to get a lower price, will move this to a more appropriate thread once understand the query.

Still having trouble understanding the question. Are you asking if you are unable to travel and miss the whole outbound trip or just part of that outbound trip? if the second case, how would you suddenly determine you have COVID? I'm having trouble understanding when you discover in your travel you have COVID?

fumje

I'm also not certain about the question, but the basic point is if you're feeling sick and won't be able to make your scheduled flight, and if you want not to lose your ticket, you should contact the airline and tell them you need to change your upcoming flight to some other time. How expensive that will be to do — could wind up being "free", could wind up costing a lot — will vary depending upon the circumstances. If you just miss a flight and don't take any other action, the remainder of the ticket is at jeopardy.

Colin

if ticket is LAX-ORD-LAX
and you want to use ORD-LAX & not LAX-ORD
cancelling LAX-ORD segment prior to departure time will result in the LAX-ORD segment value being returned (refund to OFOP or eCredit, based upon fare rules)
ORD-LAX segment remains active without any repricing
this is because 99% of UA domestic fares are priced the summation of the cost of the two one-way segments
it would take a particularly nasty UA agent to attempt to reprice ORD-LAX segment w/o benefit of advance purchase fares & existing confirmed booking code.

if ticket is LAX-ORD-MKE-ORD-LAX
and you want to use only LAX-ORD, MKE-ORD, ORD-LAX segments
no showing for ORD-MKE will cancel MKE-ORD-LAX segments
calling to cancel ORD-MKE after deplaning LAX-ORD will likely be denied & you'll be forced to cancel the entire remaining itinerary
UA will refare the ticket to LAX-ORD when determining if the ticket has any residual value for future use.
i suppose it is **possible** the gate agent at ORD-MKE could hear your story of sickness & just cancel the ORD-MKE segment on the itinerary, but then you'd likely have a check-in problem for MKE-ORD-LAX as the next open eticket segment would be ORD-MKE.

don't see any reason these days to ever book roundtrips

VegasGambler

The main reason to book a round trip is that if something happens on the outbound that entitled you to a refund, your return is refunded as well. Especially for short trips where a 1-day delay may make it a trip in vain.

With no change fees this is less of an issue than before, assuming that you can make use of the credit for the return (and it's not basic econ)

Boraxo

Has anyone done (or will admit doing ) an international award ticket with a UA connection to another *A carrier? In this case (as we see on many others) the UA calander shows 60k awards for an itinerary with the connection but the award price is 2x or 3x higher for the nonstop to the hidden city.

I am looking at IAH-GIG-XXX with the first segment on UA and dropping the GIG-XXX segment. This would be a one-way award ticket without checked bags.

Don't foresee an issue but would prefer not to be backcharged (not sure how that would be done recalculating the price in miles LOL). Also do not want to see my return flight cancelled though it will not be linked but will be another one-way ticket.

WineCountryUA

You will be one of many who are looking at this option -- multiple prior posters in UA-partner Business Awards 60K multiple destinations -- BKK,KUL,HKG,CGK,MNL,SCL, ...

bmwe92fan

As long as you don't make a habit of it there will be zero issues with this....

Boraxo

Yes there have been more than a few blog posts about 60k international awards. I'm not interested in Asia (except for Japan) and have not seen anything to Europe, but the South America space is appealing, particularly for USA winter/SA summer.

For UA this is a recurring (issue?) observation that I've seen for a while now. Another example would be 60k business class SFO<->LHR. Can be hard to find nonstops unless you are booking a connection through London then viola! the nonstop appears.

Just wondering if there is ever HCT enforcement on awards or if that is even possible as there is no "fare." Methinks maybe covered somewhere in the MP rules?

Never say never, but it would be my first HCT in four decades of flying. The more common scenario tends to be a positioning flight, which carries separate risks ...

nomad420

Agree with the above, you should not have a problem given that you booked the return as a separate one way ticket. Also per your comments, you are not checking bags.

jsloan

There is a fare; it's just calculated in a private currency. It is undoubtedly against the rules.

I do agree with other posters that you're unlikely to get in trouble with it for a one-off occurrence, but award vs. paid flight makes no difference in terms of hidden city (or other ticketing) rules.

SPN Lifer

Nice to read your insight again, jsloan !

jsloan

☺️ It's good to be back. After a while, it just got too depressing wandering the forum when I wasn't flying. But I did miss everybody!

sexykitten7

As noted on the other thread there are potential immigration issues, esp with covid.

Repooc17

We have missed you!

Now time to start booking and get back to the sky, pronto!

docbert

Award tickets might not change anything, but international HCT can...

The first issue is visas (and potentially Covid rules). You'll need to meet the entry requirements for your final destination. Obviously not a good example now days, but hidden-city flights to Russian via various Europe cities used to frequently be relatively cheap, but in order to board the first flight you'd need a visa for Russia, which obviously most people didn't have. You'd also have to meet all of the Covid requirements for the final destination - including potentially things like submitting for approval in advance like some countries require at the moment (eg, the Australian DPD form). In some cases, this could also have an additional cost (eg, New Zealand you'd need to not just obtain an NZeTA but also pay the tourist fee at the same time for a total of ~NZ$45)

The second potential issue is taxes. I have no idea if this could actually be a problem, but for example Australia has an arrival tax normally included in the ticket price that is not payable for people in transit (even if you enter the country during transit), but is for people where Australia is the destination. Any ticket US->AU->somewhere else would not include this tax, but if you were to disembark in Australia and stay there then technically you've failed to pay that tax (or more correctly, the airline has failed to pay it on your part). I'd find it highly unlikely that there would be any repercussions or that anyone would really case, but technically...