boat stuck

Any updates on how strict UA is being about HCT? I think the pre-Covid consensus had been doing it (dropping the last segment) once or twice a year falls under the radar--any changes to that rule of thumb?

WineCountryUA

Likely still true but is it worth it to be the test case?

david_oz

Looking for some advice. We have never done throwaway ticketing before but in this situation the savings were too good to ignore.

We were flying from AAA-CCC, but flying to BBB instead was $800 per person cheaper. Originally booked a flight from AAA-BBB, with a separate ticket from BBB-CCC. Playing around on UA.com the other night, I found we could change the ticket to fly AAA-CCC-BBB, with the CCC-BBB leg in two weeks time for the same price we paid, and we were also able to pocket the flight credit for canceling our original flights from BBB-CCC. On the new ticket, we have no intention to fly CCC-BBB because CCC is our final destination.

My fiance flew AAA-CCC yesterday, and I will fly it next week. I'm not sure whether we should cancel the CCC-BBB leg, or just not turn up for the flight. Will canceling the ticket cause UA to charge us additional even though the flights flown are in the past? When I went to cancel her ticket, I got a generically worded message saying "Any residual value of a partially used, non-refundable ticket will be applied at the time of use. Use your confirmation number to return to this canceled reservation in My trips and make changes for a future trip. Any residual value for the partially used non-refundable ticket will be applied when you change your itinerary. Change fees will apply." Obviously plans can change for any reason, and there are any number of legitimate reasons why we would not want to fly CCC-BBB in two weeks time. I don't really want to be holding two seats that we know we won't turn up for, but also don't want to incur any extra charges. Any potential flight credit is irrelevant to us because the PQP on that segment was $12.

As a side note, the cancelation screen also shows a refund of 240 plus points which is definitely an error (there should be no refund). It is proposing to refund for the AAA-CCC outbound, return, and former return segment before we changed it.

yvr1971

I am considering booking a UA Mileage Plus award (one way) from South America to Australia all one one ticket. It is much lower points to book the S. America to Australia route than to book the S. America to Japan route.

All legs are on UA until Tokyo. Then from Tokyo to Australia destination is Virgin Australia.
Last UA flight arrives NRT & then the Virgin Australia flight departs HND. There is 6.5 hours between the two.

Having to transfer between NRT and HND requires us to enter Japan (no issues with that), so I know we clear customs and retrieve bags for that purpose & in order to make our way to HND.
But if we were to skip the last leg on Virgin Australia, it shouldn't be an isue, right? Note that we both could also get an Aussie E Visa if necessary for documentation check in purposes with UA.
And we can enter without visa in either country. I have not done this before, so one time event should stay off the radar. Am I correct in my assumptions?

rankourabu

Zero issues if things go right. If something is delayed, be prepared to be rerouted to Australia on United metal 😀 or abort the journey altogether.

As you mention, be eligible for entry to Australia.

yvr1971

Aha......luckily it is not an Australian city that United flies to!!!

WineCountryUA

While not a high risk, routing to SYD/MEL and then VA is not out of the question.

bodiddely

Hello everyone,

I suspect the answer to my question is that it's simply not possible, but just thought I would ask in case anyone has any tips or bit of knowledge about UA ticketing policies that could prove helpful for my situation. I am planning to a trip to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo next month and I have a cash ticket issued by United. My itinery is IAD-GRU-SDU (2nd leg operated by LATAM), returning SDU-GRU-IAD (first leg is Azul but with a UA flight number). My preference would have been just a roundtrip IAD-GRU flight but that ticket was much more expensive.

I'm planning to start the trip in Rio and then will travel to SP on a separate ticket. My question is, once I'm there, is there any possibility to drop the Azul leg from SDU-GRU on my return and just fly the GRU-IAD leg? It's a business class ticket on the longhaul (P fare) UA segments if that makes any difference. I would have to fly from SP to Rio just to backtrack again to make that flight. I suspect that I can't because UA was charging a lot more for my desired itinerary with a direct flight returning from GRU, but thought I'd see if anyone has any tips. TIA

JimInOhio

In general, if you're a no-show for any leg of an itinerary, your remaining flights will be cancelled by the airline. If you ask to have that leg removed, they will in all likelihood reprice your entire ticket.

WineCountryUA

This is called Hidden City Ticketing or Skiplagging is a newer term.

As mentioned just getting off at GRU will lead to canceling of the return flight as a no show on GRU-SDU.

Attempting change the tickets to drop SDU segments will lead to a repricing of the trip.

bodiddely

Thank you. Yes, I know I can't just no-show without having the ticket canceled. I was hoping UA might be willing to drop the SDU-GRU leg once I've already completed the outbound journey from IAD-GRU-SDU but you're probably right about re-pricing it. Was hoping there might be some policy that allows them to drop a leg when you're mid trip.

WineCountryUA

The airlines are fighting HCT. A policy on dropping segments would be exploited to the airlines determent.

Kacee

No "probably" about it. The ticket will be refared.

jsloan

As described, no. However, if there is / has been a substantial schedule change on the SDU-GRU leg, then you may be able to ask them just to drop that leg. Same with a length delay on the day of travel, but by the time a delay would manifest itself, it'd probably be too late to do you any good.

J31415

Looking for some advice. I need a return flight from Tokyo to New York. I booked HND-EWR-IAH-GUA for 37.5k United Miles (similar to the price before the devaluation). Is there an advantage to targeting certain cities in Central America or the Carribean. (for example, I found HND-EWR JFK-GUA for 41.3k. Maybe the forced manual switch airport will be easier to skip the last leg, as I can make up some excuse as to why I couldn't get from EWR to JFK? Or should I try something like HND-EWR-SDQ where United only flies to SDQ out of EWR) I plan on checking bags and taking advantage of the requirement to clear customs at EWR to skip all further segments. United is charging 55k for the HND-EWR directly. This is my first time skiplagging and don't plan on doing it regularly. Any datapoints on getting in trouble for doing this once? It is an award ticket so I can't hide my account.