sthubbar

Hopefully some expert can find a secret that I can't find.

The issue is that I made one *A partner awards reservation for 3 people using UA points. I now, desperately need to remove one of the people from the reservation as it will cost $1127.25 to get enough points for this 3rd person, so I only want to purchase tickets for 2 people.

Awards available for this itinerary have rapidly vanished in the last few hours. I am told by UA that their only option is to cancel the complete reservation and then rebook, which I doubt will work since the availability has gone away.

Is there a secret to remove one person from a UA points *A partner awards ticket?

DETAILS

Itinerary PEK<>HNL Feb 6, 2013 return Feb 16, 2013
150,000 UA points in my account, need 75,000 for the 3rd ticket
Best plan I would have to get the additional 75,000 in my account
$0 - Tranfer 17k UR points in
$225 - Transfer 15k UA points from wife
$225 - Transfer 15k UA points from son
$667.25 - Purchase 30k points at 40% off
$1,127.25 - Total cost

I have enough US Airway miles and a reservation on hold for the same itinerary so it would be really great if there is some way to avoid this $1,127.25.

Thanks

JPG3392

I doubt that it will be possible to remove one reservation while keeping the other two. However, it's possible though by no means certain that award availability will return after you cancel what you have reserved. You'll only need availability for two awards to appear, not three.

brooklynmatt

I've not done this, but perhaps you could trade the US for UA on here?

iolairemcfadden

On AA they will split booked PRN's so you could say get an better class seat for one person. This post implies that UA does split purchase PRNs at times:
http://www.fodors.com/community/air-...st-husband.cfm

I’d call back a few times and clearly state that you want to remove one traveler prior to purchasing and see how the response varies.

mia

Thread moved to UA forum, the best place to ask Mileage Plus questions.

sthubbar

Thanks everyone for the ideas. I called back once the regular shift was on and got lucky to talk with Mary Ellen. She worked for over 1 hour to try all different ways, including seeing if the Mileage Plus department would take points from my wife's account to pay for her ticket.

In the end, she was able to talk to several supervisors and talk to some special department and was able to break out the reservation.

It really helps to call back and try different agents.

mduell

This seems straightforward, split the PNR into two, ticket the PNR with 2 people on it, and cancel/decline to ticket the PNR with 1 person on it.

I'm unaware of limitations with splitting unticketed award PNRs. You can certainly split ticketed PNRs; SHARES does it all the time even when you don't want to.

sthubbar

mduell, I think the challenge was that this was a partner award reservation. I don't even know what a PNR is, though I read some other post and I'm guessing that maybe there were multiple PNRs.

1 PNR from United and another PNR from Asianna, the partner airline. Whatever it was, it seemed quite challenging to split the reservation since it was not a United awards ticket.

iolairemcfadden

Within a day or so get the Asianna record locater number and call Asiana to insure that the ticket is ticked correctly. UA has been doing a very poor job with Asiana tickets.

sbm12

Yes, a PNR can be split. There is a risk when that happens that the partner will reject the booking and you will lose the seats. Supposedly that is only a risk on the "new" PNR and if you want to cancel that one off anyways then the risk is relatively lower. But it could also affect the other reservations and you have to be willing to accept that risk.

rwm818

***Bump to ask similar/related question***

Have what I think is a similar related question - haven't called yet...wondered if anyone has tried similar and what the best way to go about trying this is (i.e., any special request or way to process).

Here's the deal:

Booked RT saver E tix for 2 (realize now should have booked separate 1-ways?) because now saver F is avail able only for return. If I call 1k desk is there any chance they can break the original into separate legs - keeping the outbound saver E and replacing the return E with the saver F? Considering the fact that there is no remaining X/XN space on the outbound (which I would need to re-book 1 way saver).

Any thoughts/anyone accomplished something similar to this??

aacharya

Not an issue at all. Not even a need to separate the original into "separate" legs.