Hi,

I was wondering if it is possible to book a reservation from BCN to ATH via IST (all Turkish Airlines flights) via united.com or by phone. I Booked one online last night and today the reservation was gone from my profile. I called and the agent said they canceled it since it didnt have at least one UA flight in it.

Regards,

An reservation without a UA segment will not show online in your accounrt but have never heard of it being cancelled.
Try entering the PNR and your last name under "Manage Reservations" to see if the reservation shows.

I have successfully booked IST-LHR, as a TK flight number, just that one segment, on united.com. It took a while to issue the ticket; I got a "partner ticketing delay notice" e-mail and then about 24 hours later I got a ticket. Despite not having any UA segments it showed up just fine in my "my itineraries" list.

Just guessing here, could it be that when UA tried to ticket your flight, TK denied that the space was still available, and so they cancelled the reservation? Buying space on another carrier, there's a built in 24-48 hour delay where the carrier has to confirm the inventory.

UA should be able to sell you a flight entirely operated by other carriers, but it is *not* something they're accustomed to doing, so no surprise the agent told you something that sounded plausible.

(The ability of united.com to sell you TK flights is really nice because TK otherwise has a ~$20 booking fee that they apply to flights they sell on their own Web site and most online travel agencies bundle that fee, too -- united.com offers the best deal by far. It would be too bad if UA stopped doing that!)

I think your terminology in the title is a bit confusing here, since you didn't exactly buy a reservation with all codeshare flights - you bought a reservation with only partner carrier flight numbers (no "UA" flights) and no codeshare flights at all (no "UA flight number on a flight operated by Lufthansa or Turkish Airilnes", etc.).

Yes thats why i want to book it via united. also since TK does not take AMEX. the problem is the flight is this friday 22. I dont want to rebook it online and then have them cancel it again and have the price sky rocket. am i protected if i book it and they randomly decide to cancel it again?

Oof, with travel within the next ~72 hours and with the trip already having failed to ticket once through United, you may just want to accept the extra booking cost of going elsewhere and use an online travel agency like Expedia, Orbitz, or Opodo, who may be better equipped for this.

If United tries to ticket the trip and can't make it work, they're probably not going to be much help in getting you to your final destination.

You should definitely be sure to check, as WinecountryUA says above, that your trip has actually been cancelled. Plug in your United record locator (six-character code from your reservation confirmation e-mail) and your last name at united.com and see what it says about your reservation status. If it says "there are no segments", the phone rep was probably right. If not, the phone rep might have been confused.

When I punched in my res # it said that it had no segments. does that mean that I cant be booked? im on the phone with UA right now but since im not elite anymore i have to wait 30 min waiting. FML

I also just rebooked online and tried the TK confirmation number on there site and its shows all the flights as HK, confirmed

it you get a confirmation of ticketing -- the second e-mail with the ticket number?

No never got the second email.

I just booked via an online travel agency and they gave me the 24 hour wait also. as a back up a have a new reservation booked via united.com. All reservations booked on united.com have the 24 hour cancel policy correct?

sounds like it was never ticketed -- could have been the approx 24 delay in partner ticketing.

yes all have the 24 hour cancellation policy. Personalty I would be working on a way to directly ticket with TK given the short timeframe (your travel agency appraoch may be the next best - might be better done in person).

Have you called TK to see if the ticket was issued? I had a IST-NBO segment on TK last October and despite the RT being booked with UA, TK was able to help me out with seats and give me information about the res.

So for everyone that's following here is the update on how United is dropping the ball. So after doing the reservation and always having it canceled after 24 hours I made one more and called TK. Gave them the tracker and they said everything was confirmed. so then I called united and they said everything was fine and that they were waiting for TK to do the partner ticketing (process that usually takes 24 hours). After i hanged up i remember the phone robot asking me if i was calling to pay for the reservation which is weird since I put my CC online when I did the booking. problem ended up being that united never charged me for the reservation so TK canceled it after 24 hours due to lack of payment.

I have a reward travel that is all TK, but UA codeshare. Never had an issue. don't know if reward makes a difference, or just the codeshare.