Standard Award Question
 

Hello,

I have a one-way flight booked using a standard award ticket from SDF-ORD-SFO on May 5th.

I noticed that there are saver first class seats available on the ORD-SFO segment, but the agent won't change the flight since the entire trip is a standard economy ticket.

Are there any ways around this? Since I'm paying the full amount of 25,000 miles, I would prefer to be in first class on the ORD-SFO segment.

Thanks!

From United air travel award rules

But do not believe different award types can be combined in an OW.

If you have the right credit card, you might get CPU.

I'm pretty sure there has to be saver award space on all legs to get it (OW). Now, you can have saver economy on one leg and saver First/business on another (will charge you saver First/business rate) but both need to be saver.

I don't think you can mix standard and saver award.

Did you check SDF-ORD have saver first?

You can do it this way. I recently had success changing my standard award to saver by downgrading one of the legs from F to Y. That was at about 48 hours out. Then, at 24 hours out, I was able to switch the Y back to F.

Just keep checking. A lot opens up in those few days before the flight.

Thanks for the responses. There are no saver seats to ORD because of the Kentucky Derby that week-end.

What if I change the trip to a round trip ticket, and then change it back to a one way after? Perhaps that will work.

The same rules apply on an RT ticket for each "half" of the RT though - you can't mix standard / saver on the outbound, or the inbound. You can have all saver on the outbound and all standard on the inbound, or vice versa. So your suggestion wouldn't work.