aacharya

Silver's not listed as an award partner.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...airawards.aspx

jtwiz

That is definitely a bummer, because that is one of our favorite uses of award miles. The trip from EWR to FLL or TPA is always quite cheap, but the puddle jumper on Silver (what was UA Express) is where the $$ come in. Silver just recently became a partner airline instead of a US Express affiliate. I had no idea that meant award tickets were no longer possible.

Another change I don't like....

aacharya

And this change is due to Smisek, not Silver Airways wanting to go on their own within Florida?

Robert

Thanks, aacharya. I made the incorrect assumption that because of the UA flight number, the segment could be booked using miles, regardless of operating carrier. It looks like the only award option ex-EYW is on US Airways metal.

aacharya

It is confusing, to say the least. I'd have assumed the same.

glx

Odd, I have an award flight on Silver coming up over Thanksgiving:

Flight: UA4048
Operated by Silver Airways.
Aircraft: Saab 340/340B
Fare Class: Economy (X)
Meal: None

I booked it ~2 months ago, so possibly related?

weirdlyndon

Codeshare only in the Florida/Caribbean markets served by Silver. IAD and CLE flights operated by Silver remain under the United Express umbrella.

Peace2Peep

I just ran into a HUGE problem with Silver flying MCO to PNS this weekend. Not knowing of the change in status with united, I was rudely awakened to the fact that Silver is not a Star Alliance partner with United and therefore if you fly them only, or as your first leg of any journey you will have to pay $25 for your first bag and then $35 for each bag thereafter. If your bag is over 50 lbs then it is $100 per bag. Silver did not recognize my 1K status, nor work with me on any of this seeing that they made the change somewhat without any fanfare.

I walked down to the UA customer service manager at MCO and Liz did an amazing job of accommodating me and my associate on a trip using UA metal only. We had five large cases with us that would have cost us $500 to transport on an airline where the tickets for both of us only cost $300 total!

Other than accruing miles(Which I'm not sure I actually did) why would United put them in their computer matrix when no courtesies are being extended to their frequent fliers? This is so wrong.

This is the same as united selling me a Delta(skyteam) ticket...what's the benefit to me?

mherdeg

The key benefit of being able to buy a ticket from A to C (transiting in B) from a single company, vs. buying A-B on United and B-C on Silver Airways, is that in case of irregular operations you have a contract which says the carrier is responsible from getting you from A to C, and they will get you there. Let me give an example in a region where UA frequently sells another carrier's tickets.

Compare with how UA will sell you a ticket from OGG-HNL-SFO, with the first leg on Hawaiian Air (who is not a *A carrier, has bag fees, etc.).

If UA were unwilling to sell you that ticket, when traveling OGG-SFO you would have to either (1) only buy tickets on UA longhaul flights ex-OGG (which might mean you end up paying higher prices as there are fewer seats available if you exclude flights from the other islands) or (2) buy two separate tickets and hope that nothing goes wrong.

Just to spell out the risk with (2), if you have a single ticket OGG-HNL-SFO and something goes wrong with the OGG-HNL flight, UA will try to re-protect you on other options, for example a nonstop OGG-SFO. But, on the other hand, if you have separate tickets OGG-HNL and HNL-SFO and something goes wrong with the OGG-HNL flight, UA will almost certainly do nothing for you *until you get to HNL*, which can extend your total trip duration.

By way of contrast, in this case, though, it is a huge bummer that UA discontinued their United Express deal with Silver — as you point out, it is a pain that you lose the UA status benefits. Great to hear that UA was willing to reaccommodate you on an all-UA-metal itinerary; that was the right thing to do and I'm glad it worked out.

pizzabox

Has anyone run into issues with having TSA Precheck on UA ticketed segments for Silver Airways? For example, MCO-PNS.

Zappity

AFAIK if you were only ticketed MCO-PNS then PreCheck would not show up on your boarding pass because your boarding pass would now be issued by Silver Airways rather than UA.

rcodey

Do you elite flyers receive 500 miles for a Silver flight that is part of a United itinerary ?

smassey22180

Even as a "soon to be elite" I get 500 mile credit. The problem is it is not automatically credited. I must wait 3 weeks, scan and upload boarding passes to UA. Even then, 50% of the time it does not work. They currently owe me 6 segments. Which is why I don't have status yet. Sliver sucks. They were not ready to go out on their own.

Since the Silver switch to "Partner" I have lost the UA app, the UA website functions, electronic boarding passes, the ability to select a seat online, Premier Access security line, free checked bags, any electronic notification of flight delay, automatic mileage credit and so on.

I feel like they did a bait and switch when I selected UA to be my primary provider last year!

bruceba

Are the free checked bags gone? It has hit or miss for me.

weirdlyndon

If the first leg of a res starts with Silver, than unfortunately you're still responsible for bag fees