Ronlap

A little off-topic, but I had an 016 for SA which they reissued at the airport on their own stock when I checked in. Since I made 1K, the PQD aren't that important to me, but it's an interesting data point.

Starman

Did you trigger the reissue with some change request, or did they do it unsolicited??

Ronlap

I paid a $6 equivalent seat selection fee for an aisle seat towards the front of Economy.

sannmann

Are you sure that's a reissue and not just separate issuance of an Electronic Miscellaneous Document or EMD to record your payment of that fee?

Ronlap

According to MP, the two SA segments (of 6 total segments) are ineligible for MP PQD because the ticket wasn't on 016. I need to put in a request to the MP desk since my original receipt shows the entire itinerary on 016.

PhillyPhlyer40

Booked Fra-Waw last night and saw it didn't ticket this morning.

On with 1K line, and the agent is claiming that you must have one UA segment in order to ticket. Does that seem right? I've recently booked multiple UA tickets with just LH segments. She's claiming I got lucky the past 8 or so tickets.

QBK

Reservations system was changed on 10/6. There seem to have been a lot of under-the-hood changes that came with no warning or explanation (and remain undocumented). It's possible this was one of them.

However, there have also been reports of temporary fluctuations that went back to the way they were (e.g., Chase cardholders losing access to XN award availability)... and, to nobody's surprise, of phone agents insisting that whatever the current behavior of the computer is, it represents the way Things Have Always Been and/or Things Are Supposed to Be.

So, basically, YMMV.

Often1

In theory, you are correct. UA may ticket any carrier with which it interlines. But, it will not as a general matter do this unless the originating segment or at least what amounts to the first most significant segment is operated by or a UA codeshare.

TA's are free to do whatever they want.

You have indeed been lucky and your account may well have been flagged.

The reason? There is nothing in it but heartache for UA.

mherdeg

I don't get it. The United site happily offers to sell me LHR-IST round trips (nonstop operated by TK or one-stop operated by LH) and I have booked plenty of them in the past. No one has ever complained.

In fact the United site is pretty generous about this (and I hope they stay that way). There are some weird corner cases where certain carriers don't reliably ticket, and normally I just give up on UA and book with the OAL instead (although with 016-based RDM earnings, it's a little tricky - UA wants to be the plating carrier as much as they can!).

Now in fairness I definitely would not expect phone reservations agents who primarily assist with US domestic tickets to understand this angle of UA sales. Generally when I encounter an agent who doesn't understand part of UA's business I thank them, politely disengage, and call again later. But this is definitely something they've been doing for years. I would raise a big skeptical eyebrow at

Wat?

PhillyPhlyer40

WOW. This is unbelievable.

I've been doing this for at least 3 years. I still have trouble believing ua wouldn't want my money.

The search only gave me ~20 options of what to buy!

Kacee

That is simply not true. UA offers thousands of flights for sale which involve no UA segment. Go search .com for BOG-CTG or BKK-HKT for just two examples (both of which I've purchased).

When I recently purchased a C from UA on BKK-HKT, it cost about $19 more than if I had bought from TG. So this is not a charitable endeavor by UA.

And that's just nonsense.

sexykitten7

Just because you can do something doesn't make it "right."

From the Booking & Ticketing Policy:

glx

I've booked gazillions (rough estimate) of intra-Europe LH segments (on LH flight #'s) on UA.com, going back years and years (and as recently as 3 weeks ago). Seems that they could easily filter these from sale if they wanted to.

Kacee

In fact UA encourages this with its PQD requirements and revenue based accruals for tickets on 016 stock.

sannmann

If UA is going to get rid of this feature of its website, then its going to have to award PQDs on non-016 tickets, ala Delta.

Booking and Ticketing Policy only applies to third party TA, who can get fined for plating violations by the airline.