cfischer

sorry, not sure where this 'rule' is coming from and while this might be true for TAs, United can certainly choose to sell whatever they want on their ticket stock unless fare rules preclude it. Have done this many times.

nerdbirdsjc

United is essentially adopting the industry norm of discouraging off-plating as much as possible through all of its sales channels.

While off-plating by UA can be beneficial for our mileage accrual, it burdens UA with booking management responsibility for virtually no economic gain. Transporting carriers also complain about off-plating because under industry rules, they do not receive any revenue until well after travel is completed.

PVDtoDEL

In exchange for booking management responsibility, UA gets to hold onto the revenue until the segment is flown, in addition to the interline service charges applicable. Perhaps more importantly, it makes UA.com a more useful tool and means that pax are likely to check UA.com first before booking on an OTA. Maximizing distribution through the website is one of the top priorities for every airline on the planet..

The fact that the website offers these choices in the first place means that somebody in UA Sales probably has crunched the numbers and found out that it's worth it to offer these flights.

jsloan

Fine, but that's entirely on UA. They were the ones who decided to start the revenue-based earning scheme, and they were the ones who decided to add a PQD requirement based upon ticketing on 016 stock.

If they didn't want to have to ticket OAL flights on the regular, they shouldn't' have made these changes. It didn't take a crystal ball to understand that travelers would attempt to adapt their behavior accordingly.

Even Delta relented by allowing modified MQD earnings (based upon a fraction of the flight distance) on all tickets -- I actually have a few MQDs this year from a MU segment booked on a 016 ticket.

UA should either scrap PQDs -- they don't seem to be working the way UA wanted, hence the elite status giveaway -- or copy DL again and allow people to earn PQDs on all tickets. The fewer the advantages for 016 booking, the fewer the people who will want it.

mherdeg

Huh, if I book an all-LH ticket on UA ticket stock and no-show (ticket value is less than change fee), who gets the revenue? Does that all just stay with UA?

PVDtoDEL

If it's an interline relationship governed by IATA MPA, then yes, UA just pockets the revenue. Which is crazy given the importance of protecting inventory from spoilage... All these agreements were conceived long before modern revenue management, and the amount of inertia is enormous. LH and UA have an SPA which might change that, but probably not.

nerdbirdsjc

Yes. Money remains with the issuing airline until flights are flown and the transporting airline "presents" the ticket for payment.

Mike Jacoubowsky

On a phone call to the premier desk tonight, the (sleepy-sounding) person at the other end of the line wouldn't even entertain a conversation about booking a ticket that didn't include at least one UA flight.

There is a certain consistency when you think about UA ending the option of buying itins outright (with $$$) when you searched for award flights, even though those flights weren't UA or sometimes even *A, and couldn't be booked using the normal booking engine.

I'll see if I can somehow fool the booking engine, by tacking on a UA flight at the end of the final segment, or at the start of the first (with a positioning flight to get there). But my initial efforts aren't working out.

zrs70

Dear all,

Recent reports have shown that it is virtually impossible to have United issue a ticket on Star Alliance carrier when there is no United flight involved.

There is a workaround, but it is a little bit complicated.

Say you want to fly LIS-EWR on TAP. One way business-class fare is less than $1000. And say you want the PQD's. United won't issue it.

But if you go to google flights and choose LIS-EWR-BOS, you will then have a link to United that will have the itinerary set up.

Put in your information to purchase it. Because of the partner involved, United won't issue it for 24 hours.

Call United, give them your record locator, and tell them that you want to drop in Newark to Boston flight.

Voila. You now have a ticket that will be plated on United

TAHKUCT

Great idea!

However there is a high chance it will be repriced

zrs70

Price paid is the original fare. No more, no less!

Starman

This is an ongoing issue for me, so I'm always interested in all workarounds. But I'm not sure I understand your suggestion. If google flights prices both legs as you want, and transfers both to united.com, why do you need any interaction at all with a UA agent? What does "drop in" the EWR-BOS segment mean? And finally, are you suggesting a hidden city ticket (fine with me, no judgments here, just trying to understand).

sannmann

Is this like the FT equivalent of "fake news?" You drop the segment, United has to re-fare. LIS-EWR may be a more expensive market than LIS-BOS. Even if you were ticketed LIS-EWR-BOS and walked away from the EWR-BOS segment the day of, technically, you're violating the hidden city rules.

zrs70

No, not hidden city.

If you call United, they will ticket you LIS-EWR (TP) -BOS, as it includes a UA segment. But they won't ticket LIS-EWR alone.

So you set up the LIS-EWR-BOS ticket via google flights. But before the ticket is issued, you call United and have them drop the EWR-BOS flight. Because the reservation is already in the system, the agent won't tell you it can't be done. They will simply drop the segment, reprice the flight, and issue the ticket.

No hidden city. No violation of rules.

Juventini

Nice work-around, thanks

I have also been able to use award search tool to select partner award space and do the "Purchase this ticket in Economy with $$ instead" option at pricing page on united.com

Managed to get PQDs for travel solely on WP and NH.