Feb 25, 2022, 9:47 am
Last edit by: WineCountryUA
Rule 5 Cancellation of Reservations
- In addition to exercising any of its remedies in Rule 6 K) below, UA reserves the right to cancel bookings and/or reservations which it deems fraudulent, abusive, illogical, fictitious, which are booked and/or reserved with no intention of flying, or for which the passenger makes a misrepresentation without notice to the passenger or the individual making the booking. The types of improper reservations that UA will cancel without notice include, but are not limited to: reservations made without having been requested by or on behalf of the named passenger; reservations made to hold or block seats for the purpose of obtaining lower fares, MP award inventory, travel certificates, or upgrades that may not otherwise be available; reservations made to manipulate, abuse, or circumvent any of UA’s fare rules, policies or provisions; reservations made for the same passenger on flights traveling on or about the same date between one or more of the same or nearby origin or destination cities; and reservations with connections that depart before the arrival on the inbound flight.
[Consolidated] - Duplicated / double / impossible reservations -- What will UA do?
Apr 23, 2022, 10:07 am
#62
Moderator: United Airlines
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Welcome to FT, toolatetogohome
Yes, UA has an aggressive double / impossible booking detection program.
Yes, working independently of UA in irrops can lead to problems
Appears your original flight was delay
You booked a new flight independent of UA
UA cancelled your original ticket as you made other arrangements
Later your original flight was "less" delayed
You asked to be put back on the original flight
UA moved your independently booked flight (the only valid ticket now exisiting) back to the original flight at the new, higher fare
Is that correct?
Did the airport agent cancel the old ticket, did you tell the agent you made other arrangements or did the automatic UA system cancel the original ticket?
Did you ever ask for the old ticket to be restored and the newer ticket canceled before taking the flight?
As UA had re-accommodated many from the delayed flight is likely why the flight was empty.
DOuble booking on your own does mess up the agent handling the situation.
Yes, working independently of UA in irrops can lead to problems
Appears your original flight was delay
You booked a new flight independent of UA
UA cancelled your original ticket as you made other arrangements
Later your original flight was "less" delayed
You asked to be put back on the original flight
UA moved your independently booked flight (the only valid ticket now exisiting) back to the original flight at the new, higher fare
Is that correct?
Did the airport agent cancel the old ticket, did you tell the agent you made other arrangements or did the automatic UA system cancel the original ticket?
Did you ever ask for the old ticket to be restored and the newer ticket canceled before taking the flight?
As UA had re-accommodated many from the delayed flight is likely why the flight was empty.
DOuble booking on your own does mess up the agent handling the situation.
Apr 23, 2022, 12:15 pm
#63
Join Date: Apr 2022
Posts: 3
Yes that’s all correct. I bought the new $280 ticket via the UA app. thanks for condensing!
Did the airport agent cancel the old ticket, did you tell the agent you made other arrangements or did the automatic UA system cancel the original ticket? - - the UA system canceled the original ticket, once I noticed my boarding pass disappeared, I went to agent for help and told her I’d bought back up ticket and now my boarding pass was gone. She confirmed my original seat had been canceled.
Did you ever ask for the old ticket to be restored and the newer ticket canceled before taking the flight? — yes, while I didn’t say “restore”, I did ask the agent if I could go back to original flight and get a refund. In her defense, she was quite busy. She walked to a different gate desk to ask a question about how to do my ticket and then told me she was newly back at work. I was also quite stressed and tired, not thinking clearly. I asked her several times about a refund because I found her answers confusing. She kept mentioning miles and I kept repeating the $280. There were also people waiting behind me, so I didn’t want to take too long. She assured me it was all taken care of, no problem. Again, I learned a lot from this but is there any way UA will refund or credit the $280?
Did the airport agent cancel the old ticket, did you tell the agent you made other arrangements or did the automatic UA system cancel the original ticket? - - the UA system canceled the original ticket, once I noticed my boarding pass disappeared, I went to agent for help and told her I’d bought back up ticket and now my boarding pass was gone. She confirmed my original seat had been canceled.
Did you ever ask for the old ticket to be restored and the newer ticket canceled before taking the flight? — yes, while I didn’t say “restore”, I did ask the agent if I could go back to original flight and get a refund. In her defense, she was quite busy. She walked to a different gate desk to ask a question about how to do my ticket and then told me she was newly back at work. I was also quite stressed and tired, not thinking clearly. I asked her several times about a refund because I found her answers confusing. She kept mentioning miles and I kept repeating the $280. There were also people waiting behind me, so I didn’t want to take too long. She assured me it was all taken care of, no problem. Again, I learned a lot from this but is there any way UA will refund or credit the $280?
Apr 23, 2022, 1:25 pm
#64
Moderator: United Airlines
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SFO
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No all is lost, you should have some credit for the original cancelled flight
Is there a chance you find a sympathetic agent along the line, perhaps, if you get lucky. Will it be worth the time (multiple tries, hours, and no guarantee of success).? up to you to decide
But if you are asking there is a clear policy on this, no. The agent did things by policy, When you when rogue, you lost most of the normal protections and created extra work for UA
Have others done this, certainly. Not unnecessary foolish to do if you want to take no chances but understand the risks and costs.
Is there a chance you find a sympathetic agent along the line, perhaps, if you get lucky. Will it be worth the time (multiple tries, hours, and no guarantee of success).? up to you to decide
But if you are asking there is a clear policy on this, no. The agent did things by policy, When you when rogue, you lost most of the normal protections and created extra work for UA
Have others done this, certainly. Not unnecessary foolish to do if you want to take no chances but understand the risks and costs.
Apr 23, 2022, 4:35 pm
#66
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Perhaps you might want to consider filing a chargeback with your credit card bank for the $280 transaction as a duplicate payment for a service not provided.
Attach copies of the original ticket, boarding pass (showing you flew that final segment) and the second ticket. Summarize the conversation with gate agent, including that she was too busy to process the issue at the time.
Attach copies of the original ticket, boarding pass (showing you flew that final segment) and the second ticket. Summarize the conversation with gate agent, including that she was too busy to process the issue at the time.
Apr 23, 2022, 5:40 pm
#67
Moderator: United Airlines
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SFO
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The cancellation was per published policy.
It would be a nice gesture but a harried agent was probably more worried about getting the delayed flight out and other passengers accommodated then to correct the OP's error
Apr 24, 2022, 12:07 pm
#68
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 51
DP: I recently had two one-way flights booked on the same day, from different airports (100+ miles apart) in the broad LA area to AUS. I thought that was OK to do so I could choose the best one depending on circumstances and cancel the other. Now that I'm reading this thread, I was obviously wrong. The most recent flight among the two was cancelled (almost exactly 24 hours after booking) and I received flight credit (it had originally been booked with flight credit).
May 26, 2022, 12:41 pm
#69
Join Date: Jan 2018
Programs: UA
Posts: 15
Does United penalize you for booking a backup award itinerary? I had a trip booked through UA's system on TK from EWR-IST-CGK for this coming November that got screwed up by TK schedule changes recently. I was able to rebook it into a EWR-WAW-IST-CGK itinerary which should work but is not ideal. It also left me with a bad feeling about TK's reliability.
Searching through UA's system today I just saw that award space on BR opened up for JFK-TPE-CGK on the day I want. That would work well for me but Taiwan comes with significant COVID risk since their border controls are much stricter. I should soon have enough UA points though to book an additional award itinerary without cancelling my current one. From UA's redeposit policy it appears I can cancel one of the two itineraries without any fee up to 30 days before departure.
This makes me wonder, will UA penalize for booking that I clearly don't intend to take? If I have two separate New York to Jakarta flights within 24 hours of each other it should be pretty obvious that I won't be using one of them.
Searching through UA's system today I just saw that award space on BR opened up for JFK-TPE-CGK on the day I want. That would work well for me but Taiwan comes with significant COVID risk since their border controls are much stricter. I should soon have enough UA points though to book an additional award itinerary without cancelling my current one. From UA's redeposit policy it appears I can cancel one of the two itineraries without any fee up to 30 days before departure.
This makes me wonder, will UA penalize for booking that I clearly don't intend to take? If I have two separate New York to Jakarta flights within 24 hours of each other it should be pretty obvious that I won't be using one of them.
May 26, 2022, 12:47 pm
#70
Moderator: United Airlines
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Double booking distorts inventory numbers and could discourage a different passenger from booking as lower cost inventory is consumed by the backup booking.
The only question is will UA detect your backup booking?
May 26, 2022, 12:55 pm
#71
Join Date: Jan 2018
Programs: UA
Posts: 15
If UA detects a second "impossible" booking, it will cancel one.
Double booking distorts inventory numbers and could discourage a different passenger from booking as lower cost inventory is consumed by the backup booking.
The only question is will UA detect your backup booking?
Double booking distorts inventory numbers and could discourage a different passenger from booking as lower cost inventory is consumed by the backup booking.
The only question is will UA detect your backup booking?
Re: detect, I'm not going to chance it. The whole point of a second booking is to reduce risk for this trip. It sounds like booking a backup itinerary would increase risk instead. TY for the assistance.
Jun 1, 2022, 3:10 pm
#72
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 446
Automatic System Cancellations - Any way to manage?
The UA systems seems to have gotten very aggressive with cancelling flights even if they are for legit flights. I am doing a quick turnaround flight for work / wedding on the West coast where the intervening flight is on another airline, and one got cancelled.
Is there any way to appropriately manage what seem to be reasonable backup flights?
What if flights are already booked? What if the flights are using miles? What if international
Especially in this day of jacked up prices, schedule changes, and flight cancellations (with very little flexibility) it does not seem that unusual or unreasonable for example to have two flights booked ahead of time on different days and even days apart.
Thank you.
Is there any way to appropriately manage what seem to be reasonable backup flights?
What if flights are already booked? What if the flights are using miles? What if international
Especially in this day of jacked up prices, schedule changes, and flight cancellations (with very little flexibility) it does not seem that unusual or unreasonable for example to have two flights booked ahead of time on different days and even days apart.
Thank you.
Jun 1, 2022, 3:19 pm
#73
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 21,357
The UA systems seems to have gotten very aggressive with cancelling flights even if they are for legit flights. I am doing a quick turnaround flight for work / wedding on the West coast where the intervening flight is on another airline, and one got cancelled.
Is there any way to appropriately manage what seem to be reasonable backup flights?
What if flights are already booked? What if the flights are using miles? What if international
Especially in this day of jacked up prices, schedule changes, and flight cancellations (with very little flexibility) it does not seem that unusual or unreasonable for example to have two flights booked ahead of time on different days and even days apart.
Thank you.
Is there any way to appropriately manage what seem to be reasonable backup flights?
What if flights are already booked? What if the flights are using miles? What if international
Especially in this day of jacked up prices, schedule changes, and flight cancellations (with very little flexibility) it does not seem that unusual or unreasonable for example to have two flights booked ahead of time on different days and even days apart.
Thank you.
At the end of the day, though, UA does not share your view that it is "reasonable" to book "backup flights."
If you feel you must do so, you're generally best off by booking them on different airlines or, at a minimum, not putting your frequent flyer information into one of them (although name + DOB might be enough to trip UA's computers).
Jun 1, 2022, 3:26 pm
#74
Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: New York
Programs: United MileagePlus 1K
Posts: 55
The UA systems seems to have gotten very aggressive with cancelling flights even if they are for legit flights. I am doing a quick turnaround flight for work / wedding on the West coast where the intervening flight is on another airline, and one got cancelled.
Is there any way to appropriately manage what seem to be reasonable backup flights?
What if flights are already booked? What if the flights are using miles? What if international
Especially in this day of jacked up prices, schedule changes, and flight cancellations (with very little flexibility) it does not seem that unusual or unreasonable for example to have two flights booked ahead of time on different days and even days apart.
Thank you.
Is there any way to appropriately manage what seem to be reasonable backup flights?
What if flights are already booked? What if the flights are using miles? What if international
Especially in this day of jacked up prices, schedule changes, and flight cancellations (with very little flexibility) it does not seem that unusual or unreasonable for example to have two flights booked ahead of time on different days and even days apart.
Thank you.
Jun 1, 2022, 3:44 pm
#75
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: EWR
Programs: Latam Pass Black; UA 1K, 1MM; Marriott LT
Posts: 300
Until 6 months ago I never had any reservations canceled by the airline, but recently they do seem to have become way more proactive.
For example, I had an LAX -> NYC booked for Friday evening and one booked for the Saturday morning. I was in the process of calling to upgrade the Friday one, and cancel the Saturday one, when the agent told me the Friday one had already been canceled by UA.
I was told that they would cancel the earliest by departure time reservation (I had booked the Saturday reservation first).
Fortunately they could get me back on the flight I had been canceled from.
For example, I had an LAX -> NYC booked for Friday evening and one booked for the Saturday morning. I was in the process of calling to upgrade the Friday one, and cancel the Saturday one, when the agent told me the Friday one had already been canceled by UA.
I was told that they would cancel the earliest by departure time reservation (I had booked the Saturday reservation first).
Fortunately they could get me back on the flight I had been canceled from.
