jsloan

That's not how I read it.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

It's pretty clear OP did indeed secure a concurrent booking.

"vs a new one way ticket at $296. I went ahead and booked the new one way ticket to secure the price""

seenitall

So let me get this straight. Are posters saying that I cannot book an alternative conflicting flight until after I have cancelled the original flight? That seems draconian. Until you have booked the new flight, you don't absolutely know that you can get on it at the price expected. Unless the first flight is absolutely no longer acceptable to you, why would you cut it off as a backup until you have the new flight in hand? I have to believe that UA (and all other airlines) will give you at least some grace period before they deem the reservations to be in conflict.

jsloan

The airlines want you to change the flights (and pay change fees in the process). And they are perfectly content to guarantee you a price during that process.

In practice, what the OP described likely happens all the time, and I don't think it's a big deal as long as it's handled immediately. The CSR was obviously wrong to be rude, but, IMO, was also wrong to argue when OP was calling to try to clean up the situation. But, there is no grace period in the CoC.

Kacee

The mistake was calling UA. While I understand in theory the desire to get additional information, in practice I would not recommend doing that. You're just asking for trouble.

as219

We're NYC based and got in on the fantastic ORD-SYD J deal. My question is about positioning flights. Outbound isn't a problem; we plan to fly to ORD the day before the flight to AKL. Coming back, though, I'm not sure what to do. We're on UA metal SYD-SFO, landing at 7am. The connecting flight to ORD is a couple of hours later, landing late afternoon...but in Y (it's what came up when I booked the flights...I didn't want to risk missing out in order to get SFO-ORD in F).

The obvious choice is to buy a NYC-ORD roundtrip. However, because it's a separate ticket -- and because, well, ORD -- I would have to book the return pretty late to leave a sufficient buffer. The problem is that it will suck after a transpac, to fly a several hours in Y, followed by a long ORD layover, followed by another flight to NYC. What I'd like to do is throw away my SFO-ORD segment and buy two one-ways, NYC-ORD on the outbound, then SFO-EWR nonstop on the return. There are good fares right now, it would give us lie-flat the entire way, and would be two flights instead of three. I'm concerned, though, that if I try to do this on UA, they will see the conflict between SFO-EWR and SFO-ORD and cancel one or both (or all of the) flights.

Am I risking trouble if I book SFO-EWR while also holding an earlier SFO-ORD segment? If yes, then obvioulsy I'll have to book the positioning flights on another carrier.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

jsloan

Yes, without question you are risking trouble. I would not book the SFO-NYC segment on UA.

Also, keep in mind that in case of IRROPs, UA isn't obligated to send you to SFO at all.

Kacee

Agree. It becomes blatant hidden city ticketing.

Of course, the 5* FT solution here would be to SDC SFO-ORD to SFO-EWR-ORD, then no show the last segment Not that I'm recommending that strategy . . . . (and I personally wouldn't do it).

findark

This might not be the best idea since it was originally a mistake fare, but I would also investigate why SFO-ORD is in Y and see if you can get that fixed.

as219

Though it's not what I wanted to hear, thanks for the input.

If it were just me I would get creative, but I'm with Ms. as219, so I need to keep that in check.

I am aware that UA is obligated to get me to ORD not SFO, but honestly there's just no way we can do SFO-ORD-NYC in Y after a transpac. If I buy SFO-JFK on AA and IRROPS force us through some other gateway, I'll eat the change fees and rebook.

as219

It happened to some people, and NZ is more than happy to fix it...for a refare.

findark

Oh, did it have to be 086 stock? Yeah, you're pretty stuck if it's NZ you have to ask for help.

as219

Don't know if it had to be, but I think it did. In any case, mine, sadly, is 086.

alchemista

I have A->B and B->A flights. I am SDCing them bumping the B->A back day-by-day until I want to return. For today and tomorrow, this means the A->B and B->A are on the same day. I just had a B->A canceled as a "duplicate booking" (agent terms). I think this is because time-in-air overlapped on the same day (and that's what I've seen on this thread so far).

SO... question:
1. If I want to SDC my flights like this and they are going to overlap on days, how do I make sure the system isn't going to auto-cancel one of my reservations? Is avoiding any time-in-air overlap sufficient? Technically I could be doing a mileage run or having an airport meeting and just flying back and forth so I don't see why that itself is a problem. I'm sure time-in-air is an issue it looks for, but does it also go into seeing if you have too tight of a connection or something like that?

2. When the system does auto-cancel you, what actually happens to your original ticket? Is it treated as if you canceled yourself, so that the ticket still has its value but you're going to lose the $200 change fee when you try to use it again?

I've also been getting a lot of errors trying to SDC these flights online, and have to call into an agent. I'm wondering if the website errors out if it see two flights on the same day? That would seem strange though.

Thanks!

jsloan

1 - The flights would have to honor the minimum connection time at B.
2 - That's a great question. I expect that's what would happen -- you'd be charged the voluntary change penalty and allowed to use the rest of the ticket as a credit. The CoC state that UA has the right to cancel a reservation but doesn't say what other remedies they have. I'd be shocked if that caused the entire ticket to be forfeit, unless maybe it was a BE / no-changes ticket.
3 - SDC has been acting up recently -- but understand that the more SDCs an agent sees on a given record, the less likely they are to help you. It's going to feel like you're abusing the system.