mgf3

I frequently book flights on United MileagePlus partners with award miles, usually in Asia. However, once the flights are booked, access to the ticket or booking number of the partner airline seems to vary. I just purchased an award ticket on Singapore Air, but United only gives me the United confirmation number as well as the eticket number. However, if I want to manage my reservation on the Singapore Air site they require either an SQ booking reference, which is different from the United confirmation number, or a ticket number starting with 618, which is also different from the eticket number provided by United. Is there any way to access the confirmation numbers required by the partner airlines?

My only point of reference on this so far is that United will provide Asiana booking codes after an award purchase has been made.

Thanks.

transconsan

Call Singapore Air to find your booking reference.

SunLover

The United IT system integrates more closely with some partner airlines better than others. For example I find the OZ and LH confirmation numbers are consistently in my UA reservations, but the TG and SQ confirmation numbers are not.

As long as you have the 13 digit UA eTicket number beginning with 016 either UA or SQ will be able to find you in their system if you provide them with some basic information: UA eTicket number, last name of passenger, date of flight, and flight number.

Here in the United States I either call United or email the foreign carrier with the information above to get the partner confirmation number.


SunLover

coolcoil

You should be able to see the PNR for reservations on partner airlines from your reservation summary page on UA.com. It is a little obscure though. The link is titled something like "other information." I use it all the time to get my COPA and AV PNR's.

Unfortunately, I don't have any partner flights booked right now, or I would get the exact name of the link and a screenshot for you.

mgf3

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it. So it appears that for some partner airlines United automatically generates that partner's own confirmation codes, and for others it doesn't and therefore the number needs to be tracked down manually. Sounds like a preliminary list of partner airlines for which those codes are automatically generated and available within the United reservation system is AV, COPA, LH, and OZ. I imagine there are technical reasons why some of these are generated automatically and others aren't, but it's definitely more convenient to have them provided automatically and within the United reservation.

Thanks again for the help, much appreciated.

astroflyer

You can add AC to the list as well.

Platcomike

Also TK, SA and US in my recent (2013) personal experience with rewards.

Kacee

Or just call the carrier to get the confirmation number and select a seat. SQ has a toll free US number.

a9504477

I think i could also see CA, TG, NH and BR numbers for booked award travel.

Alpha Golf

And have SQ check that it's ticketed properly. I had a recent award that had to be reticketed twice, the final (successful) time with a persistent SQ agent on the phone with UA while I was in the SIN ticket office.

SunLover

I think this is good advice for any and all partner airline reservations booked thru UA.


SunLover

astroflyer

TG is presently not working for my reservations with them.

MK19791980

I've booked a couple of SQ award tickets and the confirmation number never shows up on this feature

Kacee

Agree. OZ/TG award. OZ confirm showed within a day, but I had to call to get TG confirm and seat. The TG confirm has never shown on the UA reservation.

mgf3

Thanks, again all very helpful. It sounds like SQ and TG are the two partners who definitely don't have confirmation codes automatically visible and available within the reservation after booking from the United award system. Would there be any way to bring this the attention of someone at United who could fix it?

Last night I called United to get the SQ confirmation code for the award flight I had just booked and they were able to give that to me. I then asked if this information would be available through United other than through calling them. The woman who was helping me offered to put me in touch with someone from the website service team or something like that, but I passed. But maybe this is worth bringing to their attention.

In a way this might not be the most pressing issue in the world, but on the other hand having the partner codes is important if we are going to be able to double-check that the reservation was done correctly, to check in on-line or to make any other changes from within the partner's site. Again, maybe it's just SQ and TG, but having those codes automatically available across all partners would be helpful.

Thanks again for all the helpful input.