I just booked a TATL itinerary with intra-Europe flights on LX.

There's R space on the UA metal overnight to Europe, and I have GPUs burning a hole in my MP account, BUT I can't apply them (I don't believe) until the reservation tickets.

I'm now in the limbo period where UA is awaiting confirmation from LX that they have accepted the booking for their flights LHR-ZRH and ZRH-MXP.

Any experience with confirmation time for UA reservations that have LX code-shares? The stock message is that it will come within 24 hours, but I wonder what the typical response time is?

And anyone have a work-around to apply GPUs on an itinerary that is booked but not ticketed?

Well, just thinking out loud, you could book the UA-only version of your itinerary, assume it tickets within 30 min, then apply the upgrade, then call and make your change to include your actual European destination/segments and ask for the change fee to be waived because it's within 24 hours of purchase. If that doesn't work, you could cancel and refund the itinerary (for free because it's within 24 hours of purchase.)

Interesting idea. I've read a post where some agent chastised a IK for trying to make a change to a booking within 24 hours and asking that the change fee be waived. I've decided to take my chances and try the booking with code share segments, which are now awaiting word back from LX.

I did look into just booking an open jaw on United, and then saw that booking the LX tickets separately would cost about $250 more, plus no protection for mis-connection.

IATA convention allows 72 hours for the non-ticketing carrier to confirm (or not) space. For whatever reason, some European carriers tend to take the full 72 hours. If you want to kick the can, try calling LX and asking them to confirm.

I called LX and was told, very politely, that they would expedite ticketing confirmation only if United contacted them directly.

I then talked to United reservations, and was told a lot less politely, that there was nothing they could/would do before 24 hour had passed since the booking. The agent also insisted that the booking would *never* ticket automatically because the credit card info that I typed in at booking was not retained with the file in cases of code-share confirmations from partner airlines(!) She put me on hold for 10 minutes to call the web-support desk and confirm this.

It sounds like SHARES has little functionality when it comes to advancing code-share bookings with international carriers in less than 24 hours.

Anyone had better experience with such a process?

Just to wrap up this saga, my reservation ticketed at 24.5 hours, with no email notification. I was watching on .bomb and was successful in applying my GPUs for TATL upgrade.

Sounds about right for my recent experience with multi-carrier UA itineraries. IME, sometimes UA agents can get these to ticket on the spot (I don't know if they call the OA or just override the need for confirmation) so you may try calling.

Another, more creative option, could be to buy the ticket with UA only segments, wait for it to ticket, and apply your GPU. Then, within the 24hr cooling off period, call UA and ask them to change the ticket to whatever you wanted in the first place. A good agent may be able to do this 1) without a fee and 2) without losing your upgrades. I think the 24hr rule really only applies to getting a refund, but (IME) some agents will extrapolate it into a change fee waiver (for the first 24 hrs).

Yes, per discussion in posts #2 and #3, transportprof decided against doing this out of fear of being scolded by a reservations agent for abusing the system.

My view is that this approach is not especially abusive if it is a faster way to achieve nearly the same outcome, particularly so because it's a way to work around a UA system limit (cannot use UA instrument sto upgrade a not-yet-ticketed UA itinerary).