hedur

I debated whether or not I should even post this because I don't want to confuse the issue but it really shows what kind of three ring circus is going on over at UA. I just received this in an email (bolding mine):

The carrier part contradicts what I was read word for word on two different occasions before booking my ticket, and what was basically confirmed here by UA Insider:

I understand there is still debate about the cabin part but I'm glad some people have been able to change to the cabin that reflects their award type without paying additional miles, as it should be.

It's possible that the agent sending the email mistakenly copied from the section about awards booked after Feb. 3rd and not before. That happened when I called to book my ticket and the agent corrected herself and said she had been reading from the wrong section.

Based on the experiences posted here I think the key is to keep calling until you get a competent agent, and be as patient and polite as possible.

INDFlyer

Thank you for posting this, I am in a similar situation. I am just waiting for a F seat to open up in one of my segments.

milepig

Is anyone seeing AC or TAP options? Looking for ORD-BCN and before the third I was seeing several options involving AC as well as TAP. I am still seeing LH (possibly phantom) and TK, but now the AC and TAP options aren't even showing on the matrix. Still loading data?

Gunner14

How is it possible to have so many different interpretations of the rule? They've had time to get a definitive policy in place. They need to do that and post it on their website.

cruisr

Same here. I'm actually trying to switch from ua gf to LH f.

transparent

Reissue 1 was just to change the stopover dates.

BigBossman

As long as you follow this guidance:


Originally Posted by UA Insider View Post
Changes that will not trigger a re-price for itineraries ticketed before February 3, 2014 include:
Date/time (cabin, region, and award type can't change)
Carrier on one or more segments (cabin, region, and award type can’t change)
Origin/Destination within the same regions (carrier and cabin can’t change)



...and then pray for a good CSR!

SFO_FT

".. Changes to Origin/Destination within the same regions: No change to award price as long as carrier and cabin remain the same."

So if, on/after 3Feb14, I voluntarily (or UA, involuntarily by me, due to schedule changes) make a change to my routing on my pre-3Feb14 ticket resulting in the generation of a new ticket (ie, the new ticket is ticketed after 3Feb14), will further allowable changes be OK without a reprice ... or, will UA consider this reservation to now be considered a ticket that's been ticketed on/after 3Feb14, in which case ANY change will require a reprice/reissue. The rules UA has described apply to *tickets* ticketed before 3Feb14 but do not describe situations in which an award was pulled before 3Feb14 and for which re-ticketing(s) occurred on/after 3Feb14.

UA Insider: any info on this?

SoCal

Yes, it does seem to affect primarily international flights.

We are in Brazil so have limited opportunities to use my UA miles. Gave up on using them for international flights from here, especially since we'd first have to fly a domestic airline to get to GRU or GIG. Even when JJ was part of the Star Alliance, I could never find availability (I know it exists, or existed, sometimes) to get to GIG or GRU to connect with UA. Last year checked DL (my wife has miles), and r.t. business class to the U.S. was over 200,000, and only starting at GRU. They could not do anything starting in FOR.

But I've seen able to use my UA miles for fc domestic flights when we're in the U.S. Will use some for PHX-SEA next month, when we'll be on a US flight. UA's requirements have long seemed a bit stricter than for AA (though a lot better than DL), but looking ahead at trips later this year, the opportunities for flying fc with miles seem increasingly limited. Many more "mixed cabin" trips (fc on just one of two segments).

villox

What I suspected pre-Feb 3, and what I see now happening, is that basically the agents have a lot of discretion when it comes to changing awards. This is why you can get things like fees waived when making changes. Ultimately, if an agent thinks what you are doing is within the rules, they are allowed to modify tickets, PNRs, etc, including revalidating, reissuing, whatever term you want to use, without being forced to collect more miles.

I mean, after all, what does "manually priced" really mean? It means they determined what they think the miles should be for a ticket and then apply that to whatever you're actually booking.

Unfortunately, this also means that for about another year, we're going to have widely varying experiences for what people are actually allowed to do with pre-Feb 3 tickets, a lot of HUCA, a lot of notes in records causing anger, etc.

Rather than creating a mess of rules as to what is and isn't allowed like what UA Insider posted, it seems like they should just have said "any change you make with a pre-Feb 3 ticket will not require more miles if it wouldn't have required more miles to make that change before Feb 3". They probably wouldn't have wanted to say this before Feb 3 because it might have caused even MORE speculative bookings, but they could do it now.

Kacee

That's an insightful and accurate summary of what the rules apparently are supposed to be.

And yes, if UA had announced that in advance, speculative bookings would have been much, much higher. I can't really blame them there. Those speculative bookings are not good for the system overall. They take tons of customer service resources and unnecessarily remove award space from available inventory, making it harder (or impossible) for people who actually want to travel on those dates to book flights.

ukinny2000

I agree. I will recount briefly my experience over the last few days:

Even though I had been aware of the impending Feb 1st deval, I didn't really make any bookings because I wasn't sure when I was going to be able to take any time off this year, and I wasn't sure if the book-then-cxl-but-don't-redeposit-miles trick would work. On Jan 31st however, I decided to book a trip to South Africa, stopping off in Spain on the way back, mostly in business-class, for the month of July. I was quoted the 120,000 miles that I expected. For some reason, the ticket was put on hold and never ticketed. It turned out that a GermanWings segment I had was causing problems. Anyway, fast forward to today, and the reservation still had not been ticketed because United was still having problems of some sort or another with that segment. Now, you'd think that ticketing today would now cost me 160,000 miles, and certainly the first couple of agents insisted so. However, after a few HUCAs I was able to find an agent that agreed that I should be charged only the 120,000 I was quoted originally, even though ticketing was taking place today. End result was that I was ticketed today, and I ended paying 'just' my pre-deval quoted fare in miles.

So long story short, agents would seem to have a pretty decent latitude in what they can/can't/will/won't do for you

hedur

That's EXACTLY what they should say now. Quite frankly, if they're not going to charge for date/routing/carrier/destination changes it makes absolutely no sense to reprice for people simply trying to move into the cabin they would have had in the first place if availability had been there. It's irritating that this is even a debate, let alone the fact that it seems people actually have been charged more miles for moving into a cabin they already paid for.

Hadrian35

I'm looking at my intin for 2/25 SEA-IAD-FRA-PRG (UA then LH) and trying to move that to the previous day... there isn't anything, staying on LH even, that I can get that doesn't trigger reprice, same cabin, same origin and destination. I must be missing something or IT has yet to work this out but this is ridiculous.

turgutbey

Under the UA Insider "policy" posted here you should. BUT, my experience was a bit different. I was booked DCA-YYZ-MXP-MUC-ADB. I called in to change to IAD-MUC when it opened up on LH. Agent told me it would require 20,000 more miles.

It was at that point I logged into my account to view the reservation and noticed there was also a significant schedule change (6 hours) on my original MUC-ADB leg. I used that as leverage to rebook onto completely new flights IAD-MUC(UA)-ADB w/o a mileage increase.

But I'm bothered that agent wanted more miles to begin with. Maybe b/c of departure airport change? Although DCA and IAD should be considered co-terminals. Anyway, hope my experience is helpful. Definitely seems like HUCA territory.

FYI, reservation still shows my pre-Feb 1 ticketing date.