mahasamatman

As far as I know, you can go to Asia via Europe, but not Europe via Asia.

c1mth0g

Does anyone know what the rules are regarding North Asia, South Asia and Japan?

I tried to book ICN-NRT-HKG (as a one-way) over the phone and agent said the system was not letting her do it. I've noticed that search for ICN-HKG awards never comes with the NRT as a transit point.

But yet, there are city pairs (eg XMN-ICN) for which united.com will come up with a routing via NRT. Granted XMN-ICN may be a special case as there are no XMN-ICN nonstops.

There are also some strange quirks in the number of miles required (using the chart that is valid until Jan 31, 2014). For example North Asia to Japan can be cheaper than North Asia to North Asia.

For reference:

North Asia: ICN, XMN
Japan: NRT
South Asia: HKG

Thunderroad

Right now I'm holding the following awards (in F for the long haul, J for the shorter flights) for my wife and myself for the fall:

1. SFO-ICN-PVG on OZ (one way)
2. YYZ (Toronto)-MUC-BKK-PVG (round trip) on LH and TG

I aim to tack on SFO-YYZ on both ends of that second itinerary if feasible and if award space is available, but have not done so yet.

The two stops along the way would be PVG and then MUC - and from there to Crete. (I.e., the two main destinations for this trip would be Shanghai and Crete, as a special trip I think my wife would get a real kick out of for a special birthday vacation.) I realize that part or all of the MUC-ATH-Crete routing might need to be a separate ticket, since otherwise I would have too many segments.

My head is spinning trying to sort out options and to understand UA's relevant award rules. So here are my questions:

1. Am I correct in assuming that, even with the most helpful UA CSR, I couldn't simply cancel the outbound of the YYZ-MUC-BKK-PVG and combine SFO-ICN-PVG with PVG-BKK-MUC-YYZ into one reservation?
2. If not, and if I could find the PVG-BKK-MUC-YYZ award space (or some variation on that routing) anew, would a helpful UA CSR consider that a round-trip ticket? I have read about UA sometimes allowing this for tickets that originate and end in the USA, first going TATL and then TPAC, and it being considered RT. But I haven't read about going in the opposite direction.
3. If the SFO-ICN-PVG and PVG-BKK-MUC-YYZ-SFO would not be considered a RT ticket, might the second still cost just slightly more miles for the award than MUC-YYZ-SFO would?
4. Finally, if I'm thinking about this in the wrong way, or am not describing this clearly enough, I'd appreciate any feedback. As I've noted, I'm pretty confused about the options here.

Thanks for any help!

1353513636

If I understand you correctly, you should be able to do on a single NA-Asia roundtrip award:
SFO-ICN-PVG (destination) -BKK-MUC (stopover) -YYZ-SFO
You are allowed 4 stops in each direction, between SFO and destination.

ianmanka

That's the itinerary I've built so far. For my Thursday flight, do I need to fly VIE-BRU? Or can I fly to another city and have an open jaw with my stopover?

When I was originally building this, I intended it to be a LAX-OTP roundtrip, but the opportunity to do a stopover in the Benelux area interested me. Why pay a roundtrip train ticket when you can have an open jaw and only have to buy one half?

Thanks in advance!

patchan8984

I currently have the following booked

SJC-NRT-AKL-PPT (destination) [J]
PPT-AKL-BKK-CDG (stopover) [F]
CDG-FRA-SFO [F]

It was booked over the phone and priced correctly as a mixed award. I did call back to make adjustments and got an agent who tried to imply that I was crossing both oceans and told me not to touch it. Issue is that UA awards aren't plentiful over the Atlantic, so I want to change my return to:

CDG-PEK-SFO [J/F]

Anyone see any issues? I would now be crossing only one ocean and I am not backtracking over any other airports....thoughts?

Kacee

Don't touch it. You are not supposed to be able to transit Asia for destination in Europe.

patchan8984

My destination is South Pacific, stopover is in Europe...not sure if I should push my luck...

PV_Premier

I was thinking about booking this for two, is it valid?

SFO-EWR (August 2014)
LAX-TPE-SIN-ICN-SFO/LAX (December)

I guess I question the validity with the prolonged open jaw stopover and then the possible need for the open jaw on the return pending availability/dates booked.

I could do EWR-SFO/LAX instead but there's nothing available the date we need to return from NYC, there is availability on the desired outbound date. And I don't wanna miss the opportunity to twist the knife in UAs back.

HighFlyer27

I'm trying to book award travel (business class) for this summer from the East Coast to AUS with a stop-over in BKK.

Is the routing below acceptable?

JFK-->LAX-->PEK-->BKK (stopover)-->PER, BNE-->BKK-->HKG-->TPE-->LAX (LAX-->JFK on separate ticket).

I would like to enter AUS via PER, leave via BNE, and stop in HKG on my return to the States. Otherwise, I'm flexible. What other TP routes should I be looking at?

Thanks!

ianmanka

The BOS-ZRH flight disappeared overnight, ended up booking approximately the same itinerary: LAX-EWR/JFK-VIE-OTP-ZRH-MUC-AMS/BRU-JFK/EWR-LAX

I called it in, and the darn thing autopriced correctly!

brownie20

i just spent an hour unsuccessfully trying to book

March 2014 LAX-BOS
Dec 2014 BOS-(EWR)-LAX-TPE-LAX-(EWR)-BOS

all flights were in saver (either economy or business). i was told the itinerary wouldn't price. interestingly if you search multi destination and put in
March 2014 LAX-BOS
Dec 2014 BOS-TPE
Dec 2014 TPE-BOS
it does price out - only in standard - for 130K miles +$37 in economy

please let me know if your itinerary works!! thanks!

Happy

Friend has this booked online all the way

PDX-SEA-NRT-BKK stopover
BKK-DXB destination
DXB-EWR

Website let him book at 120K. He called in to add EWR-XXX-PDX and was told it went over the 5 segments allowed. Agent and him worked together and found DXB-IST-LHR-SFO-PDX. LHR-SFO on UA F so the price went up to 130K. System again priced it correctly.

I tried to book this

LAX-ICN-NRT-IST stopover
IST-DXB destination
DXB-IST-YYZ-FLL

Online I could not even get pass ICN. What gives?

Put LAX-ICN only on hold and called in. So far am not able to get any agent to try to manually price it. Though one agent did put in the segments but refused to manually price it and transferred me to RTW which said it would cost 275K.

Now I have the above itinerary showing up online being on hold but it would not let me purchase it. Do you think calling web support would work?

I already have an itinerary booked 6 weeks ago that has both Asia and Europe in it. While it did not autoprice, agent was willing to call support desk which gave instruction to the agent to manually price it. It has re-ticketed 3 times including the latest one caused by an invol change causing misconnect. Agent was able to re-ticket it after contacting support desk. Not a single agent ever mentioned the 2 oceans.

FLL-IAH-PEK//HKG-BKK-CDG//CDG-YUL-FLL - this certain route thru Asia, with an OJ, to Europe. It just has another schedule change, this time from TG only a 20 minutes change in time. So I accepted the change online.

Both my friend and I have decided that booking DL award is actually easier than booking an UA award once you have found the availability on each segment. Never thought we would come to such conclusion.

Richklhs

Have the following on hold, want to know if priced correctly:

12 Apr
NRT-XMN-BKK-CNX
18 Apr
CNX-BKK-SIN-MLE
22 Apr
MLE-SIN-ICN-NRT

They could not price it as Japan-Central Asia r/t with s/o in CNX, so they did Japan- S.Asia r/t in J for 60k and Sin-MLE in Y for 50k for a total of 110k pp. Fair? or fight for NRT-MLE J r/t with stopover in CNX for 80k r/t?

Kacee

They probably didn't like the number of segments outbound (six) or the backtracking through BKK. I think you will have difficulty getting any miles back unless you tighten up that outbound itinerary significantly.