Consolidated "Is My UA Award Itinerary Valid?" Thread [2014]
 

Hi all, thanks in advanced, I would just like to know if this routing is legal, and/or anyway I could add something to make the most of my miles (using open jaw for a one way to somewhere else at a later time like hawaii?)

Starting in LAX I will be flying to CUS via PTY then LIM. On the outbound I arrive into LIM at 7pm, the flights to CUS are the next day, one early in the AM and one later around 1pm. I plan on taking the 1pm flight. Does this only count as a lay over since its less then 24 hours? or do I have to take the first flight to count as a layover? after CUS I will fly back to LIM and use a stop over for 3 days, and then continue back home to LAX via PTY.

Sorry if this is hard to understand. Maybe bare bones will help

April 19th. Sat LAX-PTY CM361 6:41AM - 2:59PM
April 19th Sat PTY-LIM CM493 3:46PM - 7:17PM
April 20th Sun LIM-CUS AV839 1:15PM - 2:35PM
April 25th Fri CUS-LIM AV806 9:10AM - 10:35AM
April 27th Sun LIM-PTY CM338 2:36AM - 6:10AM
April 27th Sun PTY-LAX CM360 7:56am - 1:09PM

and is there a way to add an open jaw for later? thanks!

Hey folks,

Easy question for the United experts.

I need to fly BOS-ATH this summer. However, when looking on united.com, there is almost zero availability in business class on the dates I want. When I break the route up from BOS-IST, then IST-ATH, there is business on the BOS-IST leg, but not IST-ATH leg.

Can I call in and book the BOS-IST-ATH route with business on the first segment and economny on the second, but still pay the 50,000 point saver biz cost?

Then...my second more advanced questions is:

If BOS-PHL-ATH opens up, can I change the ticket with no/minimal fees (I'm silver status) if the origin, destination, and dates are all the same, just the layover airport changes?

Don't see any problem with this itinerary. 1 stopover on a r/t flight is fine. Open jaw for later? Such as LAX-NYC a month later? That wouldn't work because you can only have 1 stopover.

BOS-IST in C connecting to IST-ATH in Y is fine; should even price online. Changing to a PHL flight is also possible later if you pay the change fee (just note that USAir is leaving *A and award flights may not be available much longer; if you are asking whether the new partner award rules would come into play when you change BOS-IST-ATH to BOS-PHL-ATH after 2/1/14 that is a different question and I am not sure there is 100% clarity as of yet).

yes you can mix saver business with saver economy if both exist and the mileage will be at the saver business level.

Searching separately is always a good back up option

yes -- if outside the close in booking period

for more, see Award ticketing options/service fees

Valid Award Routing?
 

I'm sitting on hold with United waiting to book this award and figured I would double check with you all just to make sure this routing is OK.
Your help would be appreciated.

LAX-CLT-MUC (Dest/ Open) - Business
BRU-IST-YYZ-LAX (Stop) - Economy
LAX-PTY-AUA (Open) - Economy

I'm expecting this to price out at 77.5k. Please let me know if this looks OK.

Thanks,

Hi, hoping someone can help me out.
I was able to successfully price out a ticket after calling United for these two trips:
- LAX-IST / IST-MLE // MLE-IST-IAH-LAX
- LAX-FRA-CDG / CDG-SIN-BKK // BKK-TPE-LAX

However, for my latest trip idea, I was unable to price out the ticket and the United agent said that its because the computer thinks its a round-the-world trip, which I don’t agree, since my second example was successfully priced out. Here’s the itinerary:
LAX-IST / IST-MLE // MLE-SIN-BKK-TPE-LAX

Is this trip legal? Isn’t this just the basic NAmerica to Asia (MLE) via Europe (IST)? I'm guessing hang up and call again?

Any help is appreciated! Thanks!!

It is legal.

As of about a month ago, the system won't autoprice any awards that have segments on SQ (which you do for MLE-SIN, at least).

Not all agents may be up to speed on this, but the record needs to be manually stored and priced out by the rate desk while you are on hold… so when the system doesn't autoprice the award, the uninformed agents are likely to come up with any "reason" for it.

Call again and tell the agent you'll need to book an award that involves SQ and ask if s|he's familiar on how to do that. If not, you could HUACA or, if you feel patient enough, explain the process…

Expect to be on the phone for about a half-hour.

edited to add: more info about SQ bookings on this thread:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ec-2013-a.html

NYC-SYD permitted routings.
 

Trying to book this r/t reward, and the computer is rejecting it.

Outbound: JFK-ICN-SYD (destination)
Return: SYD-BKK-CDG (stopover)-EWR

Is there a rule preventing the return routing from going via Europe? Thanks for the advice.

Can't go east AND west as it then becomes an "Around The World' itinerary.

Ya, I don't think that is valid. I believe you have to cross the Pacific for Australian and Asian awards. And you definitely can't cross both the Atlantic and Pacific in one award.

Your best bet is to call and ask. What you're trying to put together is way to complex to do on-line.

Of course there's only so much you can do, but I tried reading the rules pretty carefully. I don't recall anything like that.

Besides, a RTW itinerary would allow multiple stops. The one I'm trying to assemble, it's just the destination + the stopover.

There are a number of redemption rules that are not published, plus a good number of "rules" that are made up on the fly by agents. Your best bet for what you are proposing is to call and hope to get a good agent. If you don't, hang-up and try again. Calling overnight (>11pm EST) is likely to route you to the HI call center which, IMHO, are usually pretty easy to work with.

Thanks for the info! I"m dreading the call to United to book the flights.

As it stands, booking on January 31 (last day before devaluation) means I can book up until January 3, 2015. My last leg of the proposed trip will occur on January 4, 2015 (which also happens to be the SQ flight), so most likely I'll have to call once to book the flight and a dummy return flight, and then call again later and change the date of the return flight once it's bookable.

Since the destination/origin remains the same and I'm only changing the dates, I will only incur the $75 fee correct? Thanks again!

This is not correct (the Asia part).

I just booked an award (referenced in this thread, guess I posted it in the wrong place):

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/22100261-post70.html

I am crossing both oceans. Two different agents gave me a hard time about it. The second one said: "You can't do this! It's just too much!". The best part was, she said "give me a few minutes, I'm going to talk to my supervisor and come back to tell you exactly why this is unacceptable"

Cut to 10 minutes later, she told me I had to call back in exactly 24 hours to have the res ticketed. The reason for this is because the Aer Lingus (EI) segment has a 24 hour waiting period before they're allowed to ticket it. United does not have "direct sell" with EI and so EI has 24 hours with which to reject the reservation.

I'm just hoping the other segments which we put in the reservation are actually "held" without ticketing them, including F on the TG 380!