Hmmm one of my reservations just randomly re-ticketed without a schedule change (so it now lists a ticketed date of 5/9/14). In fact the only time I've touched it since last November was getting my seat assignment on Wednesday from TK for the IAD - IST portion. It does still list this as the award: 117500/YB52-YF52 (J outbound, F return)

The website craps out when I try to make changes even to the non-complex portion (IST - VIE) but it's also too early (by about 5 weeks) for me to make the main change I want to make which is MUC - YYZ - DCA ---> FRA - IAD (or MUC - IAD if FRA - IAD is unavailable).

Am I going to be out of luck with the fact that the system randomly re-ticketed it or am I still fine since it's still coded in the pre-devaluation ticket code?

You should be fine (subject to agent roulette). It's the same as if you made a change that resulted in a re-ticketing, and many of us have done that multiple times post-Feb. 3.

I've been unable to make changes to either of my pre-deval awards online, and quite a few others have recently reported the same.

Original:
Revised:
No additional miles required, refund of US$13.60 due to fewer segments.

Original ORD-FRA-HKG(I) all on LH (booked on 2/2)
Want to travel a day earlier and LH First open up. Call for change, the first agent said I need additonal 37,500 miles :confused::rolleyes:, politely tell her I need to purchase additional miles and hang up. Call again with another agent and he was able to confirm F on both segments on LH for 10,000 extra miles:D^ The 90 minutes call was well worth it. Kudos to the agent, he kept apologize for the delay because they have to lookup the original rate I booked at and repriced based on that rate. He even mentioned because I booked at the old rate, I only need 70k miles instead of 130k miles.

Finally got to try both LH 744 and 748 F next week and LH Frankfurt First class lounge.

Very nice. LH F FRA-HKG on the 748 is a real score.

This just happened to me too. I was puzzled as there's no "please review" with red text indicating what changed, but I think it was an A/C swap on TG and a seat assignment change on LH, best I can tell. Very strange but on view reservation it still shows the Jan 9 ticketing date.

Not FCL - Go for the FCT if you don't mind a little walk
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/lufth...-fct-faqs.html

What you really hope for is that there's an HON on your incoming flight so they will meet you on the tarmac in a Mercedes and drive you to the FCL. If so, you can ask the driver to drop you as close as possible to the FCT (they can't take you all the way there).

Wouldn't that only be if you park at a remote stand? I don't think that is likely with a 744 (but I could be wrong). I had that at MUC landing on an Air Dolimiti flight. They drove us to the FCL there (was connecting MUC-SFO in F). Kinda funny watching the reactions of everyone piling onto the buses as we climbed into our private Mercedes van.

I made a very minor change to a pre-devaluation award ticket, just changing the date of travel on a UA flight in the middle of an itinerary.

A phone agent made the change and revalidated the ticket (no new ticket number) in about four minutes. I saw the "reservation out of sync with ticket" message on united.com for about 10 more minutes, and then no longer saw it. After that I used the "add e-mail and send receipt" button and saw the new e-ticket (same number, just a new date of travel on the UA segment) as expected.

Type of aircraft doesn't matter. We were on an LH 321. Here's Lucky's report landing in a 330 at a remote stand. chasing-the-sun-lufthansa-first-class-seattle-to-frankfurt

It was pouring rain when we landed. Getting escorted into the Mercedes S Class instead of the bus was indeed a nice moment.

That's for sure. Checking my ticket on both UA.com and LH.com, I can see my new flight with F seats but it seems UA haven't deduct any miles from my account.:confused:

Just had
lax-iah (ua y)
iah-pek (ca j)
pek-sha (ca y)

re-ticketed to
lax-ord (ua y)
ord-fra (lh f)
fra-kix (lh f)
kix-pvg (nh j)

for the outbound (inbound untouched) and for 10k+ miles and change

Surprisingly painless change with agent, although she dropped one of my inbound segments and I had to call back, now ticket is still waiting re-issue..

A few days ago I changed:

BKK-MUC (TG O)
MUC-YYZ (LH O)
YYZ-EWR (UA X)

To:

DEL-FRA (LH I)
FRA-MUC (LH I)
MUC-YYZ (LH O)
YYZ-EWR (UA X)

Was charged 10,000 miles (pre-deval difference in miles) + more airport taxes + change fee.

It was quite painless. Gave the agent the segment to delete (BKK-MUC) and the flight numbers for the new segments to add (DEL-FRA-MUC) and she told me that "the computer shows that you'll be charged $XX.XX in taxes and 10,000 miles".

Update: Last night I was able to change the return portion of a roundtrip award from Y to F with LH F on the return. I politely gave the agent the "speech" and the whole process took about 15 minutes. I could tell this agent seemed to be a good one, and luckily she was and never had to do the HUACA routine.

Additional miles to go from LH Y to LH F on the return overseas leg were 37.5k per person, and no issues with the fact that this was a roundtrip itinerary and I haven't flown the outbound legs yet. I appreciate the advice of others on this thread, which came in handy. Now we get to head to the FCT at least one more time for the foreseeable future (two young kids are going to make that quite difficult in the years to come). :)

I booked MUC-YYZ in LH F pre-devaluation. If MUC-IAD opens up in LH F, that's what I'd prefer. If so, is the better approach to attempt to switch to MUC-IAD-YYZ (so as to maintain the original origin and destination) and just skip the last leg? Or can I potentially change the destination to IAD without the leg to YYZ?

Thanks for any thoughts to help me strategize.

IAD and YYZ are in the same award region. Should be changeable without an issue and without needing the IAD-YYZ segment

Hello! Before the devaluation, I set up this trip to BKK with stop over in AMS in F. Originally I was routed via FRA on UA, then to AMS on LH C. Last week, the AMS non-stop became available in F. Got the change with a refund in taxes and no additional miles.

Today, I saw the LH non stop to MUC available in F on A340 w/new first class the day before I scheduled to leave for AMS. I also found there was an available LH flight to AMS in C, 23 hours after my flight lands in MUC. So I called the 1K line and got a great agent. She was able to get me on those flights with no extra miles and just additional $33 in taxes. So now I have a new F window seat on LH A340, a 23 hour layover in Munich, get to have dinner with a friend, and get into AMS about the same time that my original flight did with no changes to the rest of my trip. I think I should go out and buy a lottery ticket! Safe Travels! :cool:

Trying to change a pre-devaluation award ticket, agent demands more miles
 

Hey guys I would really appreciate some help with this. I had an itinerary booked from ICN-LAX on OZ, booked at pre-devaluation rates. A week ago I changed it to ICN-FRA on LH and FRA-IAD on UA so that I could come back earlier. Well I checked today and lo and behold there is a seat on FRA-IAD on LH. When I tried to change this segment the agent put me on hold, consulted with somebody and came back to tell me that I had to shell out 50k more miles (essentially making up the difference from the new award chart).

I've tried HUCA but I keep running into the same wall. Did something change? I'm considering canceling without redepositing and trying to book a new itinerary entirely in LH. Any thoughts?

I believe that you must book the exact same routing/itinerary from the pre-devaluation days, or pay the extra miles.

Looks like you are changing destination and direction of travel. Don't think you can keep the same redemption level as before doing that.

That is 100% incorrect.

All that needs to remain the same is region of origin and destination.

Hang up and call again.

You may have had your record notated. If this is the case, you may be stuck with the current itinerary unless you can get a supervisor to ignore it.

Kacee is right. The itinerary is 100% valid, but your PNR is no doubt notated now. Call again and escalate to a supervisor if there is a problem.

+1

I have been able to change origin, destination, routing, direction, dates, carriers at no additional miles.

A kind word to my fellow posters - if you don't know the answer, don't answer it.

Just so everyone is clear, these are the rules:

There have been literally hundreds of reports (okay, maybe just dozens, but there are lots!) of successful changes of date, routing, origin, destination, and carrier here: successful-changes-awards-without-incurring-additional-miles-after-feb-3

Yep, I've successfully done all of the above - all online, with the exception of an itinerary that involves a carrier & routing change (but same origin & destination) - an agent had to do that for me.

Even if they are going a totally different direction around the world on a different carrier? If you look at the 3rd bullet in Kacee's post, it says carrier and cabin can't change. The OP is changing carrier.

Hey guys, I worked it out.

So Kacee was most likely right, because I spoke with 5 agents today and all of them put me on a long hold and came back to tell me I had to pay. So I called back, determined to escalate to a supervisor if I hit the same wall again. For some reason though, this 6th agent was totally fine with the change. Got it changed in 2 minutes.

I'm not sure if this is relevant at all but the agent who made the change had a pretty thick European accent. The first 5 agents who shot me down had no accents whatsoever. Does United have a call center abroad? I don't know. It's an unsubstantiated theory at best but I feel like I run into less vigilantism when I call outside normal business hours.

Thanks for the help.

I've had no problems changing carrier.

Maybe they are enforcing it now.

Just changed a carrier on a ticket today. No problem.

Selective enforcement.

No, it was an error in Aaron's post. Look at the second bullet point for what can be changed without a reprice:

Carrier on one or more segments (cabin, region, and award type can’t change)

So many of us have done this it's not even worth debating what the rule is. (I've personally made multiple such changes - most recently, LH for TK - and plan to make another one tonight or tomorrow :) )

The problem, as always, is that UA's agents don't know the rules and just make stuff up.

Suggest you read the thread I linked to in my prior post.

I was able to exchange a MUC-YYZ-MUC ticket in Business on LH/AC for a MUC-BKK-MUC ticket in First on TG and only had to pay the additional miles as per the old award chart. Did it online and was surprised it went through.

I will report this as a partially successful change.

Had: SFO-LAX-ICN-BKK-HKG/ICN-JFK-SFO

Originally booked the awkward ICN-JFK-SFO return to get F suites on Asiana. Then OZ announced 380 with suites on ICN-LAX, automatically upgrading my outbound from 744 to 380. Called to make a change to (1) get the 380 through LAX on the return, and (2) route BKK-ICN through Tokyo rather than HKG.

So desired return was: BKK-HND/NRT-ICN-LAX-SFO

Called late west coast time, got a great agent. Fed him the flights, no problem, took about two minutes. He volunteered there would be no change in miles, $9 in additional taxes.

Then the computer wouldn't let him book it. Calls rate desk. 30 minutes on hold. He comes back, apologetic, says the computer will not allow the connection through TYO. Says he had been working with a "rate desk specialist" and they just couldn't get it done. More apologies.

So I ask him if we can keep the OJ from HKG to ICN and just change ICN-JFK-SFO to ICN-LAX-SFO. Back on hold for 15 more minutes. Finally confirmed.

I may try later to change the routing from BKK to ICN. But in the meantime I'm pretty happy to have the 380 in both directions. Just would have liked to get the TG 380 from BKK-NRT as well!

Wondering if anyone else has had trouble routing BKK to ICN through TYO?

I had the same issue trying to route the same way. BKK and HKG are both 'South Asia' region but adding Japan breaks the award. I presume ICN would be the same since it's in another region, but I am not certain. Currently I have xxx-BKK-HKG/ICN-xxx and had to add Japan as a separate award.

It's weird because I previously had this routed through Japan, with an OJ between HKG and NRT, then an OZ flight from NRT-ICN. They didn't object to transiting Japan then.

Now I'd like to change it back to a Japan routing because CX has downgauged my HKG-ICN flight from F on the 747 (awesome!) to J on the 340 (horrid!).

Every time I touch this itinerary it takes a minimum of 45 minutes on the phone with United.

Curious about when your previous routing was. The 'rules' seem to change frequently, but from what I can tell Japan now will break most awards like this.

I need to call and make some changes to my award, and no matter how simple, its always slow to call the rate desk, etc. Its painful, but at least the, "here! and here! and HERE!" hold music is no longer used.

Also thanks for the idea on using CX for HKG-ICN. I usually focus on *A redemptions, so I didn't even think of it but it's definitely tempting to fly CX F again (or even C)

I highly recommend Avios awards on CX to close any HKG open jaw. Availability is generally very good and you get access to the CX lounges. Particularly nice if you can get the 77W or one of the reconfigured 330s with the Cirrus seat.

My previous routing was booked in November. I had a heck of a time getting them to book the OJ at the stopover. That didn't seem to bother them this time.