Changes to *A Awards Without Incurring Additional Miles after 3-Feb-2014

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Feb 28, 2014, 2:00 am

#211

PanAmWT

Join Date: Nov 2009

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Quote:

Originally Posted by bseller

Quote:

Originally Posted by PanAmWT

. Every new ticket has a new life of one year. .

FALSE. True for revenue tix, completely, utterly false for award tix.

Hopefully anyone planning to "extend the life" of their award tix will pay attention.

Dave

I stand corrected. I was happy to change my award ticket booked on 1/31/14 to a new flight date, then changed it again to book a flight on 1/27/15. The new date was not possible in the original reservation because it was more than 330 days in the future from 1/31/14, so I was really happy that I can do something I was not able to do pre 2/3/14. My success blinded me and caused me to jump to the wrong conclusion, without realizing that is still within one year.

Feb 28, 2014, 2:04 am

#212

1k650

Join Date: May 2003

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Posts: 1,794

Quote:

Originally Posted by gokeeper

IMO we should set up a wiki to gather all successful changes instead of shut people's mouth.

I agree. A wiki will be very useful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by amodi

Finally got this changed...Honestly the agents at the Singapore call center number are much much more efficient than my last 4 attempts calling the US numbers on Platinum line.

Original:
SIN-ZRH (SQ)
ZRH-FRA-JFK-LAX (LH/LH/UA)
LAX-PEK-SIN (CA/SQ)

Changed:
SIN-LHR (SQ) (OJ)
ZRH-FRA-JFK-LAX (LH/LH/UA)
LAX-PEK-SIN (CA/SQ)

Agents in US had put some dreaded note saying that the original booking was invalid, RTW, two ocean etc and no changes permitted. I wanted to have a OJ at the stopover and finally this helpful agent in the Singapore call center got it sorted out in 20 min

The SIN call center did it in spite of the note in your record ? What number did you call ? I need to call them instead of the 1k line - the 1k agents are often the most difficult and unhelpful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bseller

FALSE. True for revenue tix, completely, utterly false for award tix.

Hopefully anyone planning to "extend the life" of their award tix will pay attention.

Dave

Dave - will you clarify please ? What is the best way to extend the life of a award tix ?

Last edited by FlyinHawaiian; Feb 28, 2014 at 4:55 am Reason: 3x multi-quote

Feb 28, 2014, 3:13 am

#213

PanAmWT

Join Date: Nov 2009

Location: SFO, TPE, HNL

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 1k650

Dave - will you clarify please ? What is the best way to extend the life of a award tix ?

I was wrong in thinking extension beyond one year. So I guess the only way to extend is to rebook with a future date that cannot be more than one year from the original ticket date.

Feb 28, 2014, 7:32 am

#214

james84

Join Date: May 2005

Location: SIN

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Posts: 215

Quote:

Originally Posted by PanAmWT

Was the agent going to put in a PNR note about future changes at new rate? This seems to be a risk of calling to change, which may be necessary for complicated cases. So try to change on line first if the itinerary allows.

I'm not sure if she put a note in my PNR or it was just a casual remark. I tried to do the change online and it priced out correctly, but gave me an error at the final step. When I went back to try again, it said to call United.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FriendlySkies

Did the agent waitlist the RDU-ORD for you? ORD-MCI was not available in F when I changed it last night, so the agent waitlisted us for IN. Said it didn't matter that it was a ticket with *A segs (I thought it only worked on 100% UA itins)

I asked if it was possible to waitlist and she said she wasn't sure, but no harm trying. She supposedly waitlisted me for IN, but nowhere online can I see that I am waitlisted.

Feb 28, 2014, 8:33 am

#215

1k650

Join Date: May 2003

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Posts: 1,794

Quote:

Originally Posted by PanAmWT

I was wrong in thinking extension beyond one year. So I guess the only way to extend is to rebook with a future date that cannot be more than one year from the original ticket date.

So is the consensus that there is no way to extend the validity beyond 1 year from the original issue date ?

Feb 28, 2014, 11:11 pm

#216

jacped

Join Date: Oct 2012

Posts: 39

Using the website, made the following changes:
Original: BKK-DXB-CAI-LHR-YYZ....ORD-IAD-JNB//JNB-BKK-PNH
New: PNH-BKK-JNB//JNB-FRA-ORD....ORD-VIE-DXB-BKK-PNH

Dates changes both ends and obviously carrier changes too. Not sure if I'm more amazed that this remained 65k miles or that this was possible to do on the website!

Feb 28, 2014, 11:28 pm

#217

bseller

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Quote:

Originally Posted by 1k650

So is the consensus that there is no way to extend the validity beyond 1 year from the original issue date ?

There is ZERO chance of extending an award ticket beyond 1yr from date of issue. Period. EOS.
Sadly.

Revenue tix are a different animal. As a result, many CSRs will be confused - until they check with the rate desk - at which time the answer will be as above.
Dave

Feb 28, 2014, 11:46 pm

#218

5khours

Join Date: Sep 2009

Programs: UA GS>1K>Nothing; DL DM 2MM; AS 75K>Nothing>MVP

Posts: 9,341

Date change only.

First call - Very friendly agent. Talked to supervisors, etc. 41 minutes later. Can't be done without paying the differential up to the new mileage level. HUACA.

Second - No problem. Done in 2 minutes 48 seconds.

Mar 1, 2014, 2:59 am

#219

BF263533

Join Date: Dec 2004

Posts: 2,866

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edgerfly

Just a warning to those changing award tickets: I have an extensive 9 segment itinerary to SE Asia. I had changed the date on the outbound, then tried to make another change on the return to a different departing city. After speaking to several agents and not allowing me to do it I just gave up. Now I see one of my segments on my itinerary has just dropped off! This flight is total gone. It is departing tomorrow so I was really alarmed. The agent I spoke too didn't know why it happened, but had to re-issue the ticket.

Just a fair warning to those who are changing award ticket. Especially those with complex tickets- make sure you check your itineraries close to departure time and that nothing funky has happened to your ticket.

It is anything goes. Losing segments will also happen with involuntary schedule changes. Sometimes you will also end up with two seats on the same plane and seats on other flights and United will insist you do not have extra seats because they can't really see your reservation in the partner's system.

Mar 1, 2014, 10:21 am

#220

Duke787

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Anyone had trouble with making changes after your flight was re-ticketed?

I have some time but due to a time change (of 5 minutes) UA re-ticketed my flights this summer which include LH F for MUC - YYZ. I'm DC based so I'm hoping at T-14 or less I can to FRA - IAD and make it more direct but now that the ticket date on my itinerary is today (March 1) I'm concerned they aren't going to allow me to make any changes.

Anyone else have similar experiences and then had success in making changes?

Mar 1, 2014, 11:31 am

#221

noah

Join Date: Apr 2000

Location: PDX

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Posts: 3,938

Quote:

Originally Posted by noah

Called back, went around and around with agents, was told adamantly was told that it would require additional miles. I fought and fought, and they were insistent. I ticketed at the new levels, but now want to fight to get those 80K miles back.

Thanks to UAInsider, it appears that my ticket was just re-issued at the old levels, thereby returning the 80K additional miles to my account. So I guess we can now list this as a successful change.

Originally ticketed:
PDX-SFO-FRA UA F
changed to
PDX-SEA-FRA UA Y/LH F

Mar 1, 2014, 11:12 pm

#222

Cody1484

Join Date: Oct 2012

Posts: 168

UA award ticket info

Hello Everyone,

I know this has been talked about so much, but I can't seem to find a clear answer that fits my situation, so I was hoping someone could help me.

I have an award ticket that was purchased before Feb 1 for 70,000 miles in F class.
BKK-PAR (Thai F)
PAR-Montreal (AC C)
Montreal-ORD (UA Y)
ORD-LIT (UA Y)

I am wondering if I change the ticket 2 weeks before my departure in order to get LH F class over AC C if I will have to pay more miles OR will I only have to pay the change fee and taxes.

Doing a search on the UA website leaves me to believe that I won't have to pay an extra miles for this change, but I wanted to be sure.

Thanks in advance !

Mar 1, 2014, 11:54 pm

#223

nissan720

Join Date: Jan 2011

Location: Oklahoma

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Posts: 478

I think this is the thread you are looking for:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...r-feb-3-a.html

Mar 1, 2014, 11:54 pm

#224

WineCountryUA

Moderator: United Airlines

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The thread you should be reading is http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...r-feb-3-a.html

Since you where booked in F pre Feb 2014 but have a C segment, changing that segment to F should be possible without a re-pricing. But as the thread illustrates it may not good smooth initially.

Mar 1, 2014, 11:55 pm

#225

1k650

Join Date: May 2003

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Try doing it on the website first.