nov11

Just checking - can I do the following to my itinerary while preserving the amount of miles used?

Original: South Asia - Europe (stopover) - Canada (destination) - Europe - South Asia
Proposed: South Asia - Europe - US (destination) - Europe (stopover) - South Asia

Effectively, I am swapping my stopover from outbound direction to my inbound direction (and also changing Canada to US as destination). Thank you!

SFO_Flyer

I currently have a LH award ticket for YYZ-MUC(F) - FAO (C) for next week.

As I am based in SFO, I assume I can add the SFO-YYZ segment for free? Problem is that I have been checking SFO-YYZ flights and there is not much in space. Could I change the routing to something like SFO-JFK-MUC-FAO for free?

I remember in the past that when I was trying to book an award flight to Lisbon from SFO, the agent informed me that there was specific routing rules and I would only be able to connect in LHR or FRA for award travel to Lisbon.

Is this still the case? For flights to FAO from SFO would there be any restriction placed for award travel. Thanks

hirohito888

Made a cabin change, and re-priced at old rates.

Old award for 60K in C:
Africa-BRU-FRA-ORD (SN C and LH C)

Modified award for 75K in F:
Africa-BRU-FRA-ORD (SN C and LH F)

Did it through an agent in under 5min cause website errored out. Was charged an extra 15K which is consistent with the old award chart. Not complaining, but I always thought a cabin change would trigger re-price at new rates (i.e., 130K in F one-way Africa-US).

Duke787

I wouldn't think so it's Europe on an award ticket - there shouldn't be any required routings. If you run into resistance HUACA before they make any notations in your PNR. I would monitor availability from T-14 for SFO - MUC and SFO - FRA and see if you can just change to those directs. JFK - MUC may not open.

Also remember you can go through IAD, IAH, and DFW for LH (there are others but those tend to have new F - though DFW is a YMMV since it's A330s to FRA).

From a quick check of next week, IAD - MUC (A330) and ORD - MUC (A346 and 744) seem to be pretty open (FRA - FAO doesn't seem to exists a non-stop so I'd eliminate any FRA routings). You'd have to find SFO - IAD availability of course and it would have to time with your existing MUC - FAO.

The other thing to check is whether it's new or old F. I flew MUC - YYZ earlier this year and it was new F and I believe almost all (if not all) on the YYZ route are new F. YMMV may vary with the others (particularly the A346 from ORD)

IamHungry

Lucky you. I was able to change BKK-NRT-ORD (TG C and NH C) to F on both legs for 10k more miles but it took me 90 minutes!

Kacee

The agent was making stuff up.

You can basically change that to any halfway reasonable North America - Europe routing you can find. But SFO-JFK will be impossible in BF until a day or two prior to departure, and then maybe one or two flights a day will open. LH is also being extremely tight with F releases. You should be checking obsessively beginning right now if you want to change that itinerary. You may have to take a domestic connector in X/XN and waitlist for I/IN.

synk

original:
sfo(ua o)-hkg
kbv(tg i)-bkk(tg o)-fra
fra(ua o)-ord(ua i)-sfo

success (changing return date):
fra(ua o)-ord(ua i)-sfo

fail (adding txl):
kbv(tg i)-bkk(tg o)-fra(lh i)-txl

success (changing to fra-sfo nonstop):
fra(lh o)-sfo

Actual miles used was 280k (2 rt awards). Interestingly enough my last receipt shows this.

MileagePlus Miles Debited/
Award Used:
420000/YF73-BF73

However, no additional miles were deducted from my account.

Hendo5698

I had a similar situation happen with my tickets. Same r/t from us to se Asia in F routing via Europe. Changed outbound from ua o to lh o, no issue with ticket. On my return I again changed from ua to lh but the award type changed to af73 and now showed miles used as 260000 total. I did get a refund of 10k per person...

Duffman

same here. Rebooked 2 BKK-FRA-JFK to BKK-FRA-ORD-LGA. The agent was able to rebook in less than 10 mins. Asked for $7 extra in taxes, no additional miles. The receipt shows the new mileage of 130k each way. I didn't have any miles in my account so not like they can take anything extra. I will call TG in a couple of days to confirm my booking.. although my flight isn't until later in the year. But, anyhing to be concerned about with the extra mileage quoted?

As a side note, TG award space is WIDE OPEN later this year showing 2 award seats every day of week for a bunch of routes I checked!

bkjohnso

Booked 2 (1K and a Silver) people on January 28, 2014 in Business Class for 135000 miles each on a mixture of ANA and Thai to Australia through BKK. Silver and 1K booked separate itineraries using their own miles

December 11, 2014
SJC (ANA)-->NRT (THAI)-->BKK (THAI)-->BRISBANE
December 30, 2014
MEL(THAI)-->BKK (THAI)-->NRT (ANA)-->SJC


Modified April 2014 for $48 in taxes (I think) and no additional miles to include a 3 day stop in BKK and Sydney instead of Brisbane as the entry point to Australia. At this point both travelers were 1K.


December 11, 2014
SJC (ANA)-->NRT (THAI)-->BKK (THAI)--> BNE (Brisbane)
December 15, 2014
BKK (THAI)-->SYD
December 30, 2014
MEL(THAI)-->BKK (THAI)-->NRT (ANA)-->SJC

eflyte

Just successfully exchanged award segments (originally booked in Oct 2013) for 2 pax (1k, GM on same PNR) from UA 907 to LH 433 this coming weekend. First class. Long hold time with the 1k agent but no questions asked or additional charges.

jglenn16

Trying to search the thread, but couldn't find anything... my apologies if I didn't search hard enough.

Has anyone been successful in changing regions where it's less amount of miles and getting a refund in miles pre-deval? For example, I currently have an award from North America to New Zealand in Business (SJC-NRT-AKL), so it was 67.5k. I want to switch it to Japan to New Zealand (NRT-AKL), which looked like the old rate was 40k in Business.

Would it be possible to drop the segment I have which is SJC-NRT (keeping NRT-AKL), and get a refund in 27.5k miles?

rodjune

Another successful cabin change when TG opened up F availability between BKK-NRT for travel in mid-November 2014. I have checked the UA website every day since I booked this award trip this past January, and the F availability finally opened up a few days ago.

Original travel and cabin:
SYD-BKK (TG-O), BKK-NRT (TG-I), NRT-SFO (UA-O), SFO-LAX (UA-X)
Modified travel and cabin:
SYD-BKK (TG-O), BKK-NRT (TG-O), NRT-SFO (UA-O), SFO-LAX (UA-IN)

The change tried to reprice at the higher rate, but the agent worked on it until it locked in at original mileage award rate of 80K. Thus, no additional miles and no fee was tacked on, even though I thought I would be responsible for a change fee. The change took about 15 minutes. Agent said no further changes would be allowed as this was a "one time" courtesy change.

SFO_Flyer

Its looking like I will not be able to take this trip after all.

As I booked this prior to the mileage increases, can I just not cancel the reservation and use it at another time? When would be the last day I could rebook this award without any increases in mileage redemption? What would be the best strategy? Thanks

westlaker

Original flight

EWR-LAX-TPE
TPE-HGH
PVG-YYZ
YYZ-EWR
120k miles.

Trying to change to
EWR-LAX-TPE
TPE-BKK-SIN
SIN-HKG
PVG-YYZ
YYZ-EWR

Called both UA elite desk and support desk both quoted 160k miles. Anyway to change the ticket without paying more miles?