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

I thought it would be helpful for other FTers if we can provide examples of successful changes to *A awards booked before devaluation without incurring additional miles under the new award chart.

Without any official word and confused by all the assumptions made in the other thread, I was under the impression that changes in routing would trigger the new award chart. Apparently not.

Today I was successful in changing the following:


Original Routing: FRA-YVR-SFO
Original Carrier/Class: LH/F, UA/F

New Routing: FRA-MUC*-SFO
Carrier/Class: LH/I (intra-Europe), LH/F

Rubber duckies here I come!

Whoa. So that involved a carrier change, too? Presumably YVR-SFO was UA/AC before and they're now not on the ticket at all. How much hassle? I was just shot down on rerouting IAD-ORD-NRT-SIN to IAD-NRT-SIN with NRT-SIN on UA in both and the TPAC sector on NH for both.

Here are two other examples buried in that thread:



I have a proprietary interest in this because I have an upcoming itinerary BOS-FRA-BKK-HKG (LH J, LH F, TG F) and will be trying to move the LH J portion to LH F. There should be no change in the taxes except for foreign exchange, but later in the trip there is a SQ J segment and I'm hoping that won't cause huge problems with the pricing record.

Thanks for sharing with us, can you give us more detail? Like original carrier/cabin, new carrier/cabin.

I have BKK-FRA-LHR-YYZ (TG F, LH I, AC I) booked in Nov, would be great if I can change to BKK-FRA-YYZ (TG F, LH F) at T-14 days, looks like is possible?

Was this done online change flight button or by phone?

I too am curious about people's success with changes. I have an itinerary next January of
HKG-BKK in TG I
BKK-FRA in TG O
FRA-LIS in LH I
LIS-EWR in TAP I

Am hoping to be able to change the FRA-LIS-EWR segments to a direct FRA-JFK on LH F at T-10 without incurring an additional miles fee.

Excellent idea for this thread. I think it will be very helpful. My data points so far.

US>JPN OW non-stop in F on NH. Successfully changed date and flight but on the same route.

HKG>BKK>HND RT in C/F on TG. Successfully changed date (nothing else) on the outbound.

In both cases, agent at first said it would require more miles. I politely asked the agents to double check and both came back and said they could do it with no extra miles. Took about 20 minutes both times.

Thanks for the data point.

Great idea for this thread. I really hope it will be limited to actual reports of what happened when efforts were made to change an itinerary, as opposed to yet more of these endless questions about what might happen if someone tries to change xyz itinerary.

Yes. YVR-SFO was on UA.

No hassle at all. I called and said I needed some assistance because I don't understand the new rules. I told the agent that I see space on the MUC-SFO flight and rather than fly FRA-YVR-SFO would it be possible to fly FRA-MUC-SFO without incurring additional miles. She said she thought it would be possible but wanted to confirm that she should change it only if there was no additional mile requirement. It took 17 minutes on hold and it was confirmed and emails received for both of us on two separate PNRs

Updated the first post but:

Original routing: LH F FRA-YVR connecting to UA F YVR-SFO
New routing: LH I FRA-MUC connecting to LH F MUC-SFO


It does look similar to what I did, but did they charge you full F miles all the way?

I called.

Yes. The intent is to show successful changes. By example others can see what is possible. Please feel free to post your successful changes to itineraries booked prior to February 3 and changed after February 3.

Yes, it's a North America to Asia RT trip in F, I already paid F miles, so IMO this could work...any way let's wait until November...:D

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

Great idea! Have at it! I'm still too jet lagged to wrap my brain around it right now. :D:D

My Two Successful Changes
 

With a saver first award from WAS to BKK booked before 1 FEB, I was able to change the following flights for the same dates:

IAD-UA Y>YUL-LH f > MUC to IAD-LH F> FRA-LH C > MUC

and

FCO-LH C > FRA-UA F to FCO-LH C > FRA-LH F > IAD

There was no mileage change required, though there were some issues with recalculating the taxes, but the agent worked it all out and knew the new rules.

Thanks for sharing, seems like we can change anything (carrier/cabin/route) as long as the original and destination zone remain same, excellent news!

It was always an F award, so I believe you can only change to the same or a lower cabin and not to a higher cabin in order to not trigger a re-price

I was holding my breath the change would go through, but the 1K agent was great!

Now we are dealing with:

UA Insider says three times that "cabin can't change." I thought that it should have been clarified from the start as to what you can do if you booked an F award.

Sure, but this seems to imply that there will be unsuccessful changes. If an unlucky one who runs into difficulties trying to make a change that should be successful (for instance, refused by a supervisor), we would also want to know - it will give a picture of how well UA has propagated the information in its system.

I said at post No. 2083 of the outdated, now confusing thread:

Editing the topic could be helpful.

Here's another report:

Changed DUB/FRA/MCO on LH/I to DUB/PHL/MCO on US/I. No mileage addition and a partial refund of taxes.

On the phone now. Trying to change an internal Business class flights. After about 20 minutes said that they would do it, however didn't want to refund taxes/charges and wanted to charge me $100 per ticket to change. Online it was pricing out at $23.00 including the change fee (plus 10,000 points). The staff member was trying to suggest that there system glitch and I got lucky, but they will honor that. She really had no idea about changes to award bookings pre 3 feb. Great staff training United. Now waiting for a supervisor.

Ok after 50 minutes finally sorted I had to pay a change fee with credit card and then will get a refund on the taxes on charges, 2 different transactions.

Was also told the new ticket is issued and that any additional changes will incur the new fees/charges.

Can confirm changing an intra-Europe pre-deval 12.5k award to different origin/dest cities, does not trigger the additional 2.5k - at least online

Farelock?
 

I did a Farelock on Jan 31 for travel on March 7 in UA F for 67500 miles. Tried to purchase today, but no button to purchase?? Maybe with the award changeover the farelock does not work? :confused: Got 24h, any help appreciated!

Successfully changed my parents' itinerary from HKG-BKK-FRA-LIS-EWR in TG O and TAP I to HKG-BKK-FRA-LHR-EWR in TG O and UA O. No additional miles and a minor bump up in fees.

does this mean you cant make multiple changes at different times without getting the new fees?

I don't think that's what it means. If you aren't Plat or 1k, fees will be charged depending on change, as they always have.

Has anyone tried changing a segment of a F saver ticket thats operated by 2 class service to a carrier with 3 class service and picking up F space? I have a few awards like this that might be handy if F opens up on one of the 3 class carriers handling the route.

Just call them. I think they will wave the fee if you Farelocked.

I was going to say the original wont work. the JFK/EWR change would trigger a re-price. What I have been advised by friends at UA is as follows:

1. O & D can't change, connections can

2. Class changes are based off the current highest fare booked. ie: If you have an I award, and find F seats (even on the same plane) then no dice! If you have an I/O award with an X or I segment you can upgrade the lower segment(s) to the highest level of the award. So X's can go to I's and I's can go to O's as long as that upgrade is no higher then the original ticket.

Yes I have done this. I had an O followed by a TATL I. Called and changed the I segment (2 Cabin) to a different (3 Cabin) flight, carrier, connection point onward to SAN into O.

WAS: O-I-I
NOW: O-O-I

Sweet sassy ! Might have a chance of a much better flight close in :) thanks for the info

Agents Don't Know the Policy
 

On the 1K line, I waited 20 minutes for an agent to check with her manager about the rules for a simple date change on SFO-YVR-FRA-TXL, F award. The manager wasn't sure either, but as a "courtesy" they made the change without debiting additional miles.

United continues to FAIL on training and customer service....

:td:

So here's a question:

Can you make multiple changes, i.e. call to reschedule the date 10 days ahead three times? Will that really work? If not, you're screwed trying to get LH F in mid-March because LH doesn't release that space to partners more than 14 days ahead.

I think you're better off canceling the reservation (DON'T REDEPOSIT) as it'll leave the ticket intact "open", allowing you to rebook on LH F within the 14-day window.

This isn't guaranteed to work, but it worked for me -- although I did cancel the reservation prior to Feb 1. Not sure if that matters or not.

Do you think this is changeable:

I currently have:

USM-BKK, TG J
BKK-FRA, TG F
FRA-SFO, UA F

Think it will be possible to change to:

USM-BKK, TG J
BKK-FRA, TG F
FRA-SEA, LH F
SEA-SFO, UA X or I

1. I am extremely impressed you got USM awards. How did you do that? I have been calling and looking forever.

2. Yes you have the same O/D and you are already on an F award. You are technically only changing connections. It may take a HUCA or two but should be OK to change.

Thanks. I got the USM segments over 9 months ago.

HUACA FTW! Changed

IAD-ORD-NRT-SIN (UA-NH-UA, I-O-O)

to

IAD-NRT-SIN (NH-UA, O-O)

$75 fee and no additional miles, despite what the agent wanted to do last night. This one put me on hold for about five minutes and came back to get my credit card details. I didn't mention the idea of additional miles, just told him I wanted to make a small routing change. I suspect the computer tried to reprice it and he knew it shouldn't, as the fare calculation on the ticket still shows /FC WAS UA X/CHI NH X/TYO UA SIN 0.00FSM/WF72 despite a new ticket number having been issued. Picked seat on NH website, but now I have to decide if I should call to confirm, lest UA's system not actually show NH the ticket.

When trying to change a Japan-SE Asia o/w online it wanted to charge me 10K miles additional to downgrade to Y. And anywhere between 12.5K and 25K to keep the same O/D but with a different connection point.

Clearly I'm going to need to call and see what the story is.

Our original itinerary is in F from IAH-FRA-BKK on Feb 15. We need to move the trip to IAH-FRA-SGN around March 15. Am I allowed to cancel the ticket, not redeposit the miles then reticket at the old rates as LH inventory opens up?

#1 is not what UA Insider advised and the other thread seems to have examples of people not only changing co-terminals, but entirely different city pairs provided O & D stay in the same region as originally booked.

Hoping this holds true as I'm looking to change from EWR-NRT on UA to JFK-NRT on NH if they open any I space closer to departure.