1353513636

It seems as though you can no longer transit any other region besides North Asia/Japan when going from North America to North Asia. It appears this has been hardcoded into the system too.

I just priced a SFO-TPE-BKK-PEK and it priced at 60,000 miles one-way in coach.

Fare rules:
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS PUERTO RICO/US VIRGIN ISLANDS/INTL. POINTS IN THE
CARIBBEAN AREA/CENTRAL AMERICA.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS SOUTH AMERICA/MEXICO.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS SOUTH ASIAN SUBCONTINENT.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS S.W. PACIFIC/U.S. PACIFIC TRUST TERRITORIES.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS HONG KONG SAR/INDONESIA/PHILIPPINES/SINGAPORE.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS VIET NAM/THAILAND/MYANMAR/MALAYSIA.

FlyerChrisK

Where are these fare rules coming from? Revenue fare routing rules have always been different than award tickets.

rankourabu

Plenty of YYZ-FRA-PEK coming up on the search for 35k/80k

username

Is BKK the problem (MPM issue is back?)? How about SFO-TPE-PEK?

aacharya

This is not a change in policy.

1353513636

I sourced from elsewhere on FT. Also, this was read to me when I tried to make an award booking last month but I didn't believe it at the time because the computer still priced things as before but it appears that that is no longer the case.

I never thought UA ever checked MPM...?

1353513636

TPE is considered North Asia and thus is ok.

SFO-YVR-HKG-TPE pricing at 60,000 as well.

I believe YYZ-FRA-PEK is the computer making an exception due to limited Star Alliance flights.

rankourabu

What does this even mean? There are plenty of Star Alliance flights from North America to China via Europe, dozens of combinations

There are plenty of NYC-LHR-PEK or even BOS-ZRH-PEK available.

MatthewLAX

Where in FT? Just curious. There was a rumor of this about a month ago, but routing via HKG still priced just fine. Odd that if this is a new rule in effect, routing via Europe is still being offered...

Kacee

I noted this restriction in another thread. consolidated-my-ua-award-itinerary-valid-thread-2014.

I just ran SFO-BKK to check restrictions on North America - SE Asia awards. While .com will return SFO-FRA-BKK as a routing option, I could not get it to actually create an itinerary using that routing. Instead, when I went to select a return flight (on a date when return saver award flights are available), I got the message "united.com could not find any available flights for award travel meeting your requirements."

Checking the fare rules, the North America - SE Asia award rules now state:

HE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS PUERTO RICO/US VIRGIN ISLANDS/INTL. POINTS IN THE
CARIBBEAN AREA/CENTRAL AMERICA.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS SOUTH AMERICA/MEXICO.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS INDIA.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS S.W. PACIFIC/U.S. PACIFIC TRUST TERRITORIES.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA.

I would be interested to hear if anyone is able to actually get a routing through Europe to fully price (as opposed to the routing simply being offered at some stage in the process).

MatthewLAX

I just got DEN-SFO-HKG-NRT to hold for 35K miles.

But LAX-SFO-HKG-NRT or just SFO-HKG-NRT prices at 60K.

Kacee, how did you pull up these routing rules?

Kacee

Click through "View Fare Rules and Restrictions" after building your itinerary, just as with a revenue booking.

You get the routing rules for the various awards.

I became curious about new restrictions after being told I couldn't route BKK-TYO-ICN-LAX on an itinerary which had previously been booked with that routing.

MatthewLAX

Very interesting. Thanks.

Starting in DEN or YYZ, I get the following restrictions (YC81)--

THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS PUERTO RICO/US VIRGIN ISLANDS/INTL. POINTS IN THE
CARIBBEAN AREA/CENTRAL AMERICA.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS SOUTH AMERICA/MEXICO.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS SOUTH ASIAN SUBCONTINENT.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS KAZAKHSTAN/KYRGYZSTAN.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS TAJIKISTAN/TURKMENISTAN.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS UZBEKISTAN.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS S.W. PACIFIC/U.S. PACIFIC TRUST TERRITORIES.
AND
THE FARE COMPONENT MUST NOT INCLUDE TRAVEL VIA TICKETED
POINTS EUROPE/MIDDLE EAST/AFRICA.


i.e., the old routing rules with the added restriction at the bottom against Europe/ME/Africa.

From the west coast, you have a WC81 award (no idea what the difference is) with the more restrict routing restrictions Kacee links to above and a limit of three transfers instead of four.

And yet pricing stills works online from ORD-FRA-PEK-ZRH-ORD.

Perhaps this is limited to some cities and not others? I hesitate to even blog about this for fear of UA making things worse.

But I want clarification on this issue. What happened to merit this stealth devaluation?

rankourabu

so these are the old rules from DEN or YYZ? Still says no Europe?

MatthewLAX

I don't get it. I see the added restrictions, but the awards still price out just fine. Could this be a temporary glitch (in that case - book now if you have upcoming travel...) or are we just missing something?