helvetic

If I fly a SFO-ZRH-DEL;DEL-ZRH-SFO round trip in P and ditch the last leg (ZRH->SFO),
would I still get my 150% PQM credit for the three previous segment? It's about 23k PQMs, so pretty important to know ahead of time. (I'd pony up 25k for a one-way saver award from ZRH->SFO back a few days later.)

Reasoning is, I want to do a week in Delhi and 4-5 days in Switzerland, but buying a multi-city trip essentially doubles the price ($2.7k -> $5k). I'd be better off paying $2.7k + 25k miles, even if it loses me 8k PQMs or so; but not if it loses me the entire 31k PQM that I need to earn on this trip.

Four_Leaf_Clovers

Hi everyone! I am brand new to the mileage reward program (we got the Mileage Explorer Card) and really have no idea what I'm doing haha. I have some questions. Thanks in advance for any guidance ya'll can give me.

Some things to consider in helping answer questions:
-I currently have 58,000 miles.
-My husband, son, little sister and myself are planning a trip to Grand Cayman next Summer and would like to use what reward miles toward our flight.
-For example purposes, I plugged June 4th-June 9th into United, round trip for 4 people.


Like mentioned, we have 58,000 reward miles which of course will not cover all 4 of our round trip flights...I don't even think it will cover 1 round trip flight. When I plug in the above dates and click on "Search for Award Travel" it shows 37,500 miles for each person, each way.

Am I doing that correctly??
So how does that work? Can we make 1 reservation with all 4 tickets and apply what miles we have toward the price? Or would we have to make separate reservations (1 reservation for which tickets our mileage rewards would cover and a separate reservation for what isn't covered?)

I'm so confused.

WineCountryUA

yes -- credit is segment by segment

Since all tickets on a single reservation need to be the same type, you have likely exceed the number of available saver award (the lower mileage) and all 4 tickets are been priced at the higher standard award level.

So multiple reservations will be needed -- get the most number of saver awards on one ticket that you can --- maybe 1, might be 2 or 3. and book the rest on a desperate reservation. This is true for paid tickets also.

helvetic

Alternatively, what's the likelyhood I can SDC my last leg ZRH-SFO on a P fare a few times to stay in switzerland an extra few days?

PDewar

Are you using the new or old site? Unless I'm blind I'm not seeing anything even through multiple pages of results. I'm using the new site (which I don't like).

New site - any way to search old one?

WineCountryUA

yes, usually clearing cookies is enough but if not see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/25483073-post501.html .

mahasamatman

If there's only one flight per day, and it departs at the same time every day, your chance is zero because you can't SDC onto the same flight the following or previous day.

PDewar

Thanks! Finally got everything to work and the saver flights to show!

HMPS

Somehow a lot of UA miles in the bank expired. Called, was told to pay $500 to reinstate the miles. Did get a Mileage Plus Explorer card in the meantime. 50K sign up bonus deposited.

Any way to mitigate the $500 ?

Thanks.

physioprof

Looks like there are two UA metal flights per day ZRH-SFO, one through EWR and one through IAD, departing at different times.

WineCountryUA

About the only way is to find a hotel / rental / flight that did not get credited during the months prior to expiration. Getting one of those to be credited will save the miles and reset the clock. For more see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...5-forward.html
and
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...eb-2015-a.html

mahasamatman

They're pretty close - 10:15 and 11:55 on the date I checked. You'd have to SDC twice a day, and you have to get on to the connecting flight, too. Ignoring the connecting flights to SFO, let's say you're on the 10:15 flight on Day 0.

1. Day -1 @ 11:55 - SDC to the 11:55 flight on Day 0.
2. Day 0 @ 10:15 - SDC to the 12:15 flight on Day 1. But at this point, you better already be at the airport because you're less than two hours from departure and if the SDC fails, you either fly or get your ticket canceled.
3. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Finding availability in the front cabin on all those flights would be tough. So it's not a zero chance, but pretty close (especially for more than a day or two).

KPHX

Can someone give me a quick rundown of the difference between flexible, unrestricted, Y, B, and M fares?

Basically, I'm looking for a fare class that lets me reschedule my itinerary within +/- a few days if need be, but doesn't cost me an arm-and-a-leg like a full Y-class fare might. I've tried looking at the fare class rules but they're a bit dense. I'm Premier Gold too, so I have same-day change, but I don't know if that would work on an iterated basis (book a non-refundable ticket for day X, on day X resched to day X+4, on day X+4 resched to day X+6, for example), or whether there'd be any other issues relying on SDC.

mahasamatman

Unrestricted (also called refundable) generally means you can make changes or refund the ticket. Flexible (also called changeable) generally means you can make changes, but cannot get a refund. The fare bases (Y, B, M, ...) can have any number of rules and various change fees, so you do really have to read them to figure out what they really offer.

You want a changeable (flexible) fare, but you will have to suck it up and read the fare fules if you don't like surprises (like change fees).

SDC is not guaranteed, and you can only reschedule to X+1 each time you use it. If you want to go to day X+4, it will take at least four changes, and possibly more depending on the departure times.

WineCountryUA

As threads get too large, certain problems can occur. So as this thread is over 2,000 posts - will close it and unsticky it. And will start a new Have a Simple Question About United Airlines/MileagePlus? Ask Here [2015 -Part II]... thread .

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator