mherdeg

We have a UA award ticket on TG/OZ.

TG has cancelled their overnight SYD-BKK flight and rebooked us onto a day flight, leaving us with an illegal connection on an award. It looks like

Tuesday - depart 10 a.m., arrive 4 p.m.
Tuesday - depart 8 a.m.

which is not gonna fly (a negative 8.5 hr connection time won't work out).

There is a TG flight one day earlier that I'd like to switch onto in order to fix the misconnect; the flight is pretty much open (booked 2/9 in F), but there's not O inventory. Who do I call to fix this?

(1) UA, the ticketing airline, to ask them to call TG to get the space opened

(2) TG, the operating carrier who caused the misconnect with their schedule change (but how can they reissue the ticket?)

I called one UA agent who put me on hold and said "oh, well, for award travel, we can't really call another carrier on your behalf, sorry … but we can find you another routing!" Oof.

Should I call TG and see if they'll open space, then separately ask UA to grab it? What is the best plan here?

rankourabu

Only UA can fix it.
They cannot open space on TG.
They can offer you a reroute or a refund.

mduell

Calling TG is not useful.

HUCA UA. UA can call TG to try and work it out if they want to, but they certainly don't have to. Or they can rebook you on other available space. Or they can rebook you on their own metal even if there's not space.

Indelaware

Yes, call UA. But, first, figure out just how you would like to be re-accommodated. "Hi, hope you can help me. I've got a schedule change resulting in an illegal connection. Could you rebook me as ____?"

JetSetDave

+1 ^ and be sure to find the available individual award segments before calling. As posted above, UA at times will open space for you but it depends on the agent.

mduell

If your original overnight flight departed the day before, you could call pointing out you were rebooked on the wrong day (which also made the connection impossible). Agent may be more helpful if you frame it that way.

Often1

Only UA can fix this. UA is the ticketing carrier and, other than IROPS on the day of travel, it's the ticketing carrier's job to either fix or refund the ticket.

UA can force space on its own metal and will generally do so. UA cannot force another carrier to open award space. But UA's *A liaison to TG and OZ can call those carriers and ask them to do so.

Call UA during regular business hours, you will likely need a second-tier supervisor to figure this out and it won't get done with you on the phone and may take several days as it's a manual process. Don't get your hopes up.

Bear in mind that UA can simply cancel and refund. So, the agent is essentially doing something discretionary. Don't get frustrated with the agent.

Lastly, as others note, know what you want when you call. Have the specific dates and flight #'s handy. The easier you make this for UA, the more likely that it will happen.

mherdeg

I called a few more phone agents trying to get someone who would be willing to call TG and ask them to force open space, then decided that it wasn't worth the hassle and rebooked.

Flights we were hoping for were like
SYD-BKK TG 747 O
BKK-HKG TG 747 O
HKG-ICN TG 333 I
ICN-JFK OZ 380 O

Instead we've "settled" for
SYD-BKK TG 747 O
BKK-HKG TG 333 I
HKG-ICN OZ 380 I (sold as 2 cabin but only selectable seats are in the F cabin, somewhat painful redeye 12:30am-4:50am)
ICN-JFK OZ 380 O

I figured the flight is months away; we have very little leverage to get TG to open space because of a schedule change; and we might as well instead confirm the best available space for now and wait for inventory to open up on other adjacent flights. It may be tough to find space that aligns with the ICN-JFK 380 O, though -- we'll have to see.

I have gotten better results in the past: once, in Aug 2012, an SQ award flight BRU-BCN-SIN (SN I, SQ O) got schedule changed into SQ X, and a phone agent was able to get SQ to confirm us back in O on BRU-LHR-SIN. Another time, in July 2014, a phone agent was able to turn our UA HKG-SIN O space into (after a mx cancellation) SQ HKG-SIN O space. I figured it wasn't worth spending the karma this time.

CMK10

United needs to make up their mind. I bought SDF-ORD-RDU for April. When I bought it, SDF-ORD left at 0600. A couple of weeks ago a schedule change gave it a new departure of 0550. This week another schedule change made the departure 0610 `

travellingcari

Apologies if there's a master thread, I searched but didn't find.

The return half of a multi-city (one PNR) ticket was moved forward by about 16 hours (8a Tues, 3p Mon). I got the red font email but when I logged in, I just saw the initial flight info as I booked. I called and was told nothing they could do - it wasn't a full 24 hour change. That's a new to me policy. Is that correct? I can't find anything definitive either way as a non elite, but I thought it used be that a change could be made with less of a schedule change on United's end. The reason this is as much of an issue as it is is that I won't yet be in the return city by the new time.

Any magic? Call back during the week and get a better agent?

lilpisher

Definitely hang up and call again. While it will ultimately depend on your fare rules, I just randomly pulled up some fare rules for a non-refundable fare which has this text:

GENERAL RULES TEXT
CANCELLATIONS
TICKET IS NON-REFUNDABLE IN CASE OF CANCEL/NO-SHOW/
REFUND.
WAIVED FOR SCHEDULE CHANGE.

You can confirm the language for your rules if you log into your reservation online. What I'm less sure about is whether they can still charge you the difference in fare (they at least will need to waive the change fee). But, I would just keep calling until they move you to a flight that works. I would be prepared and tell them exactly which flight you would like to be on.

808oman

Yup, call back and talk to someone else.

They have to book you on another flight, if the previous leg doesn't get you in on time for the last leg, provided you booked all one one PNR.

Even if separate PNR, just the fact that it is moved up 13 hours should allow for a flight change without any change fees.

travellingcari

Thanks both. Same PNR. And all 3 flights United/United Express so they should have known that they were causing a misconnect with the schedule change. As it's CLE-EWR (but I'm fine with any NYC airport) it's not as if this was the only flight they could pick if my original moved. Will call tomorrow.

channa

Remember they're incented on keeping call times low. If they can blow you off with non-assistance, and pass the complex rebooking to another agent to take the lengthy call, their metrics look good, and the other agent's look bad.

travellingcari

Luckily the weekday agents were a little more clueful. Should have known better than to call on weekend evening. This morning's call actually was answered by the Premier Desk and resolved in about 30 seconds. Kept my Tuesday flight, now going into LGA vs. EWR but date > airport for me for this flight. And, to be honest, LGA is better for me than EWR.

Fare rules were:
NONREF/0VALUAFTDPT/CHGFEE

Thanks all!