televisor

It's a Saturday in October, and they just seem to have terrible morning frequencies then: 6am, 7am, followed by 9:55am (arriving seemingly 3 minutes too late for MCT).

SBP does seem terrible so I guess I'll wait for more SFO-LAX schedule changes for now (there are more frequencies on other days/months so I'm hoping this is just a mistake).

PVDtoDEL

I think at 2 months out, it's highly unlikely that they're going to be adding more frequencies on that route. The first week of October is a pretty soft week in terms of demand.

So I think your choices are really SBP, flying early morning, or flying the night before. Perhaps it might even be worthwhile to ask if they can waive MCT and ticket you on the 9:55 anyway - now that UA and NH are connected airside at LAX, an hour and a half is a longer MCT than probably necessary.

televisor

This isn't really relevant to me, but I decided to dig into this further: UA certainly has removed this provision (change of carrier = refund allowed) from their CoC. However many posts on FT and some other on the internet refer to DOT guidance which instructs airlines to allow cancellation/refund on change of carrier.

The only thing I've managed to find is the following text from a letter from DOT to airlines in 2001, although I don't know how much that actually affects an airlines obligations nowadays:

hhttp://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/rules/20010925.htm

(That 1996 letter can be found here, and doesn't seem to mention change of carrier at all.)

What do you all think of this? Would this be enough leverage to force a rebooking on change of carrier? (I'm guessing figuring this out might be useful to someone some-day, on the other hand without a concrete case of someone doing this I guess we won't know for certain how easy/hard that might be.)

transportprof

The answer is not much. 15 years is a lifetime in the airline industry. Sub-contracted regional carrier changes are no longer a valid trigger for ticket refunds.

WineCountryUA

There is no such thing as "forcing a rebooking" (prior to start of travel) -- perhaps a refund but rebooking is purely at UA's discretion.

emcampbe

I'm Booked on 3461 on Sunday. Was always scheduled as a E75, but I think we're getting swapped to an E70.

I was surprised, given the few in E+ and only 1 booked in F (yes, per the seat map, I know) that I didn't clear the upgrade in the plat window. Last time I checked my reservation was earlier this week - it still showed the E75 seat map. Now shows 6 F seats today, upgrade list says capacity 6, and where is this aircraft coming from show N653RW, which is a 70, but doesn't actually list the plane type. But booking a new ticket shows a 75, but with a 70 seat map (AFAIK, he only difference is 2 vs. 4 rows of F - economy is the same). Seat map in flight status and in my reservation also shows the same seat map with 2 rows of F. Expertflyer says the flight is under airport control already.

This is almost certainly a plane swap, yes? Booking system is just showing the outdated aircraft?

SFO 1K

Yes

Duke787

Was originally booked RDU - SFO - LAS. Paid to upfare to P (not upgrade in system but actual upfare) in part because of flight length and PQMs. Looks like nighttime RDU - SFO flight has been canceled for that date and I've been rebooked on RDU - IAH - LAS on UAX. Far fewer PQMs and no longer transcon F service.

Do I have any leverage to force them to rebook on another routing or downgrade me and give me back the upfare?

Note P is open on RDU - IAD - LAS and RDU - EWR (no F) - LAS would they give me that instead if I call in?

Also it's no longer listed on UA for sale or EF but it's still on the UA timetable - is that just due to lag (flight date is end of August)

PVDtoDEL

Yeah, changing from UA to UX is definitely a good enough justification to get a new routing.


RDU-IAD/EWR-LAS are absolutely fine. In fact, you can probs even get them to rebook you on RDU-EWR-SFO-LAS (with PS on EWR-SFO) if you make the case that you really wanted to stop in SFO for some reason.

cfischer

make that 4! Unbelievable UA. Now I'll have to call again next week to get it fixed. What a mess.

Duke787

Cool - I should've pushed for the PS routing but there was no P space on RDU - EWR (it was either Y on a regional or A on an E170) so I just went with IAD with P space since I figured it would go smoother and it was no problem.

transportprof

Had my first stealth change in a while. Was booked BWI-ORD-YVR in January. Logged in to find that I was auto-rebooked BWI-DEN-YVR departing about 100 minutes earlier. No red letters, no "Do You Accept" button - I was just rebooked.

Called in and got an acceptable (preferred) alternative, but I'll be watching PNRs like a hawk - stealth changes are still happening!

You have been warned!

findark

Looks like it changed back though? All sources I have show an E75 booked 1/12 up front.

physioprof

I had a direct SEA-EWR flight this October that got changed to SEA-ORD-EWR with zero notification whatsoever (was a Sunday version of daily non-stop flight, and apparently they cancelled the Sunday version). Only discovered it, because I check all my reservations about once every couple of weeks.

televisor

Funnily the only schedule change email I got was when my many-times-changed flight was moved 7 minutes later. I didn't get any emails when that flight was initially moved forward 40 minutes, then moved forward another 55 minutes (I think the flight numbers probably changed both times).

In the non-notification cases I think I got different flight numbers, the change where I got the email was just a time change for the same flight number. So maybe the emails only work for time-changes but not flight changes?