Premier benefits for companions on separate tickets, " off-pnr " [Consolidated]
 

So as Gold I have my flight booked and now my son can join me. Is there a way to book him on the same flight and combine PNR's so he gets the E+ benefit flying with me?

How to add my son to my existing EWR-MCO reservation to get E+?
 

Nope; however, if you use your miles to book his flight, he can get free E+ and other Gold perks.

Just call up mpsc and tell request a e+ seat for your son. If they refuse, hang up and call again.

You can also call, and they'll assign him to E+ even if on a different PNR

Edit: IAD beat me to it

^

My husband used to do this all the time when we traveled together before I had status.

Thanks all!

Worked like a charm on the first try. :)

Premier benefits for companions on separate tickets, " off-pnr " [Consoldiated]
 

Hey Guys,
Thought I would ask the forum about an infuriating situation I had last week. I was traveling to SLC with my fiancee. Due to work reasons, I booked her ticket first, and mine the next day after I confirmed with my work when I would be flying to the client location. She was booked under my account, but since the itinerary wasn't with me, she wasn't assigned Premier Access.

Once I noticed this, I called up United, and the agent was able to move her seats into Economy Plus with me. I was told she should be able to check bags for free, but that would be taken care of at the airport.

So a few days later, I got to the airport, checked my bags (with an Airserv rep - didnt notice he wasnt United), and then was told to talk to Customer Service about my fiancees bags. They were rude, unhelpful, and acted like I was trying to scam the airline (their tone made it sound like I stealing money from them personally). I told the Customer Service Rep that she was traveling with me on the same flight (and standing right next to me), and we have traveled with free bags several times. The rep claimed that I was a liar, and she has been doing that 25 years and never heard of such a thing. I dont want to go into all the details, but suffice it to say, the agents were very rude and unhelpful. Through all of this, I was very polite, realizing yelling at them wont get my way.

I called United, tried to have them combine itineraries, they said they did, and it should be fine. Apparently they only added a note that we were traveling, which was not good enough for the agent. At this point, 45 mins of back and forth between the airport folks, and United call center had passed, and I was about to be late for my flight. I paid the fee, and just decided if I was in the right, I could just file a chargeback.

So who was right here? Do the Customer Service Agents have the ability to override the itinerary when we are clearly together? Or am I wrong for not having the tickets combined to begin with? I guess I normally would let this go, but the experience was so bad (I was told that as a gold member, I should "know better" and something about a PNR (I have no idea what she was talking about)), and the agents were so rude. I got the impression that I somehow personally offended them, and that they were just refusing to help me in any way, despite their ability to do so.

It's the separate reservations (two PNRs) that hosed you as you technically need to be on the same reservation (one PNR), but I've always had UA employees kind enough to override it. Sounds like a double whammy of this problem combined with the Airserv factor.

1) There is no way to combine PNRs - when you booked your tickets separately, you got 2 different 6 character codes that reference the 2 separate itineraries, and no agent can combine them. The only thing they can do is put a note in the itinerary that says you're traveling together with your fiancee.

2) Strictly speaking, your fiancee was not entitled to free baggage according to: http://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/trav...geChecked.aspx
Having said that, it's possible that a friendly/accommodating agent would have allowed your fiancee's bags for free, and it certainly doesn't excuse any rudeness from agents.

couldn't you have just checked her bag?

If you had purchased her ticket with miles from your account you would have been golden as she would have inherited all your benefits regardless (however this is going away this year..) Purchasing a ticket with real dollars for someone else under your account is pretty much meaningless unless you are also on the same PNR.

Strictly speaking the agent was correct and your wife was not entitled to the baggage allowance. In actuality I don't think the phone agent needed to place your wife in E+ for free either so I think you got a favor in that regard. All that said I would think the agent should just make this work for you, however I suspect the initial dealings with Airserv shot you in the foot to start with. I probably would not pursue a refund here since it wasn't a benefit you were actually entitled to, but you could certainly provide feedback about how you were treated during the situation.

Did you have 3 bags? If not why not just put her bag(s) under your name?

PNR stands for Passenger Name Record. It's basically the record of the reservation. If you had booked them together you would both be on the same PNR.

If the airline allowed what you tried to do then there would be a flood of people trying to connect with 1K passengers and pretending they are together in order to avoid the baggage cost (just like the UC entrance situtation; you'll see a whole thread about that).

You weren't on the PNR so no reason to believe that you were travelling together. Maybe your fiancee is quite nice looking and they thought you were making play for her by sponsoring her baggage. ;)

Bottom line, you made a mistake and now you know better in the future. The rep was right in that she knows that your fiancee doesn't get free bags when she's not on your PNR. You may have been right that she got free bags before, but she would have been on the same PNR.

As an aside, telling a customer service rep "I do this all the time, you don't know what you're talking about" doesn't improve your chances of getting them to help you. Particularly when you were the one who was mistaken.

This is a huge frustration for me, going forward. I fly 150K/yr, and if I book my wife with me on miles, she won't be able to check even one bag or get into E+. Basically, UA doesn't care if their customers fly a lot until they fly 1MM.

This thread is concerning paid tickets -- your issue is covered in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...-accounts.html which has never had inherited benefits.

No problem with E+ (they've always allowed companions on another PNR), and unless you're already checking three bags yourself, the bags aren't an issue either.