WineCountryUA

Are you using multi-city to force the routing?

TOMFORD

Multi-city doesn't show premium cabin.

Another weird thing is that if I look for DTW-FRA, I see some DTW-IAD-FRA on UA/LH, but when I look for IAD-FRA, it'll route me IAD-LHR-FRA or something, rather than showing the direct IAD-FRA on LH.

I hate UA so much. SO MUCH. Now I got to find another way to spend my 260K miles and 6 weeks off.

WineCountryUA

When partner availability is lacking, it is usually because the partner has not made it available. Not much UA can do about that.

TOMFORD

I have been looking awards within the next 2 weeks. Not much available in general. Maybe when I have more time I'll look for availability using another *A search engine.

AustinPilot

This issue is becoming pervasive... Booking an award ticket for next March, I ran into the following:

HNL - IAH - EWR available (XN9) with IAH - EWR on flight A, resulting in a long-ish connection in IAH

IAH - EWR available (XN9) on flight B that would make for a much more convenient connection

HNL - IAH - EWR not available as a saver award with IAH-EWR on flight B

luckypierre

I am trying to understand the concept of "married segments" in airline network operations. Apart from being a "back door" devaluation of redeeming award mileage, are there other reasons to employ such a device? I have read flyers commenting on its use with paid fare tickets. Insure same cabin passage for an international traveler transiting to domestic?

Anecdotally, the phenomena seems most common among airlines that have made reducing their FF program's worth a high priority.

escapefromphl

I have never seen a single flight segment not bookable as a connection:

Did you try multi city search?
What is the connection time?

AustinPilot

The website was giving me a 5-hour connection in IAH, the connection I wanted is 2 hours, but it was not coming up in multi city search on the website and phone agents could not book it, either, even though it was available as a standalone flight.

But this morning I tried again and the connection I wanted was suddently bookable, so I was able to switch. Maybe this was a temporary glitch. In any case, phone agents were pretty firm about not being able to add the IAH-EWR flight as a connection even though it was available in XN as a standalone flight.

Kmxu

I called UA representative (CS agent) to change an award ticket from DFW-ORD-RIC to DFW-ORD-ORF because ORD-ORF saver economy (XN) became available. The agent told that this was a married segment problem. UA can only sell me DFW-ORF at standard award rate. The unavailability of DFW-ORD at saver economy is the problem. Did anyone encounter the similar problem? Should I call again on Monday, hoping that another agent can help? BTW, this Premier 1K agent did use her supervisor. Thanks.

WineCountryUA

Do you presently have a DFW-ORD-RIC in saver economy? But there is no DFW-ORD saver economy at the moment?

Kmxu

Yes, I have the DFW-ORD-RIC booked long time ago. At this moment, DFW-ORD is unavailable. So, the agent could not do anything.

findark

The agent was correct. A change like this forces a reprice of the itinerary, and now DFW-ORD is XN0, so you can't rebook it in XN. Unfortunately, you don't get any special exception for already having a confirmed ticket in XN on that flight. I think a nice agent might be able to unmarry the segments and force it to price a change on only the second leg, but this is not policy.

Kmxu

On the same call with the same agent, she was able to change X to I for the second segment of a different trip even though there was no X available for the first segment (single class service). Was this because UA got more miles from me so that a supervisor could break the same policy? Thanks!

findark

I'm less sure of the formal rules in this case. In your first change, you were making a change to the destination airport which is definitely going to force a reprice. Buying up tends to get a lenient interpretation from most agents, but it does feel to me that doing this would reissue the ticket and nominally require a re-validation of inventory. Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be), the bottom line is that a sufficiently motivated agent can create or break an awful lot of rules for you, and consistency at that level of technicality is pretty rare. Given that you are allowed to do things like book a confirmed ticket in X and waitlist an upgrade to I on a space-available basis, I think the biggest outlier in your example is that fact that it was an upgrade.

alexj7

Hmm I'll have to try again. First agent I called wouldn't do something similar for me.

I have LAX-SYD in O, IAD-LAX in waitlisted I.
No saver any airports WAS-LAX, even connecting in X, for 6+ months that I've been checking. WAS-SYD shows X the whole way (due to married segment).

I want to have WAS-SYD in X waitlisted for I, LAX-SYD in confirmed O. Agent couldn't make it work.

Crazy this is what we have to resort to. I thought United used to open domestic segments for elites with the international segments already booked. Would be nice.