Acid

Okay - Third time lucky. Agent had no issues changing the ticket. HOWEVER - they had to cancel my United nonstop before they could request 9W to confirm a seat. I was told to call back in 24 hrs.

Called back after 5 minutes and the agent was able to ticket it (after collecting the additional UK tax). No idea what would have happened if 9W would have denied an award seat and UA had already cancelled the previous ticket.

zrs70

Can UA book a Jet Airways ticket in conjunction with other *A flights?

MatthewLAX

Yes

zrs70

Dear all,

I have a number of airlines on my bucket list, and Jet Airways is one of them. I would fly EWR-BRU on them, and connect to SK for a flight up to ARN.

Business class.

My question is... are they worth it?

I can always use more miles and fly LH in F (which is available). But been there/ done that.

I can also use the miles for a gazillion other ways to get there. I've flown most MP partners in C from the US to Europe, save TAP and LOT.

Any wisdom?

hansyuwiwb

There were lots of discussions a while ago about redeeming UA miles on 9W - none seemed to have done it successfully. I had been trying to do this today but so far unsuccessful. I was looking for one seat YYZ-BRU. For reference here is what happened.

I happened to be chatting with an EY agent based in the UK for an unrelated reservation and asked her to check 9W availability for me. She says 1 seat available in D (the class redemption business tickets book into).

I phoned UA, got the Philippine call center as a gold - doesn't happen very often. Guess they were really busy. Spoke to a nice lady. She initially told me 9W is not a star alliance partner and therefore I couldn't use their flight. I suggested to her that it's a non alliance partner in the same category as EI and HA. She put me on hold for 10 minutes and checked with a supervisor, coming back saying yes 9W can be used but all D and X inventory were marked by (L), which her supervisor told her it means "reserved" so I couldn't book it. I have no real knowledge of this but from my experience with redeeming MH on NW years ago I guess this means a long sale is required so suggested that to her. She refused to confirm or deny if a long sale is required. I thanked her and dropped the call.

I then called again and got routed to speak to someone who appears to be American by speech. He was uninterested in helping me so I dropped the call. Called back, got an agent who seemed to know about redemption on 9W. He got an economy seat for me but stated no business was available. I thanked him and dropped the call.

At this point I suspected that 9W uses different POS to restrict partner access to its awards. Therefore I phoned AA to ask if they see any seats. AA agent told me she saw D1 for the flight I wanted, which matches what EY told me. I thanked her and dropped the call.


Now it's getting late and the Asian offices are in business hours. I called the Japanese line since the US call center wasn't showing what I expected. Same happened - the lady could see economy seats but not business.

After this I figured if I call the India line I might get lucky since 9W is based in India and they might have had experience with this. The DEL/BOM numbers ended up routing me back to the US after I selected I need to use my miles. The US agents I spoke to produced the same result.

Now I have given up for today. Anyone has any insights on what might be going on? Should I bother to call back again or this has simply not be done successfully before? Is there any reason that UA can't see the inventory available to AA?


I know Jet is not SQ suites so some may say it's not worth the effort. However it is the only flight that works for my schedule on the desired date. Any inputs would be greatly appreciated.

smilinganddialing

I was recently able to make a booking which involved one leg on UA connecting to 9W.

Here is how I did it:

1. Booked the United leg online
2. Called in right away citing the free 24 hour change policy and saying I couldn't find 9W availability online (the site says to call-in)
3. The first two agents (a) told me 9W is not a partner and (b) there is no availability. I could see the availability on 9W's own site while logged in. I asked them to long-sell it and cited the exact date, flight number, origin and destination, and they said "there is no availability".
4. I almost gave up but the third time I called, I reached a US-based agent (the first two were not) who was able to set it up.
5. The third agent (the one who got it done) said that they have to re-confirm it's still available after 12 hours - they musn't have a live-time sync with 9W like AA does.
6. I called back later and it was still confirmed. It took another 45 minutes because the rate desk hadn't properly stored the taxes.

All in all, it took 3 hours. Complete PITA but at least I managed to get it done. Booking 9W flights using UA miles is not for the faint of heart.

Sam_AE

WOW! I just had a PAINFUL but SUCCESSFUL booking experience.

HUCA is the key to success. I must have spoken to 10-15 different agents before I finally found one that knew what she was doing -- or at least was curious enough to find out how to book 9W using Mileage Plus. My advice is to NOT allow the automated phone system to plan your route -- meaning don't tell the system your itinerary -- just press 0 to get directly to an agent.

I had confirmed 9W business class availability in advance -- in fact, I was able to put 1 seat on hold by calling AA. My problem is I don't have enough AA points to book the ticket. But, I knew there was another seat available on the flight/day I wanted.

It took the agent about 30 min to book a one way trip on 9W --> AMS-YYZ. She was amazing though. Not only did she send the request to 9W for the J class seat, but she put me on hold so she could call 9W to clear the request while I waited. I got off the phone with a United and 9W confirmation number.

Total cost was 70k MP + $28USD tax. She waived the telephone booking fee since 9W can't be booked online.

Success!

pbnair

I wish I knew about the "long sell" way to book 9W using UA miles. I was able to put an itinerary on hold (COK - BOM - NRT - IAH) using 9W and NH. Multiple agents who helped me said they are not able to ticket the itinerary because 9W is not releasing the seats. I later booked COK - BOM segment on 9W separately and moved on.

PVDtoDEL

I'd be very surprised if long-selling is still possible with the new award pricing system.

WineCountryUA