StuckinITH

For our trip to PVG we had to book 2 different tickets on United. From our small outstation to ORD as an award. From ORD to PVG in Polaris Business.

At the small airport at 5:00 AM, the agent tried for 10 minutes to send our luggage to PVG with no success. She then called the Help Desk who immediately told her: "no can do". Another agent said that she had the same experience twice the previous week.

Our choices are really limited. Book the trip on 2 PNRs like we did and get stressed that the first flight is delayed and one of us misses the next flight due to the luggage. Or book the whole trip on one PNR in Economy and get stressed that the upgrades don't clear. The choice of booking the whole trip in Business was a no-go as the price was $3,000 more per person (with the first flight not even having a First Class).

WineCountryUA

Some prior reports suggest sold out flights can make this problematic.

Did anyone suggest to do a handwritten tag?

StuckinITH

The plane was not sold out. When I checked in the computer in the morning it was saying available and there were 5 standby passengers that got cleared at the gate so a good 40 minutes later. Maybe it's because there was no award inventory.

No, no one did suggest about the handwritten tag. I did not know that this could be a suggestion I could give them. I have to say that I was surprised of how curt the help desk was. Did not suggest anything. Just said no.

But I was not surprised about how inept the agents are at my outstation as I already experienced their lack of knowledge of anything. One of them told us that the luggage could be collected in the secure area of ORD. When I told her that that is not possible, she insisted. I had to leave the desk before I got upset and let my wife deal with the final step of them tagging the luggage to ORD. Makes me miss the good USAirways agents we had in ITH.

WineCountryUA

The sold-out referred to the second flight, the process (I will probably get this all wrong) in generating the bag interlining is to make a dummy booking on the second flight, print the bag tag and then cancel the dummy booking -- this becomes problematic if the second flight is not available for booking. There is apparently a workaround that is not well known.

As for the handwritten tag, suspect less experience agent may not know how to do that, they may have never done it.

StuckinITH

I see. the second flight was not sold out either. It was showing available in Polaris with 40 seats sold (+1 blocked) and available in Economy. I think that it's the Help Desk that let us down as they should have more expertise......

StuckinITH

For the return, the agent in PVG had no problems checking our luggage through to our final destination on separate UA reservations. It took him exactly one minute to generate the luggage tag.

One week after the outbound my wife was still upset about the problem we had. She wrote to UA to get it out of her system. Unfortunately, she complained about everything that went wrong that day. Which means that she got a general letter of apology. I would have preferred that the answer address the issue of the luggage as it's bound to happen that we will need to book again trips on separate PNRs for the domestic and the international segments. ORD-PVG-ORD, we can find P fare available. Home-ORD-PVG-ORD-Home, we get B-D-D-B fares that cost $3,000 more.

Machta

Hello all. In late July we have a trip to Europe planned. We have award tickets on UA bought with SQ Krisflyer miles (long story there) from IAD to AMS. I'm still working on the positioning flight from DEN to IAD. Right now I have WN flights booked, but there's only a 4 hour connection and I'm quite worried about claiming our luggage from WN, re-checking with UA, going through TSA again, and making our transatlantic flight on time.

I figure our options are:
1) Pack with carry-ons only (difficult because of stuff we would like to take).
2) Take our chances with WN.
3) Wait to see if a positioning flight opens up on UA with the SQ miles I've already spent.
4) Buy the positioning flight on UA with cash.

If we went with #4 , and bought the positioning flight, would UA check our luggage all the way to AMS? Would UA consider it one ticket if for some reason we had trouble connecting? The flight I would buy is 2 hours earlier, for a connection of 6 hours, so I'm less concerned about the timing overall.

Thanks for your thoughts!

emcampbe

aacharya

If super worried book WN the night before?

Machta

Thanks for the ideas -- we are absolutely considering switching to a UA positioning flight as well as flying WN the night before. Both have challenges, but . . . better than missing the transatlantic flight!

Often1

The same answer here as you received for your duplicate posts.

Do not do this. All of the risk falls on you.

VegasGambler

I say just do it. UA is under no obligation to reaccomodate you but people miss flights every day for all sorts of reasons and airlines aren't in the business of stranding people. The rules are in place to prevent abuse, not to stick it to people who miss the occasional flight.

If your other flight is delayed, call them and let them know that you are going to miss your flight ASAP. Be apologetic, not demanding. They will put you on another flight.

PVDtoDEL

It's actually not trivial to reissue a ticket booked on SQ ticket stock (SQ does not participate in the Star Alliance Endorsement Waiver), so I wouldn't be so confident in this advice. If the ticket was on UA stock, I would still think this advice is risky, but less unreasonable.

Often1

How do you deal with the fact that OP is traveling on an SQ e-ticket?

What you suggest is risky in the extreme on a UA ticket. But, with SQ it will take either OP begging for a reissue from SQ or someone at UA essentially flying OP for free.

Carriers are a lot more accommodating for the little things that go wrong in getting to the airport than they are when people travel on separate tickets.

VegasGambler

Note that missing the bag check deadline is not the end of the world. You can bring full sized bags through TSA and then gate check them.

As far as actually missing the flight... I dunno, 4 hr is a long time. I've done similar with far less time. The original flight would have to take a significant delay for this to be a problem, and that should give you enough time to sort things out.

I'm not really sure why this is considered risky. Again, people miss flights all the time. In any major airport, hundreds of them (if not thousands) every single day. It's not the end of the world.