ksu

I know.

Bruin1K

Forget the "extra" bag on light fares. How about even one free bag? No such luck for this *G this past summer!

Downunder girl

Hi, been a long time since I posted. I am pretty out of touch with UA these days as have not flown them for years.

I am purchasing a Y Award ticket for my no status/general member daughter one way IAD SFO SYD. Considering getting her E+ to make the long journey a bit more comfortable. Currently when I do a dummy award booking, adding in the E+ makes it outrageously expensive, over $450 USD .

Can I purchase E+ seating on a Y award at a later date? Hoping the cost might drop down a bit or we get a better offer.

Thanks in advance for your help .

televisor

Are you looking at the "economy plus essentials"? If so, there's no need to get it - you can add E+ seats later in the seat selection screen.

I'm not sure what the actual E+ pricing would be though when buying an individual seat. I wouldn't be surprised to see it at around $200, maybe more, for a flight of that distance.

Kacee

Yes, definitely. It will be offered via the seatmap on the "view/change seats" function. Note that the pricing will be per segment and it will likely vary over time based on UA's perception of demand. You may want to watch the prices for a week or two to get a sense of the range.

findark

That being said, $400 is not exactly crazy for that route. IAD-SFO alone usually runs between $100 and $150, and SFO-SYD is a much longer flight.

Downunder girl

Thank you everyone for your replies .

Can I just add E+ seating later for ONLY the SFO SYD segment maybe?

That might help keep the costs down . My daughter is tall but hopefully she wont really need it for IAD SFO. SFO SYD is the important part.

Downunder girl

Agreed, however it was $450 USD and when you convert that to AUD (I'm in Australia) it is $630 AUD - we could almost buy a return ticket to Hawaii for that sort of money .

Thanks for your help .

Kacee

Yes.

findark

Indeed - it's a ton of money but it's inline with what UA charges for E+ on varied routes so I wouldn't expect a much better deal.

As Kacee notes, yes you can buy for SFO-SYD only.

Kacee

It will swing as much as maybe $100 on the long-haul segment. You have to watch it to figure out what the range is.

Downunder girl

Thank you all for your great info and fast replies .

Well looks like I have solved the issue of sorts i.e wont be buying E+ anymore! I was very surprised to see this as I have been checking for months, but I checked UA website for availability again this afternoon and there was a mixed cabin C award space (C on the leg that counts - LAX SYD) .

Very happy about that. So I have booked my daughter Y award ex IAD and then she has the new Polaris C from LAX to SYD. It is a 21st present so she will be thrilled.

Sorry this is off topic but would she be eligible for wait-listing for F award seat on the IAD LAX leg (it wasnt available all the way through, so it has booked into Y award (HN class, never heard of that before ) but it was a mixed cabin award.

Also got stung on the miles needed, but the rare C space on LAX SYD was too good to pass up. I could not get an afternoon departure out of IAD with award availability so I had to use Multi city option for same day travel,but doing that has made the mixed cabin award jump up by 25K miles . Any recourse? PNR is still awaiting ticketing at present.

WineCountryUA

Yes you can waitlist or F on the domestic section
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ns-issues.html

Concerning the HN -- that is a non-elite Standard Economy award. What fare class was the SFO-SYD award?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...uckets-ua.html

findark

A lot of things potentially going on here, but it sounds like there was no saver space in any cabin IAD-LAX for the times you wanted. Multi-city allowed a mixed coupon Standard/Saver award, assuming you booked HN class IAD-LAX and I class LAX-SYD.

If above booking classes are true, then (a) you can't book this for fewer miles, (b) you may waitlist the IAD-LAX for First, but it will be a Standard (ZN) award for 50k miles total for the segment. You essentially have two separate awards, broken in LAX.

Your other options would be (a) cancel within 24h and rebook with the morning flight in X, and potentially change later, or (b) keep the current itinerary which will cost an extra 25k miles. Or (c) take only the award ticket LAX-SYD and buy a cash ticket IAD-LAX.

tusflyer

I am a 1k and would like to burn Lifemiles for four transatlantic tickets on United. After adding my Mileageplus number to the reservation, would I qualify for Economy plus? Would my non-status companions qualify as well, in the same way they would if I had used United miles?