UA sales expire on eastern time?
 

Trying to book a TATL flight based on the UA three day sale that expires on 6/29/16 but it's 11:30pm pacific time on 6/29/16 and the website tells me it's expired but terms and conditions don't indicate it's time zone specific. What's the recourse? I don't mind spending the last half hour juggling itineraries online but doing it on the 1K line will be cumbersome.

Here's the website response and it's still only 11:39pm:

"
3-day sale to Europe

Fare Sale to Europe.

This sale expired June 29, 2016.​"


Terms and conditions:

Tickets: Tickets must be purchased at least 14 days prior to departure, but no later than June 29, 2016. Roundtrip purchase may be required.
Travel Period: Travel is valid from August 23, 2016 through March 31, 2017.
Blackout dates: Travel is not valid from December 15, 2016, through January 8, 2017.
Fare Validity: Fares are valid in the United Economy® (Coach) cabin on United®/United Express® carriers and certain codeshare operated flights only.
Minimum Stay: A seven-day minimum stay may be required.
Maximum Stay: A six-month maximum stay is allowed.
Miscellaneous: Fares, fees, rules, and offers are subject to change without notice. Other restrictions may apply.

C000013326 13878 ET01


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My guess would be central time

UA tends to use Central Time (where Chicago and Houston are located) for most things when no time zone is noted

Doubt you have any, as a worldwide operation, and a website that can be access anywhere, it would add generally unneeded complexity for the cutoff to be based on your personal timezone which UA can not know for sure. (and then add in corporate VPNs)

Too late for you now (as it's literally 12:01am), but for normal fares that expire at midnight (including X day advance purchase fares) at least one of the popular online travel websites has a point-of-sale that is in Pacific timezone, which means you get 2 hours extra to buy tickets after UA's website rolls over to the next day (as others have said, it's on Central time). Unfortunately I forget which one it is... possibly Expedia given at they are based in Seattle.

May not help for a special, but I expect it probably would.

If the "sale" is just a lower published fare - which almost all are - it expires at midnight in the city of origin sale of the ticket. Did you actually price a ticket according to this sale? I see K fares from yesterday which correspond to the stated terms of the sale and they should have been valid for a West Coast departure until midnight PDT last night.

It's a sales city thing. Sales city may vary from departure city.

I have bought 21-day advance purchase sales LAX-SEA on the last eligible day at 11:30 p.m. Los Angeles time from a computer with a LA IP address hitting pre-merger united.com — and, experimentally, hitting the same endpoint from a Boston IP address (via VPN) did not meet the criteria. I was also able to buy a 21 day AP fare from Expedia's web site at 11:30pm LA time when I experimented.

In one case, I was able to call a United reservations line and buy a 21-day advance purchase fare at 12:30am Los Angeles time — which was 9:30 pm Honolulu time, which was 21 days in advance at the phone reservations center I happened to reach.

I have sometimes fantasized about incorporating a travel agency in Vanatau for this reason.

(btw, I seem to recall you can try this out with ITA yourself at about 11:30 pm Pacific -- check out how you get different fare quotes for a trip 14/21 days in advance depending on whether you set sales city to NYC, CHI, LAX, or HNL)

Interesting, so united.com actually sets sales city within the US according to IP. Didn't know that.

How did you find out about the sale?
 

We never seem to get any notification on business sale fares: I have to check with FT to be kept up to date! Is there a way to get on the mailing list??

And, yes, living in Hawaii I used to be able to sneak under the wire as there is now a 3hr time difference between us and the mainland. But now, it seems CST is the new cut-off, which means 7pm HST

None, probably. The general rule with airline fares is that "fares are not guaranteed until tickets are purchased." Many fare sales (especially if they are in the form of a lower fare and not a "sale" per se) have no expiry date. And, whether or not there's an expiry date, fares can change at any time, with or without notice. You don't get a vested interest in purchasing any particular fare until you make the purchase, or at least make the reservation and then complete the purchase within the ticketing deadline. Consider also that there's nothing to guarantee that the inventory in the required bucket remains available.

Also, note that among the terms that you quoted from the email was this:

When claiming recourse based on terms and conditions (if that is what you are considering), you don't get to pick the ones that work to your advantage and ignore the inconvenient ones.