jsloan

Generally, you would be able to add a connection onto a UA-operated flight, even if the award space is no longer present. The fully-dynamic pricing could eventually make this difficult or impossible, however.

Patrick Hayden

All, I have a beginner question. I want to book award travel in Business from IAD-VIE in October. United's website shows available business saver award travel from IAD to AMS and then a Basic Economy flight from AMS to VIE on Austrian Airlines. Now, if I search IAD-PRG, it shows Business Saver from IAD-GVA, and then connects via Austrian in business through VIE to PRG. If I call, would UA allow me to book the Business Saver that goes IAD-GVA-VIE without the final hopp to Prague, or is that our of their hands as it's a partner flight? I'm trying to avoid a long layover and also trying to avoid Austrian's basic economy.

I know there's a chance Saver space will pop up on the direct IAD-VIE on Austrian, or the IAD-FRA-VIE route on Lufthansa, but I also want to at least have a flight booked as well, and I don't mind dealing with change fees too much. I am a Chase United cardholder and MileagePlus Gold.

Thanks!

getagb

jsloan

Not sure what you mean by "Basic Economy." Basic Economy / Light fares don't apply to redemptions.

The only difference between business and economy on a flight like AMS-PRG is that they'll block the middle seat if you're in business, and you'd get a meal.

That won't work for award bookings (and isn't even generally true for cash bookings -- often Google Flights can book inventory on United.com that phone agents won't).

Exterous

I have two questions regarding the Excursionist Perk:
I have a DEN-SEA-TPE-BKK flight with a mixed cabin class. DEN-SEA is XN with the rest in J
The Excursionist segment was BKK-DPS and only priced out Y as free. J was 25k points
The flight back to the US is SIN-NRT-SEA all in J

I called to see if there was any recourse to get BKK-DPS in J. The agent was surprised J didn't price out as 0 points as well. After 1 hour on hold I was told it was because the first flight was in an economy fare bucket. Being the first time booking the Excursionist perk without pure J routes I wasn't aware of that. I went ahead and booked it anyway since I was able to find JAL and ANA space for the routing

Reading through this thread makes it seem like it might be possible to get it repriced if I call again? Alternatively what are the chances of calling, getting the DEN-SEA segment dropped and then changing BKK-DPS to J? (SEA-BKK didn't show as available options without starting in DEN) DEN is easier for me to fly out of but I could fairly easily position in SEA for the outbound flight

Thanks!

jsloan

The correct price is 0 in J -- but you'll likely need current availability on all of the flights to make this work.

Ditto. If you can still see the flight on SEA-BKK or DEN-BKK, and you can still see SIN-NRT-SEA, then you may get someone to make this change.

Kacee

Yes that's doable, at least in theory.

Kacee

Having silently battled for elbow space with my neighbor in Y the entire way from ZRH-TXL yesterday (he insisted on trying to read a newspaper with both pages open, rather than folding it), I would posit that having an empty adjacent seat in Euro-business is not as worthless as is sometimes suggested around here.

The other benefit is lounge access for the intra-Europe departure if you're not *G. (Though I would put the value of that at zero at AMS . . . somewhat higher at ZRH, FRA, MUC, etc.)

venomtrilogy

Last week I made an award booking through United that included segments on Turkish and Swiss. The LX segment was waitlisted. So I waited. No payment went through. On both United and Swiss's sites, it appeared that the TK segment was fine and I was just waiting on LX. Today when I checked on it, the TK segment is gone and LX still shows as waitlisted. Did I screw up here by not calling in sooner to get that ticket issued? Will the TK segment magically reappear if I can get that LX segment confirmed? Or will I need to cancel and start from scratch again?

WineCountryUA

Hard to tell what is happening but a call is needed to UA , first -- but then a call to LX and TK to further understand.

rxgeek

I purchased a RT business award ticket from CMH-DEN-NRT-SIN-BKK-NRT-ORD-CMH for 190,000 UA miles. At the time of booking, the NRT-SIN leg was only available in economy. Since then that leg opened up in I-class. UA wants an additional 15,000 miles to upgrade. I didn't get a discount for a mixed class ticket. How does UA justify this? Does it matter that this leg is on a partner?

WineCountryUA

Is this for travel before or after Nov 15, 2019?

If before, then Yes, being a partner flight makes a difference, partner premium cabin awards (if intra-region) will convert the outbound from a UA operated business saver award (75K) to a partner business saver award (90K).

jsloan

Are there any stopovers?

I can't get the pricing to come out to 190K, but 15K is the difference between economy and business on Japan to South Asia.

rxgeek

Time is January, 2020. I have a stopover in SIN.

vanillabean