dawkins20

Essentially thats what I did. I called today and after waiting on hold for a while, found an agent who managed ti do this. It was pretty straightforward but took a while. They credited my miles back for the return leg and refunded the taxes paid which was approx $125, with $250 then paid as a change fee for the 2 tickets. I was concerned that it would be an issue since my outbound legs were on LH and were no longer available, but they managed to separate the flights.

dawkins20

I was afraid that since this was a round trip , that after flying the first leg there could be issues making it a one way.

WineCountryUA

There is, it can not be changed to a OW once any portion has been flown. If you don't care about the miles you can skip all the unflown segments.
To change now, and get miles back, requires a cancellation and then a rebook.

threeoh

Wow -- did not know that!

Looks like OP got them to split it up even though no partner availability left, which suggests it wasn't a completely fresh rebook.

dawkins20

Correct. They reticketed it but it wasn't a rebook. Same confirmation number ,seats ,etc on the first legs . They just removed my excursionist leg on TAP which was part of the orginal LH booking (seats needed to be picked through LH)and my direct home on UA metal. Don't know if this is the norm but didn't seem to be a big deal to the agent

Kacee

You got super lucky. Most agents cannot do that (reissue ticket while holding partner inventory).

JoshP84

Question about different available routes appearing in a multi-city booking versus two one-way bookings.

I'm looking at booking an multi-city award trip (lets say AAA-BBB, BBB-CCC, DDD-AAA) and the options I see in the multi-city search for AAA-BBB are significantly less than if I were to just try and book AAA-BBB as a one way.

Is this a common occurrence? I've heard that United's multi-city search works a bit wonky at times, just wondering if I can find a desired routing using one-way searches and then call in and have them book it? Or are there any other options to book a routing that only appears in a one way search?

Thanks!

threeoh

The search engine naively limits the total number of results to 200. If you search three one-ways you'll get 200 x 200 x 200 options (=8 million). If you search for a multi-city you'll get 200 options.

Solution: Search a bunch a one-ways and either (a) book three one-ways or (b) call to get it ticketed as a single PNR (just say "I wasn't able to do this through the website" and they'll waive the phone booking fee). For each leg (e.g. AAA-BBB) they can only book what the website shows, they can't piece together whatever connections you dream up.

Booking separate means you can cancel/change one leg more easily; booking together means you can change the whole thing with one change/cancel fee and you get Excursionist Perk if applicable.

jsloan

Yes.

Provided you're actually attempting a multi-city trip, and not trying to stitch together a one-way routing, yes. In other words, if you plan to spend time at BBB in your example -- perhaps BBB-CCC is an excursionist perk segment -- then yes, calling should work. I'd book as much of it as possible online (e.g, AAA-BBB / DDD-AAA may work) and then call within 24 hours to add the missing piece(s).

JoshP84

Thanks, that is what I figured. BBB-CCC is an excursionist segment, so I do need to have all segments under one segment. If I book AAA-BBB, BBB-CCC, DDD-AAA as three individual one-way segments can I call in and have them wrap it all up in single booking and have BBB-CCC segment be free under as an the excursionist perk? That way I can essentially reserve my seat and have the agent stitch the bookings together without running the risk of BBB-CCC being fully booked up? (Trip is in a couple of days, and I suspect the plane isn't empty at this stage.)

jsloan

No.

Your profile says that you're 1K, so there are no fees for telephone booking. If you can't get AAA-BBB / DDD-AAA to show up simultaneously, to give you a place to start from, you should just call and feed the agent the entire trip.

xenophile

Hi, was playing around with some reward itineraries trying to get from SPI to MEX. I found a economy award from SPI to IAH via ORD. And then found an economy award from IAH to MEX. I couldn't book the combined route online and when I called into MileagePlus customer service, neither could they. CSR said that because i was trying to add in an international destination, the system wouldn't allow it. Seems like I've done this in the past. She said she could book SPI-IAH for me and then a separate itinerary IAH-MEX and then link the two after the fact, but she couldn't put them on one itinerary and she couldn't say exactly why.

Anyone have ideas to what is preventing this? Just curious, thanks.

mahasamatman

United changed awards quite a while ago. You can no longer piece together an itinerary - if it doesn't come up as an end-to-end itinerary, it cannot be booked as a single award.

xenophile

Okay, thanks! Figured as much, but didn't realize this was the case now. Appreciate the heads up.

nikbruno

I am trying book a saver reward on LH biz ORD-MUC. Yesterday morning the UA site showed 3 seats available. My father is coming with me from HPN via ORD. I ticketed my fathers first on the UA site without issue then when I went to book mine on the nonstop ORD-MUC the flight disappeared. When I search again for HPN or LGA to MUC I still get connections via ord in Biz at the saver level on that LH flight - I’ve been checking for about 12hrs since booking his and the connections still showing. I called UA and the woman just kept telling me the flight was sold out. Is this a HUCA situation or any trick to get it to appear online? Or can I book the connecting flight and ask UA to drop the first segment so as to just get the ORD-MUC nonstop?