747FC

Not sure if that is a fair statement. Due to segment unavailibility, many times I have been forced to, say, book. SFO-FRA-XXX, but several weeks later when opened, add the initial HNL-SFO segment. Not sure whether that will work going forward.

rankourabu

Except now you can't make changes even to simple itineraries if the rest is not available

Booked sfo-ewr-sfo. Want to change the outbound. Not possible, if return no longer has award space.

I doubt the ability to change awards affects only a small subset of customers.

RoyMan

I would actually disagree with my example I just posted about..pretty simple trip. I actually even tried to just make it a super simple RT to Munich and it still did not have saver availability. But if I did individual segment searches there was saver availability. Thats the real problem.

RandomBaritone

I get that it's a devaluation; I myself have on occasion constructed award itineraries from individual segments and hoped they were legal. But let's not kid ourselves that it's how the vast majority of award customers approach things.

This is much more serious in my view, and may even be a bug.

username

Even before there was an FT and I became a travel expert , I remember agents searching all over by segment for routings for award tickets. So, the inability to do this by agents is terrible. They can't feel good about it either.

It seems to me maybe they are implementing alliance-wide married segment control (MSC) on award tickets? How feasible is that given all the possible combinations of carriers and flights? How else would it explain why certain flights pop up and certain flights don't?

Yes, "modifying a segment requires current availability for all other segments (actually, not segments probably O&D pairs) in the PNR" is an even bigger problem bordering a bug. I wonder if they are evil enough to do this intentionally or IT said "it is too expensive / will take too long to not do it this way" so they went with it...

whitethunder

just wondering, I see in the wiki: "changing any segment requires current availability for all existing Os&Ds in the PNR (as if a brand new booking is made)"

If I just want to completely get rid of the outbound part of my roundtrip ticket (I am YEG-YYZ-IST-MLE, MLE-BKK, then return BKK-LHR-YOW) so get rid of YEG-YYZ-IST-MLE and MLE-BKK, do you think I will be able to keep my return BKK-LHR-YOW as is??

username

According to what I have read here, you can if there is still availability at the time of the change Basically, according to what I read here, they will have to "re-validate" your ticket and that is where new availability is required.

hoth300

Hi... I'm a bit unclear about my situation.

Have an award booked for April:

USA-NRT-BKK-DPS (destination)
DPS-SIN (18 hour layover in SIN)
SIN-USA

I want to change the DPS-SIN (SQ) flight to the day before, giving me about 36 hours in SIN.

Adding this stopover would be easy under the old rules but now I'm not sure how to approach this... any help would be appreciated.

DaveInLA

I tried a sample route for LAX-BKK (desination)-TPE (stopover)-LAX in J. I figured this would be 160K (80K x2) miles since it should be LAX-BKK roundtrip, with TPE as a stopover, but United is pricing it as 200K.

Specifically, the route is as follows--

1/10 LAX-PEK-BKK (Air China) -- note that I did not choose this route (PEK) in the multi-city search
1/25 BKK-TPE (EVA)
2/3 EVA-LAX (EVA)

What am I doing wrong?

mduell

There are no more stopovers on awards or RT pricing. It's one way pricing, for each origin & destination you request, all the way down.

They do have this crummy new thing called the Excursionist Perk, but it doesn't apply to you since BKK and TPE are in different award regions.

Kacee

It's not you, it's the new rules.

Huh. I wonder if this means UA finally fixed that bug.

DaveInLA

But don't the new rules still allow a stopover (excursion)?

Kacee

mduell already answered your question - different regions

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Bolding Mine:

"The Excursionist Perk is a free one-way award within select multi-city itineraries. Members who book an itinerary with three or more one-way awards will be eligible to receive one of those one-way awards for free, if it meets all of these conditions:
The Excursionist Perk cannot be in the MileagePlus defined region where your travel originates. (For example, if your journey begins in North America, you will only receive the Excursionist Perk if travel is within a region outside of North America.)
Travel must end in the same MileagePlus defined region where travel originates.
The origin and destination of the Excursionist Perk is within a single MileagePlus defined region.
The cabin of service and award type of the free one-way award is the same or lower than the one-way award preceding it.
If two or more one-way awards qualify for this benefit, only the first occurrence will be free."

BKK is in South Asia, TPE is in North Asia (as UA defines it).

Regions:

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/app...ofregions.aspx

DaveInLA

Ah, I thought Taiwan was in the same region as Thailand. AA has them both "Asia 2"