Explorer789

To add to this, while the mileage requirements to book through the ANA site is less than booking through UA, the key difference is that ANA has fuel surcharges. A few hundred dollars in fees basically offsets the extra miles that you pay with UA, making the total cost roughly the same.

UA miles are easier to earn since you can easily accumulate them through Chase credit cards and UA miles just offer more flexibility since BR and OZ are also great choices.

NH availability through UA is usually good up to about 5 months before departure. While around this same window, NH shifts most of their awards to waitlist mode. In many cases, you should be able to clear the waitlist, but there's no guarantee and you should have a backup in place.

Kacee

NH has substantially reduced fuel surcharges on award tix to the point that they are no longer really material in most cases.

John Aldeborgh

Anyone booked an award ticket on Shenzhen Airlines before through the UA website? I booked one, then called UA a couple days later to confirm everything was okay but when I log into the Shenzhen Airlines website and try and look up the booking it gives an error. The UA agent had the same issue and suggested I call Shenzhen Airlines directly, which I'll try on Monday.

If anyone has experience with Shenzhen using UA award tickets I'd appreciate their insights.

The reason I'm using award tickets is the one way fare from KIX to Beijing was $2,400 but it only required 15K miles on the UA website.

jsloan

I did, and I had the same problem with their website -- in fact, I had it with the award ticket I booked for my wife and also for the paid ticket I booked for myself on 016 stock.

In my case, it wasn't representative of any issue -- we were able to board fine. However, it can't hurt to give them a call, if you can find a number to use. AFAIK, they don't have a US presence.

John Aldeborgh

Thanks for the input, I'm having someone from our Shanghai office call and inquire. If I have a problem I'll post it here. Sounds like it will be fine.

sjackson12

I've noticed a bug which I'm sure some of you have as well. Even if I select non-stop on the advanced search, and then also select show only availability for non-stop flights, it still shows the dots for saver award premium cabin, even when that award is only available on a flight with stops Is there anything I can do about this? For example ORD-MUC shows premium award space, but that is only for flights that go through YYZ on Air Canada. So it's not nonstop, and it's not even United.

Kacee

Nonstop only award search has been broken for some time.

SanFranCA

Hello experts,
I booked a saver Mileage Plus ticket on Swiss SFO-ZRH-TLV; returning TLV-ZRH-SFO. I have decided that I would like to change this into an open jaw, SFO-ZRH-AMM, keeping the same return. Now the SFO-ZRH and ZRH-SFO legs are no longer available.
Can I modify the ticket to remove ZRH-TLV and add ZRH-AMM? The agent told me that can't be done; I can't even change it to SFO-ZRH alone. She did say I can keep the return as a one way and look for a new SFO-AMM ticket. I'm 1K so I am not worried about fees. The agent said that I would have been able to make a partial change in the past, but not since the new Mileage Plus system was instituted in October, 2016.
Does the agent's advice sound right to you or should I call again and ask a new agent?
Thanks!

Kacee

So it's all incredibly murky post October 2016.

We know that the new computer interface that was introduced with that change prevents most agents from doing what you want to do, i.e., book or change an itinerary segment by segment.

We also know that there are workarounds and that higher level agents have tools which allow them to do exactly what you want to do.

The problem is finding someone who is willing and able to do it. You might call back once and find someone who is willing/able to make the change. Or you might try 100 times and never succeed.

sjackson12

Is there any better way to search to avoid this issue? Another website?

saltydog75

Running into an odd situation booking from IAD to YXE in either June or September.

When I book a one-way or round-trip, there are economy flights under $500, all with two stops (DEN/ORD/LAX and YYC). However, when I try to book the same flights using multi-city, the price spirals into the thousands of dollars.

What's the deal? I generally prefer using multi-city so I can dial in exactly what I want. I usually look for flights where there's not a big gap between Y and F so the company can pay for Y and I can pay to upgrade. It's very hard to do this without multi-city. Can anyone recommend a way to get the OW/RT prices using multi-city, or is that just not possible? Is it the fact that the OW/RT terminates in CA and that has some sort of price cap where the multi-city doesn't?

Edit: Also, the F fares are WAY above economy, even RT/OW. Is there some sort of price cap for CA destinations that doesn't apply to F?

jsloan

UA has started adding a number of combinability restrictions onto its discount fares, specifically on the theory that most circle trips are purchased for business travel.

You should be able to get the fares you want booking multiple one-ways, but they simply may not be available via multi-city. Of course, with multiple one-ways, you run the risk of having to pay multiple change / cancellation fees if your plans change.

Matt Newbie

Anyone knows?

Kacee

You're allowed to book whatever the computer will let you book. If you search (for example) FRA-FCO on united.com, and the computer returns (and will ticket) FRA-IST-FCO you can book it. If you search FRA-FCO and it doesn't return that routing, you can't book it. At least not as a single award.

IamHungry

Does excursionist perk flight has to fall in the middle of the trip? Can it be at the beginning or at the last leg of the trip. For example. ORD - CDG, CDG - ORD, then BKK - HKG at the later date? Or BKK - HKG has to be flown before CDG - ORD?

Thanks!