Kacee

If your destination is BKK, the outbound exceeds the 4 transfer limitation applicable to North America - South Asia award.

whitethunder

I believe my destination is MLE, a week there then return with a stopover in BKK

pushmyredbutton

Excellent write up, validates most of the data with reservations I've constructed and with the reps I've spoken to.

I'm a bit curious about the Ex Perk.. I had originally thought that the 'perk' could be used to add in an unrelated flight in a totally different region, and that does seem like it may be the case.

But in your adding of the Hannover segment, even though you had a Biz award, the experk only allowed for Economy; which seems odd since I didn't see that mentioned anywhere in UA's touting of the privilege.

If you picked up on another serious flaw, I'm sure I'll uncover it shortly

fumje

Would not changing the BKK stopover to be in USM still violate the four-transfer-max. rule? Or did you find DEL-USM or USM-YOW flights?

Kacee

Yes that's where I was going. If MLE is the destination, then adding USM either violates transfer restrictions or creates an OJ at the stopover (which is rarely permitted).

eamond

No joy, tried this several times and the routing even showed up in one-way searches - but as soon as you put them into a multi-city itinerary "connecting point" is useless.

Same here, tried PEK-SIN-BKK-MEL which was perfectly fine beforehand; but as soon as SQ stepped in, the system forced it into two tickets.

gpeso8

Same here. Attempted to book for example, SUB-SIN-BNE all on SQ which was fine before. However now, agents all say SQ legs have to be priced as separate awards for this, one for SUB-SIN and another for SIN-BNE. It's a a pain since when you enter it into the search online it returns absolutely nothing for the city pair.

luckypierre

That observation can be applied across many aspects of current airline operations..and not just UA..how conscious management is of oligopolistic/cartel behavior isn't clear. I do believe this ex perq was a half baked attempt on UA's part to not only rein in the really abusive awards but also try to reduce the time that agents were spending on trying to construct these awards..."just got off the phone after 3 hrs." Not sure how valid it is, but read somewhere else on FT from a reader involved in call center business that a norm is 6 customers an hour.

AAExPlat

If they were trying to save agent time on the phone, I think it is safe to say that we know that effort was more than useless...they spend MORE time on the phone now because NOTHING works correctly.

whitethunder

Which I thought of and I decided I was OK with, but after telling me that was a no-go after 20 minutes, it then took a back and forth for over 2.5 more hours to simply change the return journey back from BKK-LHR-YOW from one date to a week later, that was it, with space open. I think the computer now is trying to change me the MLE-DEL-BKK segments even though they were included pre- Oct 6th.

IamHungry

From your blog "He added that "we are having a round-table meeting on this next week" and promised to push for more agent power to override the system, again apologizing over how "ridiculous" the new system was."

I hope they really are going to give agents override super power!

nwflyboy

Fat chance. Dream on.

Kacee

"Half-baked" is a good word for it.

Most of the time I ever spent on the phone booking awards was because (i) the system was slow (how many times have you heard that one - "sorry the system is really slow today"), or (ii) the computer failed to autoprice an itinerary that was well within the rules, resulting in lengthy back and forth with the rate desk.

I have no problem with UA killing the stopover at origin or imposing reasonable transfer restrictions. As usual, they picked an incredibly messed-up way of fixing the perceived "problem."

susiesan

I am seriously considering just purchasing a coach seat to the hub cities to be able to get the J seat Ion the flights I want of a European vacation next October. I need to get to BCN from MCI and return from VCE. There are plenty of J saver award seats on the various TATL flights to/from ORD, EWR, IAH, and IAD but never any saver awards o the domestic UA flights to/from MCI that hook up with the int'l flights.

The other option I may use is instead of transferring in the UR points to United I may transfer to ANA and book through them to get the *A flights I need. The ultimate irony, you can't get award seats on UA flights through their own program but you can through partners. I don't know yet if ANA would require more miles than UA for North America to Europe in J. And I haven't used that plan for 5 years to redeem awards and am not too familiar with it.

Or I may try to use AA or DL by transferring SPG points.

PVDtoDEL

Given that the new system also hides the fare basis for awards (it now shows "Dynamic Award Saver Miles Only"), I think the new system is putting the infrastructure in place for the next devaluation, viz. award charts will no longer be published and we will pay whatever the website says the price is.

In retrospect, it's not a surprise. DL is already there...