Advice Needed - Tricky Booking Situation
 

Thanks in advance. This is a bit of a complicated situation for me but hopeful FT will have good advice. Reminds me of a bad law school exam fact pattern.

Looking to book IAD-EZE business, leaving DEC 25th and returning via EZE on January 3rd.

The complication stems from the fact that I am booking for me and my spouse and want to use some combination of GPU, paid, and award ticket. Oh, we also have some credits to apply for both of us before they expire - she has the bigger credit. Expires if we don't book new flight by mid November. We want to fly business.

Her: GPU may be too risky to EZE (thoughts?) and she doesn't seek status so I'm thinking I would just pay for the flight and burn the credit. On the way back, maybe use award miles or pray with a GPU.

Me: Happy to risk burning GPU down and take my chances. Maybe uses award miles but not sure I want to do that. I will have already hit my 1k for 2016 so no real incentive to get more miles in 2016. For the same reason I'm thinking of paying for my seat on the way back. I need to hit the spend and PQM targets anew anyway. I have 5 GPUs to burn sadly.

Questions:

1. Given the facts above and the fact that the remuneration for each of us on each leg will be different - do I have to book this as 4 one way tickets?

2. Any thinking on using the GPUs in either direction on this route that time of year? How risky?

3. If it looks like the GPU won't clear is there going to be an option to buy-up to first? Can I assume that the closer to departure date the buy-up price is going to go dramatically up?

4. Any thoughts or concerns about my logic/illogic of buying, awarding, GPUing given that we each have concerns about status in 2016/2017.

5. I rarely use a travel agent but am for this trip. Given the credits and the complexity of the booking issues my thought was to book this directly with UA using phone agent. Thoughts?

6. Let me know if I missed something material.

Appreciated!!!

You can use one ETC per person.

One-way flights on most international routes are much more than half of a roundtrip. You probably won't to book them. (You definitely won't want to book a one-way business class fare).

Current fares for those dates:
Coach (lowest), roundtrip: $1657 pp
Coach (GPU-eligible), roundtrip: $1809 pp
Business (lowest, 6+ hour layover at IAH on the return), roundtrip: $4842 pp

Coach (lowest / GPU-eligible), one way: $971 outbound + $1279 return = $2250 pp
Business (lowest, 6+ hour layover at IAH on the return, one way: $3652 outbound + $3817 return = $7469 pp

Bear in mind that if you redeem an award ticket, you can not use a GPU for that flight(s). And even though you are a Premier member, co-pays for mileage upgrades to Southern South America are not waived. Mileage upgrade awards go from 15k miles on Y, to 25K miles on any other fares. And only Y and B are waived of the co-pay, M less have to pay $300+.

I would go for the GPUs if you can spare them, and have a chance on clearing.

Any preference if I buy coach and try to upgrade using miles? Guessing a GPU would trump since its a higher fare class?

I believe all instrument- and miles-supported upgrades clear first by premier status, not fare class. If you are on the same PNR, I believe your wife will inherit your 1K status. I'm sure others will jump in to correct if I'm mistaken.

I have no idea on how likely your GPUs are to clear IAH-EZE, though I did notice that WAS-IAH-EZE has P7 on 12/28, if you have any flexibility on dates—booking P outbound confirmed business and E return in coach on 1/6, for example, would be $2625 r/t, although that doesn't help jumpstart your 1K qualification for 2017. Unfortunately I do not see P inventory for the January return.

Since it's an international segment, it won't have CPUs. So it'll only have instrument-supported upgrades and nonrevs on the waitlist. All instruments-supported upgrades go first, and the order is based by status (as symphonicman mentioned, your wife inherits your 1K status if in the same PNR), then fare class, then checkin time.

EDIT: Just to remind you, GPUs and miles-upgrades have the same priority, they are both instruments.

Oh, also, isn't the waitlist cleared by time of instrument application? Which I presume is right after fare class.

Which I guess means book early.

Since it books by fare class does anyone have a list of the the fare class hierarchy?

I usually book W but sometimes I've noticed that when looking for GPU eligable fare classes it auto booked me in a presumably higher fareclass in which case I would trump the W's or lower fareclass.

In this case, I'd be willing to pay a little more for a higher probability of upgrade.

UA provides this on their site, such as also http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...uckets-ua.html


W is #6 out of 14 present economy fares -- 8 fare classes are higher. W is commonly picked since GPUs require it, so in that cases it is the bare minimum. Bump up a fare class will put you ahead of those that booked the minimum even if they booked earlier.

Exactly what I was looking for. As always, very much appreciated!

So here's a question that just occurred to me. It's often state that mile instruments upgrade with the same priority as GPUs. That said, since you need a higher W or above fareclass to redeem a GPU doesn't it also mean that GPUs will really upgrade before someone using miles....unless they are at the same fareclass (and guessing that folks redeeming miles pick the lowest fareclass).

Is this logic sound?

Also...looking at my flight it doesn't seem like there on any economy classes about W. Is this a UA bug or something that I can inquire about with an phone agent...or is that just the way the load the system to avoid guys like me trying to jump over W class.

I'm assuming you mean "above," not "about." Provided there is a fare filed, there will always* be availability in any higher fare class if there is availability in the lower fare class. Searching for "Y, B, M, E, U, H, Q, V" will give you the lowest valid fare above a W. If you'd prefer to call, you can inform the agent that you would like to be booked in, e.g., V class.

* not counting bucket N, which isn't currently being used.

Thanks. Didn't work online. Got this response which is what I got before. Guess I will try an agent.

We are unable to process your request. Please see the message below for details. We were not able to find any available seats meeting your requirements. You may modify your search criteria, or call 1-800-UNITED-1 (1-800-864-8331) within the U.S. or Canada; elsewhere contact your local United Reservations Office.

Curious about my GPU vs miles hypothetical above.

EDIT: Actually it worked when I didn't select the use GPU option. I guess I can apply that after booking. A little wonky but I think it works this way.

First, there is no difference in GPU or Mileage based upgrade requests. There are treated identically for a waitlist priority. While mileage folks may have a lower fare class and therefore at a disadvantage to GPUs used at higher fare class, the mileage folks can select a higher fare class ( and get a lower copay).

I there is W there are higher fare classes available ... each are class inventory is a superset of the next lower fare class. There may not be fare rules for all the fare class but there is always a Y fare rule. Since UA will always offer the lowest fare that meets your needs (and generally a flexiable fare and a cabin higher), if you want a V fare when W exists, you will have to do a request in the the flight search to offer the higher fare class).

That's really helpful and good to know. I'll have to experiment with the award search engine a little bit more. I don't use it very frequently.

Given the default search engine choices and the additional fact that people (including UA phone agents or travel agents) almost universally look for the lowest priced upgradable fare it's really useful to know that you can exponentially increase your odds of the upgrade with a little more juice and that will work for both miles and GPUs. Still far less expensive than buying the tickets outright (even if you are taking some risk).

In cases like this trip, the cost of 2 business class tickets is prohibitive but i can afford to burn the GPUs and spend more cash for an much improved odds that the upgrades clear.