Probably. Or just cancel it after you get your other flight booked and ticketed. Can even be the same agent.

On the phone with another agent... pushing 10mins on the call and she has me on hold while she tries to manually add the DFW-ORG segment. Fingers crossed...

Pushing 25mins. On hold waiting for supervisor. They keep saying that in order to add the DFW-ORD leg, they have to re-price the entire thing as DFW-HND w/connection in ORD, and saver Biz is not currently available. So it would be an additional 75,000 miles to make the change.

I keep telling them I don't want a change. The seat I want to sit in on the NH flight from ORD is the same seat I'm already in.... so no change / availability needed on that. Just add the initial segment originating in DFW.

Not sounding good..

In total, spent another 50mins on the phone with UA. That's 130mins total. In the end, they were unable to add the DFW-ORD segment to the main award itin. Explanation is that the ticket is always priced from origin to destination... I had booked ORD-HND originally, and wanted to change to DFW-HND (w/connect in ORD) is a change of the origin, and therefore requires the entire thing to be re-priced. Hence the additional 75,000 miles needed to process.

I suppose they can't just add DFW-ORD as a separate segment on the main award itin due to number of flights/stopovers allowed on awards reservations.....?

I went ahead and had them refund the 25,000 miles for the separate DFW-ORD segment, and will just book the cheap revenue ticket. Supervisor told me that since I'm going to be on two different PNRs no matter what, it doesn't make any difference in terms of irrops if DFW-ORD is revenue or awards.

Not the answer I wanted, but I suppose I'll have to rely on the good graces of UA and their *A partners.

Wow. What a mess.
Unbelievable. However, this is par for the course on UA these days:td:

This change in origin is the problem. Forces a ticket re-issue. If the other flights were UA, it would not be a problem BUT some partners are problematic for an re-issue.
....
Yes, it does not matter if the first ticket is awards or paid. But UA is pretty good about this in either case if an UA flight creates the problem.

And the latest update provides additional evidence for what I suggested yesterday.

Let's not forget that several months ago, UA started enforcing married segments on awards, just like they typically do for revenue tickets. So in the past, if there was space on the single segment, they probably could have just added it (though probably would have required a ticket re-issue, though at least in theory, it could be added as a second ticket on the same reservation).

Now, if there is not space the whole way, it probably can't be done, as it would require space on DFW-HND, and not just the domestic segment.

But this is a far more pernicious change than controlling married segments at purchase, because award space is so limited that, if you have a saver award ORD-HND, it is likely that you are holding a significant portion of the saver inventory that could be available; it is unlikely there is enough for you to double up. It also invalidates the (common) strategy of securing some longhaul inventory and then waiting for connecting flights to open to be added to the itinerary.

Could this also mean that if I hold saver ORD-FRA-FCO and decide I want to spend my time in FRA instead of FCO, I can't just cancel FRA-FCO and retain the saver ORD-FRA I already have? It has to be repriced?

This would be a far bigger devaluation than the $50 change fee imposed on Plats. And it presumably applies to 1Ks as well.

I don't pretend to be an expert on fare rules, etc... but based on my lengthy conversation with the supervisor yesterday about re-pricing the entire ticket when you make a change to the "origin" or "destination", then I would say yes.... Your hypothetical award ORD-FRA-FCO, and then deciding the change your destination to FRA would be subject to re-price.

Also, I am a 1K despite what it says in my user info... so yes, it appears true to 1Ks too..

If they are truly following married segment inventory, then yes, could mean that if ORD-FRA didn't have saver, then yes, it would re-price. But I don't think that's really different then revenue bookings - the same thing could happen if you drop a segment, and only a higher fare class is available at time of change.