What about my request is "impossible"?
 

(I usually am skeptical when people post with expressions in "quotations." But now I will be guilty of it....

I called UA with an existing PNR, US-South America - US. I wanted to price out how it would affect the ticket if we added an intra-South American flight on a non-partner carrier. I can buy the ticket separately. But I thought that even with the change fee, the cost of that one flight absorbed into my larger itinerary would have me come out a few dollars ahead.

As soon as I mentioned my request, the agent simply said, "impossible."

I asked what part is impossible. She said:

1) You can't take an existing ticket and add a non-partner carrier to it.

2) UA can't even ticket ANY flight on a non-partner carrier.

I asked her to humor me... I said, "'let's just price it out." She priced it out, and it was very expensive.

"So it's not impossible," I said. "It's just very expensive."

But she told me it was not legal to sell the ticket.

I suggested that rather coming from a place of "no," she might want to come from a place of, "let's see what we might be able to do."

Mind you, she is the professional, and I just play one on TV.

From that standpoint, any ticket or combination of tickets is possible because you can just string together a batch of Y fares, trains, buses, taxis, ferries, bicycles, swimming, and walking. But you may be the only person in the world who would consider this a valid itinerary and complain that an agent wouldn't do it.

Well, maybe that is a phone agent rule, but it can't be true across the board unless they changed something recently. I have purchased 016 tickets though united.com for itineraries on partner carriers that have had no UA flights, code-share or otherwise. (This was for PQD purposes of course).

Examples:

ZRH-MAK on LX (operated by WK). No UA flight number. No other flights on itinerary.
LIM-CUZ on AV (operated by TA). No UA flight number. No other flights on itinerary.

Re #2, I've been able to get AA and DL to price out on the website.

I highly doubt it, though you're probably using a different definition of 'partner'.

If you're talking about 'alliance partner', then yes, absolutely, any airline (including UA) can sell/ticket with flights on airlines that aren't alliance partners, or even partners where you can earn miles. In fact, right now, I've got a UA ticket with a segment on CX. I could have flown the first segment on NH via NRT connecting to UA, but UA showed the CX flight to HKG connecting to UA first since it was cheaper. By ~$400 if I remember correctly. x 2 of us, just not worth it to take NH.

However, there are also interline partners, which allows airlines to sell flights on carriers that they don't generally partner with. In most cases, the interline agreement will allow an airline to sell a ticket with segments on the interline partner carrier, and also include an agreement on being able to through-check bags.

DL, AA, UA, or any other carrier, can't sell a ticket on a carrier they don't have an interline agreement with, so that is a different kind of partnership. But almost certainly, the situations above involved flights with interline partners. For the record, my wife once flew a UA-ticket with a segment on DL - this wasn't a result of IRROPS - was booked this way. TAs can book tickets these ways, too, and not that uncommon, I don't think.

As it relates to the OP, when the agent said they can't ticket on a non-partner airline, they were probably referring to interline partner. Perhaps the agent didn't realize there was an interline partner for what the OP was looking for. But the statement itself isn't untrue.

That's the place in the conversation where you say "thank you" then hang up.

I'm not sure trying to change your existing itinerary in the way you want is going to be worth the effort. Perhaps if you were starting fresh you could book it via Google Flights or a travel agent.

With a non-partner, perhaps a flight to an airport where UA does not have a filed fare, you will likely be getting into a IATA YY fare which typically ridiculously expense when combined with a normal ticket.

Additionally UA needs an (interlining) agreement with the unnamed carrier to sell their tickets.

A recent example to a not fare filed city, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...cting-yqq.html (and that was an AC flight).

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Likewise, this is one of my pet peeves (not only with airlines but many other type of customer service interactions) - I don't expect everyone to say "yes" to everything I ask about but just once I'd like to hear someone say what they CAN DO instead of reacting so quickly and thinking how "wrong" I am. Maybe I do want to spend a fortune - how about that concept ? Don't understand why any agents answer this way - meaning a cut/dry, black/white answer with no explanation or even an ounce of understanding. In other words you should not have to pull it out of anyone.
Having worked also in reservations, I certainly would have

1. LISTENED to what you want to do, appropriate questions, etc.

2. Answered clearly with explanation. In this case it sounds like you were obviously already ticketed on the original reservation and wanted to ADD to it. Simple, easy and reasonable request. I would not have just blurted out "impossible".

3. My answer would have been - "I see what you want to do. You actually can do it but since you have already been ticketed, it would necessitate re-ticketing or reissue/ repricing to add in anymore segments. I'll reprice, though it's pretty likely it will be very high. You can then decide if you want to add the flights (or apply for a loan)."

How much nicer that sounds, (with a little humor) right ?

In this case, I do. It's called the Polar Vortex. Call centers have got to be getting slammed at the moment. A quick, faster answer is better for almost everyone - especially the people on hold waiting to talk to an agent...

Methinks you are possibly confusing incompetence with (in)efficiency.

Weather happens a lot, especially at SFO due to the runway situation - they should be able to handle it by now. And, I (and I'm sure others) can relate tales of the "I" word being used inappropriately, if not irrationally.

Clearly something has changed in this regard over the past couple of years. One used to be able to buy many short-hop flights on non-partners via UA's website, as a choice given when buying an award ticket. The pricing was often close to the lowest fare available in many (not all) cases, likely situations where there wasn't much (if any) "spread" in ticket price between various fare buckets. LIM-CUS was one of these, and two years ago, that's exactly what I did. I purchased paid tickets via the award process, and price paid was literally within a dollar of two of what I could buy those tickets directly from the operating carrier for.

At some point, whether something is "impossible" or simply no longer policy to do may be a distinction without a difference. If I, as a retail bicycle shop, will only replace tubes that have been damaged, not repair them, that doesn't mean I cannot repair them. But it is impossible for the customer to change my mind over what I will do. Of course, I will be able to easily explain to the customer why I don't actually repair (patch) tubes. Nevertheless I get a few people upset by this, but despite the idea that "the customer is always right" it won't change policy.