WineCountryUA

It is info in the GDS and there is no free access to GDS. (GDS is a industry data backbone).

However, HUCA, try a different agent. The agent was miss reading the info.

Never waste you time with an agent like that. The more you push the more they will stonewall.

jsloan

Today at SFO, the first bag hit the carousel about 45 minutes after flight arrival. I would just barely have been able to make an 80-minute connection, but 60 minutes, no way. I agree -- someone doesn't know how to read the GDS.

abhilife2001

Thank you, I will call back and update.

zitsky

I'm trying to use up my remaining points on either an economy round trip or a Premium Plus and cash flight. I'm thinking of an award flight RDU-DPS and a separate ticket for SIN-RDU. And it was suggested recently that for awards, many folks are booking one way awards? My flight is not until 12/22/24 to 1/14/25. My question is, if you see Saver Award inventory this far out, as I do, would I be stupid to wait, thinking that miles needed will go down? Example, I can get a one way in Economy on United and Singapore Airlines for about 60,000 miles. Premium Economy is 170,000.

I know if I booked now, I could get Singapore Airlines "Premium" Economy on the A350-900 around $5000 round trip. Possibly less if I wait. It was only around $3300 when looking in November 2024 versus December 2024.

WineCountryUA

Saver awards have limited variably. While it may be slightly fewer miles in the future, it is more likely not to be available. My mantra is "see Saver, book ASAP" for times you can live with, you can cancel for free if better booking shows up later.

jsloan

If you see saver availability now, book it. There are no fees for changing or canceling a MileagePlus award if you later find it for cheaper or decide a cash ticket makes more sense.

zitsky

Is there any disadvantage to having multiple tickets (PNR?). if I book only with United or a partner? Is there anything I cannot do with multiple PNRs? Any penalty for doing that?

Edit: My luggage won't end up in another country with multiple PNRs? lol

Edit 2: jsloan, I went ahead and booked Premium Plus (RDU-EWR) EWR-SFO. And when possible I'll look for return award flight in PP.

If I do find it cheaper later, do they just put the extra miles back in my account?

Thank you for this advice and all the other help.

SPN Lifer

Only if you are able to book at the lower fare. Upon cancelling the original reservation, those miles will be returned to you.

If you don't have a reserve of extra miles, you can first cancel the existing reservation. But you are taking a chance that the reduced mileage award will disappear after you do so, leaving you with nothing.

Elvasoshexai

Is there generally lot of phantom availability on UA search right now for LH/LX/OS flights or it's usually pretty accurate? Specifically those with married segment between a short-haul and long-haul (NA-Europe or Europe-Asia)

I'm using the UA search but trying to redeem via Aeroplan because AP search is not great and I'm trying to figure out the UA search results are phantom space or if AP/AC is the issue. Wasn't able to get an AP agent to successfully find availability for any of the LH/LX/OS flights that I could see on UA , even though UA search was showing X/I availability. I tried 2 agents and probably like 5-6 flights that were showing as available

The same flights & seat availability show up on LifeMiles.

I'm thinking it's probably AC/AP, but wanted to check there isn't some known issue with phantom availability for certain airlines/routes.

uporito

Haven't flown to Latin America in a while, is the United Latin Hopper open-jaws still around? Looking to fly in probably PTY then hop around any few latin american cities before flying out MGA.

jsloan

Not in that form, no. The old stopover system has been replaced by the Excursionist Perk. It will give you a free one-way flight within a single region that is not the same as the origin region, iff your reservation starts and ends in the same region. So, you could start with, say, AUS-PTY, then fly something like SJO-(PTY)-BZE, and then return with MGA-IAH-DFW. This fulfills the requirements -- AUS and DFW are both in the "Mainland US, Alaska, Canada" region, and SJO, PTY and BZE are all in the Central America region.

However, you're limited to just the flights that show up on a one-way search between each pair of endpoints -- in this example, AUS-PTY, SJO-BZE, and MGA-DFW. You can no longer call up United and "hop" by stitching together award legs with 23.5-hour stopovers between them -- if the search engine doesn't find the connection, you're SOL. And the Excursionist Perk, while in some ways more flexible than the old stopover rule, can be challenging to use in some regions because the travel has to stay entirely within a single award region -- you can't connect via a different region.

Hope this helps.

zitsky

Got it. Is there a thread about what people have booked awards for domestic PP flights? I booked 80,000 miles PP round trip per person. That seems fair. I don’t have the miles to do much else. I could try for an upgrade award but everything is waitlisted internationally.

jsloan

I'm not entirely following what you're asking, but in general, there are two downsides to having multiple tickets that jointly make up a single journey. (There are no real downsides to having two separate tickets, one being the outbound of a trip and one being the return, except that you don't get to benefit from any possible round-trip discount). The first is that you will generally need an extra step to get your bag tagged through to your destination. The second is that in the event of a delay on one ticket such that you arrive too late to make it onto the first flight of the second ticket, neither airline is obliged to rebook you, whereas if it were a single ticket, the airline that arrived late would be obligated to figure out how to get you to your destination. The major upside to having multiple tickets is that you often save lots of money or miles. In general, I'd recommend leaving a longer buffer between two separately-ticketed itineraries than you might if it were on a single ticket.

Note that if both itineraries are operated by UA, they're generally quite good about taking care of passengers even if they are on separate tickets.

oskidunker

Unable to select seats after booking a business award for Dec 29. I thought I read somewhere it may take a few days before they allow you to select seats, true? I noticed some J seats are taken on the 20th but nothing after that date except the same y seats which must be crew seats .have confirmation emails with conf numbers

boscobjgd

I've been trying to book a US-->EU-->EU long haul to short haul award ticket on LX/OS. When I click on it to book I get a pop up that the LX (long haul) flight is no longer available. Then when I search the next day or two the award doesn't show as available. Then when I search the next day or two after that it'll show as available but I get the same pop up when I try to book. This has been going on for several weeks. I was wondering if anyone knows what's going on.

Edit: meant to quote Elvasoshexai