findark

Chance? Yes. Likely? Hard to tell. Think of inventory as a function where there is a "target" number of seats sold at a given number of days in advance for a flight. The difference between the target function and the actual flight load determines how far down the ladder inventory is available.

Now, RM definitely adds noise to this target function on purpose. They wiggle it around, opening and closing inventory like dangling a fish hook, to see who bites and how fast. So, it's anyone's guess but if you think the flight is underbooked and will continue to be, then XN will come back.


If you are (a) definitely going to make this trip at any cost, and (b) have to pay a change fee for awards, then you should book the existing XN segment now, and book the return at your leisure, subject to the fact that YN prices go up on November 1.

emcampbe

Not "at any cost", but kind of looking to unload miles since we're trying to save a bit right now, and I'm not going to hit my current status again anyway, so holding off until next year's flights for revenue. It's not necessarily getting the best cents/mile ever, but I already know that.

I suppose my best option on the return is to wait it out and see if the saver award comes back in the next couple of days (or saver business opens again). I assume booking a standard on the return now - assuming the flight isn't sold out, should always be available to me (both Gold and UA cardholder), but given it takes up 3 additional seats on the plane, even at a higher level, might reduce the chances that saver will return (of course, given no other movement on bookings - obviously, whatever happens there will happen).

Aside from two change fees if we need to change, which I don't anticipate, no down side to booking separately, correct? I think I might hang on and see if the return comes back in the next week - if it doesn't, assuming the flight doesn't sell out, I can book it on Oct. 31, and then check the next morning to see what the 'everyday' rate is, and make a change within 24 hours if it is advantageous. Does that make the most sense?

Kacee

This has happened to me several times and it's incredibly frustrating. IME when it reflects updated inventory assessments (and that's most of the time), it probably won't return. If it's just RM playing games (which definitely occurs) it probably will return. Very roughly 75-25 against.

findark

Correct - hence my "at any cost" statement. Namely, you would rather pay 37.5k miles or whatever else could go wrong on the other segment than try to cancel the booked one. In that case, no downside to two one-ways.

Correct. You can book YN as long as there is anything left on the flight, and do so on 31-Oct. Then you keep or drop the booking when we see what happens on 1-Nov. My biggest caution is that a very likely event on 1-Nov is "nobody can book any awards because the computer crashed"

emcampbe

Thanks for the input everyone. Just wanted to follow-up on my story.

So, the XN space finally returned today...checked early this afternoon and it was back. I was a bit surprised it didn't come back earlier given the available seats on the map hadn't changed at all. Also, saver business came back, as well, which I was considering. I was going to just go ahead and book it - after all, since I'm not going to make it to gold with the trips I have left this year, thought it was better to use miles when I knew I wouldn't need revenue miles to qualify. However, along with the award space, G fares also appeared (lowest I'd seen earlier was T). Not particularly keen to spend the $, however, with taxes out of Canada high (on our tickets, would've been ~$50/person), decided to go ahead and book it as revenue - who wants to use miles when they end up being worth <$.01 compared to the fare.

Edit to add: checked again this morning, and space - both G fare and XN, is gone again. Glad I checked like 3 times a day to find the G fare.

TravisSC

I'm trying to book an RAR to LAX for Sept 7 2018 on NZ 18 with UA miles and the story I'm being told is that even though the UA website shows tons of award space there is actually none. I understand from older threads that the business space Air New Zealand releases is very limited but has anyone had experience with this flight and economy space? Seems like phantom award space but it's showing decent availability through the whole year when I check so I'm not sure what's real and what's not. I'm happy to wait a little bit and try again but I thought T-330 was the first 'release' date.

WineCountryUA

Limited to non-existent
Award travel to Fiji or Tahiti using MileagePlus Miles?
That was the pattern years ago but now the airlines are much more nuanced on there release patterns -- making more use of historical data to determine if paid sales will leave space for award seats. Also, airlines are continuously looking at sales and adjusting award availability based on sale patterns.

jsloan

Check Aeroplan and/or ANA -- both allow you to sign up and do searches without having any miles in your account, and are among the easiest to navigate. If they all agree that there's space, it's possible that it's a glitch on UA's side and that you can get it resolved by calling. If you don't see the space on those sites, it's almost certainly phantom.

emcampbe

Alright...looking for some further advice on what the potential is to have space open for pre-holiday travel at saver rates.

Looking to get from CVG-SFO (or SJC) for 3. Ideally, would like to go between Dec. 20 and 23. I'm lookigng to go award, since I'm going to miss making gold (by quite a bit) anyway, so now is a good time to use miles when I know earning them won't help me as much.

In a perfect world, I was hoping their might be saver availability in F via EWR and a lie flat - even with the higher pricing with the Nov. 1 change, thought it might be a nice holiday present. I'm not seeing much in the way of any saver availability at all after the 18th, even on the non-stop or other connections (there are a handful of options on the 20th, but they all involve double/painfully long layovers). Was thinking perhaps with lower biz travel just before the holidays, there might be premium seats to snag, particularly on the Saturday. I can find F (or economy) saver on the non-stop on the 18th, but nothing after that.

Any chance that there will be additional saver F come available a little closer to Dec - on PS or otherwise, or even in Y. Obviously I don't want to wait too long where there's not even everyday awards to book into., and I thought with a ton of holiday traffic, F might actually be easier to find than Y, but not so far. Any adice on what you would try and do (I'm currently gold, so can buy an award and change, but that still involves a decent fee, o would obviously prefer to avoid that).

Kylebrewington

Im completing a round the world trip in December-January. My last stop is in Rio, Brazil and I do not have a flight back to the United States yet. I didn't realize November 1 that saver awards for economy went up from 60K to 70K. There is no saver award available so I have a couple questions which I know are completely speculation.

1.) What are the chances (again, I understand speculation) that saver economy will open between now and early January?
2.) Should I risk it and wait to see if Saver opens up?
3.) Can I book the 70k economy ticket and if business saver opens up at 60k can I switch to that? Stupid to pay 10k more for economy if business opens up at saver.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I guess it helps to disclose that I am premier Silver and I also have the United Mileage Plus credit card.

WineCountryUA

No one here can give you any meanful information -- it may, it may not. Depends on many factors that are not publically available. You will just have to watch availability.
What are your other options?
How flexible can you be?
Yes, well worth doing (but can not waitlist for saver award if booked for Everyday/standard award)
Consolidated "Waitlist for Award Seats Questions/Issues"

Kylebrewington

I don't have any other options. Im limited to using an award ticket. I would prefer to use as little as possible in economy but if I'm going to be putting up 70k for economy I'd prefer to be in business haha. I can be flexible for a couple days but not too much.

Taoyuan

Looking to pick up some advice here on Australia/NZ bookings during the peak time (Dec, Jan, Feb):

My family (3 of us) had been scheduled to go this March, as some saver seats opened up. Unfortunately, life has gotten in the way and we need to cancel. We are looking to go during Dec 2018 or Jan 2019, or otherwise Feb 2019/March 2019, and are flexible with dates.

I'm just trying to get a feel for how difficult this is going to be. 2 of us need to book from HNL, which seemed more difficult when I was monitoring for this coming March, since the only carrier that seems to actually release advance I inventory out of HNL is OZ. Seemed like once you could get out of HNL, there were several options with decent availability generally: ICN-SYD, or some connection to BKK and then BKK-Australia.

I know NZ availability is not always great -- any predictions on trans-Tasman/domestic availability during peak time when looking at the start of the release window?

And if these awards are actually getting grabbed at the window (as in need to book the one-way when it opens), then I guess that would throw out the Excursionist Perk anyways.

I feel like I may be worrying about it too much, but would appreciate advice from anyone with some experience with these locations/times. All that planning for my trip and now back at square one

flyerby

Don’t throw it yet. 2 one way tickets are also eligible for an Excursionist Perk. You may need an agent to patch things up.

findark

As a general note, demand for ANZ drops off significantly over the course of February, so you will likely have better odds if you wait.