JORBUST

Hi,

I am trying to book a ticket that has both United and EVA Airlines flights. Specifically I am wanting to fly from RDU-ORD and then ORD-TPE. I want to book this on the same ticket because the agents always give me attitude and have difficulty interlining the bags when on separate tickets, although they do eventually get it done.

Unfortunately the United and EVA websites want to route me through SFO even though both ORD and IAH are far bette options from RDU.

Is there a way to force this booking? I have tried multi-city and that kind of thing... Is this something a travel agent can do? If so, any suggestions?

JHake10

I tried to search on ITA Matrix from RDU-TPE with a connection in ORD or IAH and it also returns no results. I tried for a few days in December. Weird.

JVPhoto

Did you try Multi City on Google Flights instead of UA's site?

JORBUST

I did try multi city on google flights, thanks for the suggestion.

jsloan

TL; DR: In general, it doesn't look like this is going to be possible, but if it is, it's likely EVA who can sell it to you. It'll likely be very expensive, though.

What dates are you trying to book? EVA's (airline code BR) fare and routing information is extremely complicated, even for the airline industry, and they appear to have different valid routings published based upon the day of travel.

There are two ways that you could book this itinerary on a single ticket. You could use a through RDU-TPE fare, or you could combine two fares end-on-end (RDU-ORD+ORD-TPE). Unfortunately, even the most expensive BR ORD-TPE fare doesn't allow an end-on-end combination with a UA flight. Therefore, you're stuck with the RDU-TPE through fares. Some of the BR fares do seemingly allow UA travel; if you found one that allowed UA travel through ORD, you'd have half the battle. The other half of the battle is finding inventory on the UA flight to match the BR fare. It does not appear that BR has published the appropriate fare class mapping information to allow this in all cases. (For example, WLXOR allows UA routing through NYC, but there's no corresponding UA fare class and therefore no way to book this). Without this fare class mapping, the fare is useless, because you can't find any available inventory on which to use it.

In fact, for some reason, I can't even get ITA to price this with the IATA generic YY fares ($6375 round-trip; should be applicable to any flight/routing provided mileage restrictions are met, which they are). Your best bet would probably be a BR agent, as they would be in the best position to price this manually and see how it comes out. A knowledgeable travel agent might be able to do it as well.

I don't think it's worth the trouble, though; it's likely to be extremely expensive --it'll likely cost much more than separate tickets would. Alternatively, your only other obvious choice is to accept whatever routing BR has decided to sell you on your travel date.

Hope this helps...

shek3112

Weird... Eva is only selling B6 but not United...
maybe you can try a RDU-ORD then ORD-TPE? cost is similar to what Eva is selling (per the random dates that i checked) although you'll have to pay extra for the checked luggage for the United legs.

RobOnLI

I think because of the fare basis and lack of codesharing on UA/BR through ORD you're better off going your original route. Buy separate tickets and get the UA agent to interline the bags. It's definitely possible and it sounds like you've done it before.

Depending on the day you're flying the last RDU-ORD flight on UA arrives at 630pm. The BR flight doesn't depart until 12:20am the next day so you wind up with an almost 6 hour layover. That's plenty of time to even collect your bag in ORD and then check it in again at BR. Of course, that's potentially a bigger hassle than just getting the UA agent to interline the bag.

Or, just book the through ticket on the SFO route BR flies the same 777-300W through SFO as they do for IAH and ORD. I would take that flight over UA any day, especially if I could book it on a 016 ticket to get the RDMs. BR has a fantastic J product and service if you're flying business.

-RM

jsloan

You're extremely unlikely to be able to book that on a 016 ticket, at least at any price that you'd want to pay. BR limits its discount fares so that they can only be plated on their own stock.

Kacee

Yes it is simply not possible to plate BR flights on UA stock for anything less than full fare.

If you want to fly BR on a routing from RDU, separate tix are the way to go here.

JORBUST

Thanks for all the input. I've talked to EVA and was basically told they don't yet have agreements to sell discount tickets with United on flights from ORD/IAH like they do SFO. They can sell it but it's about 4K for Economy. Maybe someday it'll be as cheap as connecting through SFO. I'll keep doing separate tickets (we go visit family in Taiwan) as it's much more pleasant to take a 2 hour connecting flight versus 6 hours.