cheaptom

Glad that Lufthansa worked out for you. Also keep Singapore Airlines in mind, just in case. I had a great experience with them going to India and back.

MrAlex

Looking for a business award TXL-EWR for December 28, I found available space on the direct flight operated by UA for 45k / 100k miles. What kind of award is this?
I can't find these sums in any award table. For the flight back in January, the United page shows the sums of 30k / 60k for the savers and 70k / 155k for the Everyday awards as I expected.

jsloan

Those are both everyday awards. 45K is an everyday economy award, and 100K is an everyday business award.

UA's new dynamic pricing for everyday awards means that the values in that table are maxima -- the everyday award can be anything up to what they've published, but not any higher. In this case, UA has decided to offer a discount from the full price for the everyday award, but has not decided to open saver seats.

Hope this helps.

SeeBuyFly

I have very little experience booking UA awards. However, we now have award seats on Aer Lingus to EDI (via DUB, of course) in July; but would like to get on the nonstop ORD-EDI. I know it will cost $100/person to make changes; my question is, is ORD-EDI on UA likely to ever become available for 30K in Y or 60K in J? Does UA commonly make more award seats available at the last minute, or is there no realistic chance on this narrowbody flight? I can set AwardNexus to monitor it, but they're not cheap, so I thought I would ask if hoping for anything to open up is a waste of time based on the general experience of people who do fly UA. Many thanks!

mahasamatman

It can happen at any time, whenever Inventory Management determines that it makes sense taking into account current and anticipated future bookings.

chermorg

I've booked myself a long connection at IAH for a cheaper fare on a ticket - I get into IAH around 1150 and my current ticketed flight leaves at 7-8 PM or so. Couple questions here:

If I check a bag, will UA tag it all the way through? Or will I have to pick it up and recheck in IAH? This is all UA/UX operated and there is no overnight (to make clear).

If I SDC beforehand to the later flight leaving my outstation around 4 PM (which is my hope), there won't be any issues if I claimed I was checking a bag at check in at 11 AM the day before, right?

Lastly, if I end up having to take the 11 AM flight out of my outstation, and I want to check a bag, will that cause issues if I want to try and catch an earlier connecting flight (as per my understanding once I get to IAH an earlier onward connecting flight would be free to change to)?

jsloan

1. UA will check the bag all the way through.
2. There won't be any issues, although there's no particular reason to check the bag in online if you're concerned.
3. Once you arrive at IAH, any flight you want to change to must depart at least one hour after your request, in order to give them time to move the bag.

In practice, some agents may refuse to help you, citing the checked bag. Others may do so, but then your bag may not make it on the earlier flight (that happened to me).

chermorg

Thank you It's as I expected, but I wanted to confirm I wasn't crazy. Otherwise, UA may have preferred me fill out their United Club survey after spending 8+ hours consuming their alcohol in the clubs :P

JMBResona

I'm looking to book a quick mileage run IAD-NRT-HKG and back. I've so far found this fare:
https://www.kayak.com/flights/IAD-HK...t=bestflight_a
for $694 on Kayak, but I've been unsuccessful replicating it on ita matrix/united.com.

As far as I can tell, outbound seems to be on L fare, and the return seems to be on the K fare.
What I can't figure out is whether it'll be a 016- ticket, or purely an NH ticket.

Even if it's on NH, am I correct to assume that I'll still earn 100% PQM?

Will there be any issues from booking this via Kayak vs. United.com?

Thanks for the help!

WineCountryUA

As long as the same day, single ticket and not overnight, you should be fine.
Long layover/connection check through baggage question (consolidated)

Noting a bag will be checked when doing OLCI is a meaningless action -- it does nothing and changes nothing. Either, saying you will or will not does not impact anything. It is just a gateway to explaining what the fees will be to set expectations.

Doing SDC with a checked bag can be difficult. You will not be able to do SDC online or with the app, you will have to get an airport agent to do it and generally, they want an hour or more before the scheduled departure or the desired departure to allow time to re-route bags. Some will just say no.

WineCountryUA

Kayak will book this on ANA/NH ticket stock to get the lower price. The all UA codeshare will be booked on UA ticket stock, at the higher price.

The PQM will be the same wither way and should be 100%

jsloan

PQM is independent of ticketing stock. You will not earn PQD on partner flights on non-016 tickets, but you'll earn PQM based on the operating airline in either case.

If you book via Kayak, you'll be expected to use Kayak for any changes, which they will then charge for atop the United fees. United may agree to take control of the ticket, but they may charge you for that.

As far as why you're not seeing it on Matrix -- there are two reasons. One -- the fare doesn't validate; here's the minimum stay rule:

I have never seen the term "TURNAROUND" on a fare rule before, but given the context, it appears that it would carry the same meaning as "last stopover," which is to say HKG. You're departing HKG less than 12 hours after arriving, so this fare is not valid for your flight, which is why Matrix won't find it. If you select a later departure from HKG, you will see the fares -- LLW2WEM1 on the outbound and KLX2WEM1 on the return -- but the price is different.

The Kayak one also has a lower change penalty and is refundable (!) for a $120 fee if requested in advance (plus $100 to Kayak). The one from Matrix / ExpertFlyer is a standard non-refundable, $300 change fee ticket. In short, this is some kind of private Kayak fare, so even if you select valid flights on United.com, you won't get this fare to come up.

If you decide to buy the ticket, please save the fare rules locally before ticketing, just in case there are any issues later.

JMBResona

Thanks for the help! Is there a reason why I'm not seeing this price anywhere else, and should I be worried that it's only on Kayak and Vayama?

Kacee

Yeah it may be a bulk fare.

Do you use google flights? That's my preferred search tool. It has the click-through to book on UA.

jsloan

I think my reply may have been missed: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/29574775-post443.html . It appears to be a private Kayak fare, and I'd be extremely surprised if it would come up at that price on United.com. I tried Google Flights just now, and the price doesn't appear there either.