Booking paid Air Canada flights on United website is strange, not all are available
Nov 7, 2018, 3:07 pm
#16
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I have seen flights available for award bookings but not available for paid bookings. UA is not a generic travel agency and decides selective which non-UA flights it makes available. Additionally other airlines can place restrictions on who can sell their flights ("plating: rules). Plating does not apply to award flights.
I have seen flights available for paid bookings but not available for award bookings. Partners decide which awards seats they have and if they are available to partners / UA.
The decision process is different in each case and is made by a different airline in each case.
Nov 7, 2018, 3:17 pm
#17
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Paid flights will ONLY show United flights, United Codeshares, and potentially a very small number of other flights United has chosen to display (which for most routes will be zero).
Award flights will show ANY flight, for ANY Star Alliance or partner airline, that has seats available for AWARD bookings.
Nov 7, 2018, 3:25 pm
#18
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Try search for the specific flight on Google flight and see if you are allowed to book the flight via united.com. That's the work around.
Nov 8, 2018, 9:08 am
#19
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how will you do this? On a paid ticket? AC code all the way? The OP wants an itinerary on AC metal only with no UA segment ... if you want united.com to sell you this ... you need a UA codeshare. There used to be ways around this years ago, but I am not aware of a way to do this today.
Nov 8, 2018, 9:29 am
#20
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how will you do this? On a paid ticket? AC code all the way? The OP wants an itinerary on AC metal only with no UA segment ... if you want united.com to sell you this ... you need a UA codeshare. There used to be ways around this years ago, but I am not aware of a way to do this today.
The behavior is similar with other partners -- it's not limited to AC. If codeshares make sense in the market, that's what UA will show you; if not, they'll show you everything they have available to sell.
Nov 8, 2018, 10:55 am
#21
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It depends upon the route. On routes where no codeshares are offered -- for example, domestic Canadian routes -- you can easily book native AC codes. On routes where codeshares are available -- such as transborder routes, such as the OP's route -- you will get UA codes for flights that have them and likely will not get any results with native AC codes at all.
The behavior is similar with other partners -- it's not limited to AC. If codeshares make sense in the market, that's what UA will show you; if not, they'll show you everything they have available to sell.
The behavior is similar with other partners -- it's not limited to AC. If codeshares make sense in the market, that's what UA will show you; if not, they'll show you everything they have available to sell.
Nov 8, 2018, 11:22 am
#22
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Not all flights are codeshare. For me from BWI, if I wanted, I could probably book an AC codeshare BWI-ORD-YVR, but if I try to search United for, say, BWI-TYO, only UA and ANA options will pop up, not BWI-YYZ-HND.
Nov 8, 2018, 11:29 am
#23
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UA and AC don't have a JV for TPAC travel. Even if there happens to be a codeshare on the YYZ-HND flight, UA might not particularly want to sell it to you when there are UA/NH options available. (UA and NH do have a JV for TPAC).
Nov 8, 2018, 2:15 pm
#24
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Right. The takeaway is that UA has a codeshare if it benefits UA to have a codeshare. Nobody lands at YYZ or YVR from a UA flight with the intention of connecting to another UA flight
Nov 8, 2018, 2:27 pm
#25
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right, that certainly works, like with a number of other airlines. Transborder, TPAC, TATL I don't know of any way to buy tickets that have AC code only on 016 ticket stock. It used to work and I wish UA would bring this back ... so if anyone knows a way ... happy to hear about it.
eg, in 2 weeks I'm flying SFO to PEK via YVR return. Initially I was on all AC. Changed the first leg to UA (in this case UA metal), and our travel agents were happy to ticket it on 016. Last time I did the same thing (to HKG that time) I picked the UA codeshare/AC metal SFO-YVR flight, and was again able to ticket on 016.
This presumes that AC allows the fares you're after to be ticketed on UA, but at least for their discount business fares they do always seem to allow this.
Nov 9, 2018, 12:52 am
#26
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Of course, even United.com will sell you that. The problem we are discussing is how to book AC coded flights with only AC codes on the ticket when you are on codeshare routes ... that just doesn't work on united.com anymore and TAs will get into a lot of trouble if they do that.
Nov 9, 2018, 5:15 am
#27
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Of course, even United.com will sell you that. The problem we are discussing is how to book AC coded flights with only AC codes on the ticket when you are on codeshare routes ... that just doesn't work on united.com anymore and TAs will get into a lot of trouble if they do that.
A couple of ways to potentially solve this. One is with a google flights - search there, and it will often show the native operated flights, and allow you to book on United.com. Another is to book with the UA number online and call right away to see if they can change it to the native AC flight number. Not sure what the policy is on this currently, and haven’t tried it recently - but have had an agent do this maybe a couple of years ago on a UA-coded LH segment. You can always cancel within 24 hours if they won’t. You can also try just calling in - again, not recently but also probably a couple of years ago, I could only find the codeshare number online, so just called and booked directly through reservations who were happy to ticket on the native AC flight number. This itinerary also had a UA connection on it, so YMMV.