emcampbe

Just had the weirdest UA booking experience (actually, probably of any airline booking experience) ever, and wanting to see if anyone's experienced something like this and if I have to be concerned about something going wrong.

I'll try to be concise, but there seemed to be a lot going on. I was trying to book a trip CVG-BLR, then returning TPE-CVG, for holiday travel - 2 adults, 1 child and 1 lap infant. Obviously, I'll book the intra-Asia flight separately since its much cheaper than the full fare that UA will offer. I'm finally able to get to booking this past Friday night through UA.com (I know, bad idea already, right?). It prices pretty well, V on the outbound, and L on the way back, with one segment on LH (FRA-BLR) and one on NH (TPE-NRT). Here's how it went:

• I'm able to pick all the segments on the website, but after doing everything and clicking the purchase button, it gives me a generic error. Multiple times. Not even trying to charge my card
• I call web support, who tells me that LH won't confirm the space, which I find odd since they should be seamless and talk in real time
• I HUCA, and get another agent who tells me it has to do with some servers that communicate with partners that are offline due to the Friday night maintenance - he tells me to try again in the morning, as it'll be back online
• Try on the website Sat. morning, and get the same thing. Call reservations this time, and the agent works to put together the itinerary for me, noting that LH isn't confirming is the issue. She gets me a much better price - not sure how, and I check on the UA site and notice I'm now doing a double-connection in the US (via ORD and IAD before flying to FRA, instead of just ORD before), but given the price difference is pretty substantial, I'm not complaining. But then I notice, after I hang up, on the e-ticket when it's emailed, it's missing FRA-BLR, and there's a blank row where that flight should go. Uh Oh.
• Check my reservation online, and FRA-BLR is there - but 'waitlisted'.
• Call back, and get another agent who tells me that LH shouldn't be waitlisted, and goes to work on getting this all fixed. Also mentions the price dropped as it didn't include the waitlistsd LH segment. Given the drop, that makes sense, but I thought you typically pay for all segments, even if they aren't confirmed (even though it should be - I've already confirmed with LH at this point that the V space that it is rejecting me for is available).
• As I'm waiting on hold, I go back online and try to book it again myself. It's the same price, and it works this time. Card charges, but when I get the ticket, guess which segment is missing...yup - FRA-BLR. Seems it charged me the quoted price, but just completely dropped the LH segment
• Agent comes back on, and says she's got it working now, and gives me back the single US connection through ORD. The LH segment is now in Q. I ask about the additional charge to get the LH flight back in, and worried, of course, that it's gone higher. She says given all the issues (I'm on about hour 5 of phone calls with UA on this, now, plus all the time trying to book it online), she says both she and her lead agreed they weren't going to charge me the balance, which given what I've gone through, I still think is pretty nice. she also cancels/refunds the other booking.

Like I said, weirdest booking ever. I've checked with both LH and NH, who seem to agree everything looks normal, but now that it's been a couple of days, a bit concerned that there might be issues during travel, and hoping someone could provide some insight. For example:

• Should I be worried that LH might tell me in FRA (or at check in with UA) that my ticket isn't paid for. To me, looks ok on my ticket, flight is there. And although the listed price didn't change on the e-receipt either, it does note the form of payment was "MISC DOCUMENT", which I presume is whatever UA used to work our the payment.
• Should I be worried about any other segments? Right now, the e-receipt shows a blank gray row under the LH flight that looks like a segment should go there - concerned that maybe there's an extra coupon there not assigned to any additional flight - that somehow because the even though the outbound is now one less segment, that the coupon still exists not assigned to anything, and might cause an issue when I try to check in or board with NH on my return if they think I'm flying out of sequence.
• a different kind of potential issue: the LH flight is the one that will get me to renewing my silver status, and concerned that it won't credit because of how this was charged. Website is not showing me any RDM/PQM/PQD earned on anything. That's not totally abnormal, I know, and usually I don't worry because I've always gotten proper credit. But those were always pretty standard web or phone bookings - a bit concerned the LH flight especially will show $0 PQD, therefore earning me 0 RDM, which would mean I couldn't get PQM either. Or would it presumably still split the amount paid over all flights on the trip. Is there a way to find out what is assigned to each flight given its not showing online?

Appreciate any insight into this, or any similar experiences, or what, if this happened to you, what you would be doing to ensure that everything goes as planned (or...as much as it normally does in air travel) on the day of travel and for getting credit.

fumje

I don't—and doubt anyone does—have a really similar experience. But what I would aim to get is a new email receipt with all segments shown on the ticket. The MISC DOCUMENT is no problem, and the pre-flying PQ_ is not reliable, so I'd not worry about that either. Just reference the ticketed fare class (rbd) against the tables on UA's LH page.

Situations like these make the loss of the saudia website (geopolitics aside) really keen.

mduell

That's United's normal stupid way of showing a surface sector.

I have the same on my far less exotic MSY-IAD/DCA-IAH I just booked.

More normal stupidity, UA is unable to reliably show correct earnings in their pre-departure comms (fare search, reservation, even eticket).

Long thread on it here.

MSPeconomist

estnet

Can you go on the partners website to see if you can choose seats (not sure if possible for that code) and if they show all segments as ticketed?

mozilla

Did you get this itinerary validated on ITA and Google Flights with the LH segment in V? Was the reason you went for UA.com that it offered a lower price than every other booking engine out there?

Agree with post above, check if you can get sticking seat assignments on partners, that offers a good indication of the situation you're in.

Then, I'd call both LH and NH and check with them that everything is looking good on their end. Call them now, call them again 48-24 hours before departure of the outbound, and call NH again 48-24 hours before departure of the inbound. Not fun, but with the lack of access to the actual ticket data, it's the only thing one can do.

Indeed.

LXFlyer

Offtopic, but -- what happened to Saudia? The website still shows an eticket search option, does it just not work for 016 anymore?

cfischer

As long as the ETKT is issued you are protected. The US DOT is pretty clear about honoring purchased itineraries. If you can see the reservation on ANA and LH for all pax including the infant you are IMO fine.
Misc. document means they used the value of the prior bodged ticket to 'pay' for the correct one, that's normal. Earnings showing incorrectly is unfortunately also normal, especially after the amount of tinkering that was necessary. I would not worry too much about the IMO. As long as there is a value on the ticket this should earn in the fare classes that you listed.

mduell

DOT doesn't mention an eticket requirement in the regs.

emcampbe

Thanks everyone for your insight,. I feel a little better, and will report back after the trip.

All segments are on the ticket. So good there. I realize PQ_ isn't necessarily accurate, and has always posted as I expected - just was a bit worried with the way the pricing apparently without the LH segment initially will cause an issue.

Exactly what I was thinking.

That makes some sense, so at least one thing that I don't have to worry about.

Agreed. I didn't see this on the LH part of the record initially, so called, as I know lap infants pretty much show up (or don't) on every carrier differently. Agent didn't have the info, so I gave them the ticket number and they confirmed they could see it and had it on the record. I should probably confirm again, but seems good as of now.

First thing I did was call LH and NH to confirm. Seems good on all segments. NH gave me seats. LH wants $35/person, even for the bassinet. Stupid seating policy, IME. A Q fare, IME, shouldn't require payment for a seat on a long-haul, much less a Y fare, but think that's for another thread.

Didn't validate through ITA - do I have to?. Doesn't UA use ITA on the backend when searching, or did that change at some point?

cfischer

the OP has an ETKT issued which touches the US, thus protected by DOT rules

emcampbe

mrt88

Have a look on checkmytrip.com and see if the segments all have e-ticket numbers associated with them, then you're in the clear as that is the LH/NH back-end

emcampbe

Reporting back here with an update.

Everything went smoothly from the perspective of being able to check in, get BPs and get on the flights as booked. And mileage posted normally. There were other issues on day of travel, put out in detail in another thread probably placed very close to this one on the UA forum page, at least for the moment. But in terms of the ticket, getting on the flights booked, and even arriving on time, this itinerary went smoothly.