hughw

I've been trying to find a dozen Saver Y RT's from New York and Boston to Paris for a family trip next summer. With some luck, perseverance, and ingenuity, I've successfully ticketed everyone, although not in all cases with ideal flights. For instance, to return from Paris, some of us will have take the high speed train to London and then Are Lingus flights departing LHR with a connection in Dublin. That said, having spent a couple of days trying every possible combination of search that might work, I've discovered a few more website anomalies:

The first is that a BOS-CDG search shows less than ideal times for the BOS-EWR segment (7 hour plus connection time), even though there’s a better flight that shows up as a Saver when searching just BOS-EWR but doesn’t show when searching BOS-CDG. I spoke to an agent who said that since it was a flight that’s listed as "Exclusively available to you as a MileagePlus Premier® member and MileagePlus Chase Cardmember’, it can't combine with the EWR-CDG segment as a Saver award BOS-CDG even though I'm a Premier member…..that makes no sense to me. Should I ask web-support if they can do it?

The second is that when I did a RT multi-city search BOS-CDG and LON-BOS, a total of 26 flights and flight combinations show for LON-BOS with about six Y Saver, mostly Aer Lingus. But, if I search simply LON-BUS, about 196 flights show with about 24 Y Saver. So I booked the trip as two one-ways rather than as multi-city RT. But weird behavior for the website, and if someone is not as crazy as some of us are, they would be disappointed in not finding what they want.

Lastly, when I try to view one of the trips under “My Trips” on the UA website, it doesn’t show the last segment of the trip, DUB-BOS, although the segment does show on both the E-Ticket receipt and on Aer Lingus’s website when accessed with their confirmation number. I spoke with an agent...she said it doesn’t show on the UA website trip page because it hasn’t been confirmed by Aer Lingus. That seems unlikely if it’s on the receipt and on Aer Lingus’s website. Would it be advisable to talk to web support about this, or leave well enough alone as I’ll eventually be getting boarding passes from Aer Lingus?

jsloan

There's no point reaching out to web support for this, although you're right that the explanation makes no sense. The real explanation is "not all possible combinations appear on the website, and we're no longer supposed to hook individual flights together to make one award." So, basically, if it doesn't show up when you search BOS-CDG, it's not likely to be available without extra miles. Web support is great when the regular call center can't see the same results that you see online, but they're not going to be able to help with something that you can't see online.

Kacee

One possible workaround is to book EWR-CDG, then call and see if they will add the BOS-EWR segment. This requires an agent who (i) knows how to do it, and (ii) is willing to bend the rules.

sexykitten7

The "dropped" segment shouldn't be a huge deal since it's last on your PNR. Just make sure EI has your reservation and ticket synced.

This is technically correct but I'd say it's a fool's errand. I'd guestimate the number of HUCAs needed to be between 5 and 20. Is OP willing to try???

As an aside, I wish we had a statistics database for these types of calls. E.g. waiving chg fees, booking awards, PCing credit cards, etc. I usually give up after 3 tries. My record was 10 to book a Marriott FN package last year!

Edit: As an academic point, it would be interesting to know whether 1) United does not intend to sell the good saver itinerary or 2) if it's a website glitch. My money is on 1 since I've shown that award fares mirror revenue fares so presumably all the cheap seats (and saver awards) are gone. What is the $ difference between the short and long cnx?

jsloan

Award fares mirror revenue fares somewhat because saver award seats are only available if all revenue fare classes are also available.

In this situation, the fare difference would almost certainly be zero. Barring some unusual fare restrictions, any fare that's available on the longer connection would also be available on the shorter connection.

UA's software just returns the first 200 search results it receives. I'm not sure they've really put that much of an effort into selecting which ones appear. The reason that they disallow piecing awards together is almost certainly that they were losing money on some of the routings people were putting together. Unfortunately, sometimes entirely reasonable award redemptions get caught in the crossfire, so to speak.

sexykitten7

I'm not sure why you think there wouldn't be different availability. For example, a 3 hour connect might have G space when a 1 hour connect does not. I think this scenario is fairly common right?

jsloan

Ah, OK, I see where you're coming from.

Yes, it's possible that this could be a married inventory issue, where they're not offering the lower fare class on the shorter connection. I forgot that they're using married inventory for award flights. There must be XN space on the BOS-EWR flight that OP wanted, but you're right; it's not necessarily true that there's XN space on the BOS-EWR-CDG route, even though it exists on both individual flights.

If OP were to post the flight information, we could find out.

Kacee

There are quite a few reports of success using this method. In fact, some now claim regular success getting agents to piece together an itinerary. So no, it's not guaranteed, but what's the harm in trying if that's the itinerary you really want? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

hughw

Flights are on July 3. Shorter connection (2h 37m) is #1551 BOS-EWR connecting to #57 EWR-CDG. Both are XN9 X0. Longer connection (5h 50m) is flight #2394 which is XN9 X9.

jsloan

So, it seems sexykitten7 was mostly correct.

The inventory is actually really strange here. If I do an award search, I see a saver award for the long connection with UA2394/UA57. However, when I look at expert mode, that flight combination is actually XN0 X0. I do not see saver space on UA1551/UA57, which also has married inventory of XN0 X0. (Both have wide-open inventory all the way down to K, though, so the cash price for the two flights would actually be the same).

So, it seems that UA is applied married segment logic only on the shorter connection. The only thing I can think is that there's a defect in their married inventory code and it's using North American rules instead of international rules; since the connection is greater than 4 hours, it's searching inventory for each segment individually. This is pure speculation, but it's the only thing I can think of that makes sense. The individual legs all have XN inventory, but neither flight combination does.

findark

Very possible -- on domestic itineraries it will definitely use the 24h00 connection rule (as allowed for all awards) but break the inventory at the transfer point if the connection is more than 4h00. This leads to some city pairs with punitive marrying rules displaying disproportionately long award options.

sexykitten7

Well that's (good) news to me! I'm all in favor of OP trying and even encouraged them. We'll have to see whose HUCA estimate was closer

(And as a churner I must add the caveat that reconning too many times can result in shutdown of your existing accounts.)

Kacee

hughw is a veteran of waitlisting awards, which can easily take 4 or 5 calls to accomplish, so suspect the prospect of HUACA is not that daunting. (And I'm not making any estimates or predictions, just noting that others have reported success )

sexykitten7

You mean Plan B? I almost always have luck on the first try. I'm put my avg HUCA at 1.2 calls! See this should be a thing!

hughw

Yeah..As a PMCO flyer, I'm an old hand with what we called Plan B and actually quoted in part of the Wiki for the consolidated waitlist thread. And my phone calls to waitlist no longer require HUCA. Either I'm lucky and get someone who knows what they're doing, I get referred to a supervisor, or I'm able to educate the agent regarding the process..So. I'll take another shot at calling an agent and see what they can do.

But there are still incredible mysteries regarding the waitlist PR list, and also the Saver inventory....Per my previous post, it's incredible that a search shows vastly different flights and saver inventory when searching for a one way award vs. a RT award, with the One Way award in one case having about 5X the Saver inventory.