MarcusBWI

Hey folks,

I used United points to book a business class Air Canada flight MEL - YVR - SFO. When I booked, MEL - YVR was available in business, but YVR - SFO was coach.

Now, my YVR - SFO flight has availability in business. Am I able to contact either United or Air Canada to get bumped up to business, since that's the class I paid for initially?

Thanks!

jsloan

Maybe, but don't use the word "upgrade," and understand that UA considers this a change and will charge you accordingly.

(It's possible that the agent will tell you that this can only be done if there is still business class space on MEL-YVR).

MSPeconomist

There's space and there's award space (availability). They're not the same.

WineCountryUA

While UA has a process for this if UA operated flights, Consolidated "Waitlist for Award Seats Questions/Issues", partner flights are considered an award change regardless of what you paid in mileage. In this case, while there may be no new mileage need, a new ticket needs to be issued if I space has opened for the economy segment and it most likely will be required the other confirmed segments need to be re-booked requiring new I space availability. This like a paid ticket, you will pay today's price for everything. While you might think you can just change one segment but that's not how it generally works.

In the past, UA allowed single segment changes and in most cases, it worked but a number of times it did not,
as the partner did not honor the other segments and the entire ticket was lost. There are agents that may be able to manipulate the system to make this work but the general answer is no. For short a short segment, I would not bother.

BTW, only UA can make the change as UA purchased the economy segment and the partner will want a higher payment.

MarcusBWI

Thanks for the info and advice, all!

May be a dumb question, but they changed the schedule of the flight 5 minutes on departure and 2 minutes on arrival--no way that's enough to get the fee waived, I imagine?

WineCountryUA

You would have to claim the new flight times don't work and change to a different flight -- changing cabins not. But before focusing on the fee, the real issue is of any agent will try to make the change at all.

arttravel

How would that argument work if you wanted to be on the same itinerary but a different class?

in general a 5 minute difference is not significant enough for a fee waiver.

MSPeconomist

It would only make a difference if MCT is now violated.

jsloan

And if MCT were violated, OP couldn't get into the front cabin on the current flight, anyway. They'd need to change to a later flight in order to make a valid transfer.

MarcusBWI

Ok, thanks very much for all the information!

MSPeconomist

Of course, but then the change fee would be waived even if the actual schedule change was very small, such as five minutes.