WineCountryUA

But it is 3.3 cpm!

JALsnipe

This award is truly starting to look like AA dynamic pricing.

Kacee

It's straight out of the DL playbook.

JALsnipe

Called back and finally got a competent agent who knew about the “last seat availability benefit” and escalated to a supervisor who spoke to ticketing. 50 minutes later, they said it was due to the limitations and capacity constraints with flights into China and that if enough revenue seats were sold on a particular flight, they were unable to offer the last seat availability benefit for awards. They also said that I was welcome to contact customer service during standard business hours tomorrow to voice any concerns with this.

Not sure I _really_ buy this answer, but at least it's something. Any 1K or GS members impacted by this should probably email 1KVoice and the GS email to voice frustrations.

Also while on the phone, I had reached out to UA chat for another data point. This agent was equally as useless as the first one I had on from the 1K desk.

WineCountryUA

It would not surprise me UA has placed special restrictions on UA857 that lead to the lack of last seat standard award availability. Folks have reported booking awards on the flight but there may be a point UA closes award bookings. Doubtful this was accidental or unintended, so complaining may not be fruitful.

moondog

The only possible explanation I can think of is that they are trying to protect themselves in the event they land in the penalty box (again). In such cases, they either have to cancel flights or drop the 70% cap to 25%. However, even if this is the case, it should make no difference to them whether they receive $20k or 600k miles. If anyone actually wants to redeem that award, I'm pretty sure they could push it through.

JALsnipe

I would be very curious if a GS member could get space opened up on these flights.

moondog

Anyone should be able to get space opened as long as the "last seat guarantee" remains unambiguous.

JALsnipe

I tried (as a 1K) as an investigation for this thread. The agent and supervisor would not budge. They said they cannot honor that benefit on this route due to the restrictions mentioned.

moondog

Did you have 600k miles in your account that you were prepared to set on fire? Did you mention that the policy makes no mention of exceptions?

JALsnipe

I had enough for economy, sadly not rolling in miles like I used to for a 600k J ticket.

The agent mentioned that the page on last seat availability says: “Awards have limited availability and are subject to capacity controls.”

I didn’t push harder since she seemed to want to push me to customer service for any further answers. I tried, maybe you will have better luck.

moondog

Thanks, but as long as US-China fares remain at current levels, I plan on taking a Thailand detour on my next trip back (I've already talked with the consulate there about how to get a green code from them).

kb1992

This is new. I also noticed.

UA has inflated SFO-PVG redemption rate to 250K in Y, 400K in Premium Y, and 600K in J.

But not offering any award inventory? Never seen that before.

75% cap, actually for all inbound flights to China, imposed by CAAC.

DL has been the devil of all. UA just copied all FF unfriendly policies from DL.

Mileage earning based on PQD, elite qualification based on dollars, removing award charts, etc.

I called GS desk two months ago about this. I was told: last seat benefit is not applicable on UA 857.

Not sure if any complaint would go anywhere.

This is exactly what happened.

blug

I messaged them on Messenger just before my SIN-NRT flight took off. Now I'm at NRT and they haven't replied yet.

True, but UA has been charging 250K miles for YN on this route, a decent deal - almost 3cpm, until they zeroed out YN.

This sounds like made up. If "enough revenue seats were sold", then it would be Y0. If they are selling Y, that counts as a seat, and per last seat availability benefit, one should be able to purchase that same seat with miles.

And they've also zeroed out YN, ON and JN on UA858, which has no capacity constraints, until Oct 1st.

ysu92

This is the part I got frustrated with UA as UA 858 has no capacity constraints, not subjective to any Covid related cancellation policy, and it’s operating normally for the past two years. But still, they introduced blackout dates to the peak summer season. I reached out to 1K voice but they referred me to the terms and conditions where UA can add blackout dates at any time…

Another issue I see is that UA can now just cancel the existing award reservations when there are schedule changes or cancellations as they will need YN to rebook people, but it has been zeroed out.

Anyhow, I would be more okay if they issue a memo say we temporarily suspend the award redemption feature for certain flights (like SIA did when they suspended partners award booking), instead of playing the terms and conditions in the exception.

I see this is a move towards programs like ANA and SIA and the revenue can use this as an experiment for other peak seasons and flights with high demands. After all, they zeroed out award spaces as the cash prices are high.