135pilot

So I booked a ticket in March for a September departure for roughly 3000 USD on ARN-fra-hkg-sin-zrh-arn through united in first class. Lufthansa flew the first legs, Singapore a380 for the hkg-sin segment and swiss the remainder. I was willing to shell out the money as it seemed like a great opportunity to try out the different products offered.

I recently called ua customer service as my ticket is through them to see what my options are regarding the multiple waivers that apply to my ticket. I gave the PNR to the csa who said there were several modifications to my flight i needed to accept which I refused. After telling the csa multiple times I didn't accept the changes and she shouldn't make any modifications to my booking, I eventually ended the call to HUCA. After that call I figured I would try to get a better agent the next day. I later checked my PNRto find that the agent had deleted my hkg-sin leg which can no longer be rebooked as it can't be ticketed in any class on SQ and she accepted a downgrade to j for the fra-hkg leg. So far customer service has been very resistant to offering me anything even though I am not at fault for any of this screw-up. End result is sin-hkg can't be ticketed on SQ first anymore for less that an additional 9000 usd which I'm absolutely not going to pay.

I would love to hear any and all advice on what your experiences have been or advice for me in my situation! The ticket is very complex and united could just give me a refund which I don't want. Should I file a dot claim.or something else?

WineCountryUA

TO be able to help, we will need to understand
1) What was the issue with the ticket -- what were the modifications the agent said needed to be accepted, and why did they occur?
2) what were the changes you were contemplating?

Sound like the ticket may have no longer have been valid due to ?? changes, cancellations, ... ???

There are certain types of "illegal" tickets, that UA will auto-accept / changes if you do not address.

However, without more background, it will be hard to help. The ticket complexity is likely to matter.
Complaining to the DOT if you had a non-valid ticket (due to schedule changes) will go nowhere.

135pilot

1. The flight schedule had changed slightly, specifically some few minute changes on the fra-hkg and sin-zrh leg. Arn-fra and zrh-arn schedules had been consolidated and I had been moved to a different flight that was roughly two hours later than I previously booked. Its my understanding there was no change in the singapore leg at all.

2. The reason I didnt want to accept the changes is that the schedule had more than 2 hours change which if I chose to not accept could enable me to get a refund. I was contemplating moving the ticket as it was in September and I was hoping to move it to january if the option was available.

The UA website when I logged it wanted me to accept changes which I never did so I had the opportunity to get a refund if necessary.

WineCountryUA

(Your or UA) Accepting the change has zero impact on the ability to request a refund or ability to modify the itin based on the schedule change.

135pilot

Understood. I appreciate the info and will keep that in mind in the future.

jsloan

There's essentially zero chance of this happening without paying a gigantic difference in fare.

UA is acting as your travel agent (not sure why you'd buy this ticket from UA, but that's neither here nor there). Their policies don't actually apply; although you have a 016 ticket, you don't have a UA fare. (UA doesn't sell F fares). So, you're governed by whatever policies LH or LX might have in place, as those are the fares. But, even if they allowed you to change the date without paying a fare difference, SQ wouldn't necessarily be party to that; it's likely that any re-accommodation under an LH/LX policy would only include travel on LH-group carriers. So, moving the ticket to January, with the current carriers, almost certainly means paying the fare difference.

If your ticket is currently in a bad state -- don't trust UA on that; check with LH, LX, and SQ -- then you should be able to get UA to fix it. $3K sounds like a deep discount A fare; they tend to run them from Scandinavia every now and then. So, I don't think it's any kind of mistake fare, and I don't think UA is going to cancel it for cause. In theory, UA should be able to book into positive space inventory (any seat, ignoring fare differences) on a partner airline, for a mistake that was on their end. However, there has to be at least one seat available to make it work; SQ isn't going to oversell the flight to accommodate you, even if you had a confirmed ticket in the past.

My suggestion would be:
(a) find replacement flights that work for you, with availability (but see caveat below)
(b) call UA and ask for them, and
(c) be prepared to conference in representatives from the other airlines, who may need to process the reservation manually to make sure that it sticks.

If it does get cleaned up to your satisfaction, you should end up with a new ticket number from United. Ask for it, and make sure that it's changed from whatever ticket number you have now with the wrong flights on it. Then, contact the operating carriers and verify that they have the correct ticket number. If they have an older ticket number, there's a very good chance that this will happen again -- their computer system will eventually drop your reservation for lack of payment.

Good luck!

Caveat: WineCountryUA is absolutely correct. The fact that the schedule change is accepted won't have an effect, in and of itself, on your ability to get a refund later. However, I don't know if the same is true if you actually call them up and ask for new flights -- that might be seen as an active acknowledgment of the change. When I've needed this flexibility in the past, I left the ticket alone until I was sure what I wanted to do with it. The problem is, F inventory can be pretty limited, and it may be difficult to get it back. I'd be curious to hear others' experiences on this point, if any.

warakorn

As far as I understood it -> LH is not operating First Class anymore (please correct me on that).
Moreover, how do you intend to enter HKG and SIN in September? Do you both have a HK Passport and Singapore Passport?

135pilot

Thank you all for the advice. I was trying to move my ticket from September to January due to current covid situation.

cfischer

here is where it bites you how you purchased the ticket. Why did you go though UA to purchase this? Not sure I can see much rational, but that is what you did. You have 3 airlines mixed on 1 ticket likely on a LH A-fare ticketed by UA on 016 ticket stock. The autoaccept for the downgrade makes sense since there currently is no First. There is a LH liaison that UA can work with and possibly they can re-instate the ticket for a later date ... the SQ portion will be tricky though.

Dave_C

Starting from the EU, and being on EU carriers means that you should be covered by EU261/2004. Article 8(1)(c) is the appropriate section, which requires:
Note that's availability of seats not the requisite fare bucket i.e. if you had an 'A' class ticket and there's no 'A' class left, they have to book you in 'F' for no extra charge. If there's no 'F', then you are stuffed though.

PTahCha

EU261/2004 applies only when the flights were cancelled or delayed, or if the passenger were denied boarding. None of these apply to OP.

WineCountryUA

A key issue is pricing protection on a schedule change. Do not know LH's policy but for UA you are only price-protected if the new routing is essentially for the same trip (give or take a few days). For a major date change, you are not price-protected ane are responsible for fare differences. A schedule change is not opportuntiy to reschedule for months later at the same price.

135pilot

​​​​​Actually the flight was delayed by two hours and my original arn-fra flight was cancelled. Not sure if there is a day of requirement or what but I will look into this reg further.

That decision does now bite me. The reason I did it is that in March, LHwas outright refusing to give refunds. The DOT regs are very clear and booking it through UA gave me added protection if I needed a refund. Clearly now I can see that was a bad idea but at the time that was the logic I was going on.

I absolutely agree with what you are saying. I requested my original ticket to be returned to what it was which united said was impossible so I offered flexibility by giving them a later date to which they could potentially book.

PTahCha

A rescheduled flight is not a delay, especially 2 months ahead of schedule. In addition, they have rebooked you on the cancelled flight (on another flight 2 hours later), so they fulfilled their responsibility.

With that said, the best route right now might be to at least restore the flights on the original dates, either through a different routing or whatever solution UA proposes to take you to/from HKG or SIN - wherever your original destination was.

In addition, the LH and LX waiver allows changes with waived change fees, but requires additional payment if the current fare for the new itinerary is higher. You can either pursue a request for refund for change of scheduling for 2 hours (unlikely, but does not hurt to ask), or take travel voucher. Or, if you can somehow rebook the whole trip with similar pricing of what you paid before, prove that to the agent.

cfischer

actually that is false. Booking through UA has given you zero additional protection. UA is just a TA here. This ticket does not touch the US and US DOT rules do not apply.