lincolnjkc

So this is definitely a null-world problem but it's annoying me:

Flying US-GRU-US round trip in J (P fare) on UA. Need to do some domestic Brazilian travel, some of that has been booked separately with Azul, but one of those is Rio-SDU on the date of my departure back to the US which I'd like to keep on the UA PNR for IROPS visibility and the possibility of getting my bags checked through (if I do the somewhat illogical SDU-CNF-GRU routing option)

The challenge this is posing for my sanity is all of the Azul fares have the effect of repricing the ticket to between $250-$400 less than the present value of the reservation. I'm ok with the excess value being locked up in the reservation (e.g. not refundable/available for future use) but the idea of just throwing it away and not even earning miles on that spend is driving me crazy. Is there a way I'm not thinking of to avoid flat out forfeiting the difference while keeping single-PNR advantages?

Or should I just buy the Azul ticket directly and not worry about keeping it a Single PNR? Depending on which flight I go for and assuming everything is on time I'll have at least 4 hours to kill between domestic arrival and international departure.

(This ticket is about 2x my normal ticket buy so just canceling it, holding the credit for a future trip and booking this trip on a new ticket isn't particularly viable)

mduell

Cancel the whole thing for ETC, then apply some of the ETC value to a new ticket with all the segs, keeping the remainder as ETC.

jsloan

Check the price of a Z fare, or P-out, Z-return, etc.

I mean, at that point, you're throwing good money after bad. You'd be spending money for a less-convenient ticket, in order to try to get some UA PQD on the original flight that would otherwise be forfeit? Unless you're right at a cutoff for PlusPoints, and you're always able to use all of your PlusPoints, it seems like a waste.

Two problems:

1 - UA seems to have stopped allowing ETC as an option in most cases
2 - OP wants Azul segments on the single PNR, which makes an ETC particularly problematic -- there'd have to be another intermediate, all-UA reservation at the right price first.

lincolnjkc

Jsloan -- as always the thorough insight is appreciated

Should have mentioned if I officially revise the return flight to originate from any of the Rio airports the fare jumps by about 3x the current ticketed fare (I'm guessing based on advanced purchase requirements or combinability or...? Interestingly if I try to begin the return in Rio UA also seems to pretend Azul doesn't exist and does things like putting me on COPA out of Brazil to Panama or someone else to Chile...normally I'd be all over that, but in the current circumstances it seems the fewer countries I involve in the itinerary the better.

The net lower fare is accomplished by just inserting a one-way RIO-SAO on the same date as the INTL departure so to be honest I'm not sure that really gains all of the benefits, but have to imagine that at least being same PNR is better than different PNRs if anything goes sideways.


Logical truth here. Really don't need the PQD since I've already clocked $11k in 2020 and there's no way I'm going to get to the next barrier for PP unless something really unexpected happens with multiple clients between now and 12/31, have more PP than I'm going to realistically use anyway (though have been burning them domestically with general success)

Part of my brain is taking great offense at having paid UA several hundred dollars and just letting it vaporize (vs. earing the RDMs from that spend) if I buy the ticket from Azul directly it's about a US$50 purchase


Add a 3rd problem: If I re-buy the outbound and return on a new ticket the return flight is no longer available (looks like the domestic F cabin is fully sold) and the closest schedule wise is about $6k more than the current ticket I hold (closest fare wise is about $600 more) completely defeating the purpose of the exercise.

Me thinks I'm just going to let UA keep the money as much as part of my brain finds this distasteful. Perhaps something UA could consider under the no-change-fee-but-we-keep-the-residual line of thought: Award RDM/PQD based on total paid for a ticket rather than total fare for the ticket

jsloan

Yeah, IRROPS protects get a little tricky anyway if there's a fare break involved, but the same logic applies to trying to craft the amount of spending that you want -- you can up-fare the RIO-SAO portion instead of taking the lowest available fare there.

OK, so it comes down to the next point...

I agree 100%, and this is why I've been against UA's new rules from the very start. They feel unfair. Even if I'm coming out way ahead, it feels unfair that they keep the residual.

OK, so that definitely rules out the buy-an-entire-new-ticket approach, even if you could wanted to have a giant amount of flight credit sitting there.

I mean, that'd be better than nothing, but I'd still prefer that they match their competition and refund the residual.

PS: Just checking, because it didn't occur to me until now -- this is a nonrefundable ticket, with the no-residual language, right? I don't shop Brazil regularly, so I'm not familiar with the market. In some places, even a P fare may be refundable, albeit with a large change or cancellation fee. If the fare is refundable, then the residual would also be refundable.

lincolnjkc

I've been going by the summary that the "change flights" flow gives me showing the original fare value, new fare value, change fee "waived" and a refund of $0 just looked at the penalties section of the fare rules just to be sure...

jsloan

OK, well, I figured it was worth a shot.

Are you able to reproduce this fare on a different day? The reason that I ask is that I'm thinking of the thread yesterday where using the online change tool to change the return accidentally caused the outbound to re-fare as economy. While it's not completely impossible for a business class fare to be hundreds of dollars cheaper when adding a segment, I'd at least want to see the fare breakdown before I bought into it.

Or maybe with ITA Matrix (you can disable availability checking, but not advance-purchase checking, IIRC).

spartacusmcfly

Post UA's 'no change fee' announcement, both DL & AA agreed to refund the residual. UA will shortly announce their 2021 qualification plan and as part of that, I believe they will also agree to refund the residual. It wouldn't be smart for UA to be an outlier when AA/DL/SW all refund the residual...