Miles Ahead

First, I agree with the others - we shouldn't expect agents to know more than is in Timatic, and the fact that united provides the Timatic information directly to its customers is a good thing.

But I am puzzled - did they allow you to board? And then send you home?

pseudoswede

I'm kind of glad I bought a separate domestic ticket (on UA) so that I don't have issues like this before boarding my SK TATL flight the following day.

lskohn

Thank heavens, this conversation was with a customer care phone agent 7 weeks before intended travel, so I have not been ejected...yet.
My solution, by the way, is to hold continue to hold the ORD-ZRH nonstop previously booked with miles, hoping for things to ease up. It they don't, I have booked the "Clear" EWR-MXP flight, which will get me into Italy. From Milan, I'll train it to ZRH (3 1/2 hours), and because I will be entering from an EU country directly, Switzerland will admit me. (I think)
The problem is that some phone agents (see above) clearly don't understand Timatic - and given the opacity of some of the official government statements, that's understandable.

jsloan

If both of these reservations are with United, and on the same day (or even +/- 1 day, if there's not time to make both flights), their duplicate reservation detection algorithm may cancel one or both.

eng3

Yep that's what I use, but the wording seems to up for interpretation.
So far for all the times I've traveled, the UA agents have never looked too carefully at my paperwork.

The check-in agents seem rushed/stressed trying to handle everyone. I tend to be going to more "exotic" destinations so they are also unfamiliar. We'll read through TIMATIC together and for each like the agent reads, I'll hand her the appropriate paperwork or explain why it doesn't apply, etc.

The gate agents seem to look a little more carefully, though last time the gate agent didn't look at all. At connections, it varies, some scrutinize the paperwork very carefully, most read the test result date not the sample time, some just look for the word "negative".
I did have one guy once ask "Why don't you look like your photo?". That one actually caught me off guard, but I was just like "I think it looks like me, but it's 9yrs old".

lskohn

Thanks... One's not a UA codeshare, they have different departure and arrival cities, so there's a possibility it will slide. But you are right.

WineCountryUA

Codeshare or not makes no difference, if booked on UA tickets is what matters.

Catbert10

Honestly, I found the Timatic results for USA-Switzerland travel to be confusing, at best. But my reading of Timatic is that travelers will be allowed to enter with COVID tests, COVID vaccinations, or COVID recovery. Don't trust me, though.

Henry Wu

omg yes they are pretty useless when it comes to covid19 travel rules. I spent at least 2-3 hours on the phone with 5-6 different agents about if I could enter Bulgaria and transit thru Germany and most of them were wrong or had no idea about anything

Continited

I was just looking myself at the entry rules for Switzerland as provided by UA from Timatic... my parents need to fly over next month for continued medical treatment (they have USA passports) and they have been granted a "laissez-passer" from the Swiss Consulate, but this isn't listed as one of the valid options in Timatic despite it being on the Swiss government website. Wondering if I should call and ask an agent ahead of time, my parents are older and they won't be able to deal with this well if they get pushback when they show up to check in.... is what we see in Timatic complete as the agents also see it? It's definitely not complete according to the official entry rules...

cfischer

CH will open up July 1st last I heard. Probably no need to worry.

Continited

That would be fantastic, can I ask where you’re seeing that?

emcampbe

TPG has an article, but says it details won’t be finalized until June 23: https://thepointsguy.com/news/switze...vel-reopening/