LH/LX flights showing up on Google Flights but not ua.com?
Jun 26, 2022, 5:36 pm
#1
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LH/LX flights showing up on Google Flights but not ua.com?
Hi, I've been looking at some transatlantic itineraries from flights.google.com that have LH and LX flights (e.g. ZNY–ZRH/FRA–MRS) on LH or LX the whole way. I can click on the "buy with United" and the flights are there on the united.com payment page though not with UA codes. When I search united.com — it will only give me the legs ZNY–ZRH/FRA legs on UA metal. Any reason to avoid these flights as I would rather fly LX/LH? Also, would these flights be covered under the UA flexible booking policy if purchased from united.com even if they don't have UA codes??
Thank you thank you!
Thank you thank you!
Jun 26, 2022, 5:39 pm
#2
Join Date: Nov 2013
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Frequently LX and LH will not allow you to ticket on UA (016 stock) if there are no UA (metal not codeshare) flights - and they also do not share all of their inventory with UA - so you can frequently only buy the flights from them….
The flight numbers you see are the UA codeshares for the native flights - don’t worry about….
The flight numbers you see are the UA codeshares for the native flights - don’t worry about….
Jun 26, 2022, 5:41 pm
#3
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Hi, I've been looking at some transatlantic itineraries from flights.google.com that have LH and LX flights (e.g. ZNY–ZRH/FRA–MRS) on LH or LX the whole way. I can click on the "buy with United" and the flights are there on the united.com payment page though not with UA codes. When I search united.com — it will only give me the legs ZNY–ZRH/FRA legs on UA metal. Any reason to avoid these flights as I would rather fly LX/LH? Also, would these flights be covered under the UA flexible booking policy if purchased from united.com even if they don't have UA codes??
Jun 26, 2022, 7:04 pm
#4
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Jun 26, 2022, 7:07 pm
#5
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Jun 26, 2022, 7:10 pm
#6
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Jun 26, 2022, 7:15 pm
#7
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Ok - got it backwards! It's rare (IME) that UA would allow a ticket to be purchased without a single UA flight number on it -- even a codeshare! I used to use the old award ticket routine to force this because it was so hard....
Jun 27, 2022, 6:24 am
#10
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1. No reason to avoid these flights.
2. Any ticket purchased on United.com has their flex booking policy regardless of who operates the flights.
Now having said that, do you have ANY UA flights on the itinerary you're trying to purchase? I don't think UA will ticket it if you don't. So you may be getting to the payment page but once you click "purchase" you will get an error because UA will reject it. Otherwise, if it does ticket then you have 24 hours to cancel without penalty. Might be worth trying to see if it will even ticket?
-RM
2. Any ticket purchased on United.com has their flex booking policy regardless of who operates the flights.
Now having said that, do you have ANY UA flights on the itinerary you're trying to purchase? I don't think UA will ticket it if you don't. So you may be getting to the payment page but once you click "purchase" you will get an error because UA will reject it. Otherwise, if it does ticket then you have 24 hours to cancel without penalty. Might be worth trying to see if it will even ticket?
-RM
Jun 27, 2022, 6:38 am
#11
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I don't think UA will ticket it if you don't. So you may be getting to the payment page but once you click "purchase" you will get an error because UA will reject it. Otherwise, if it does ticket then you have 24 hours to cancel without penalty. Might be worth trying to see if it will even ticket?
Although you may sometimes get an error on ticketing, that’s not because United.com cares about the flight numbers; it’s more likely because they were unable to revalidate available inventory.
Jun 27, 2022, 7:47 am
#12
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If UA can price it, they can (and will) sell it. I’ve bought flights on United.com with no UA segments — in fact, in markets UA didn’t serve, they used to be commonly available before UA decided to ditch them.
Although you may sometimes get an error on ticketing, that’s not because United.com cares about the flight numbers; it’s more likely because they were unable to revalidate available inventory.
Although you may sometimes get an error on ticketing, that’s not because United.com cares about the flight numbers; it’s more likely because they were unable to revalidate available inventory.
-RM
Jun 27, 2022, 8:02 am
#13
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If UA can price it, they can (and will) sell it. I’ve bought flights on United.com with no UA segments — in fact, in markets UA didn’t serve, they used to be commonly available before UA decided to ditch them.
Although you may sometimes get an error on ticketing, that’s not because United.com cares about the flight numbers; it’s more likely because they were unable to revalidate available inventory.
Although you may sometimes get an error on ticketing, that’s not because United.com cares about the flight numbers; it’s more likely because they were unable to revalidate available inventory.
Last edited by Kacee; Jun 27, 2022 at 8:18 am
Jun 27, 2022, 8:55 am
#14
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I had this problem on a recent business to VLC where I wanted to route RDU - EWR - ZRH - VLC (best chance of a PE ---> J upgrade which ended up coming through at the gate so was a good call).
I could not get it to show up on Concur or UA.com but my AMEX GBT travel agent was able to ticket it on UA/LX flight numbers and 016 ticket stock without issue
I could not get it to show up on Concur or UA.com but my AMEX GBT travel agent was able to ticket it on UA/LX flight numbers and 016 ticket stock without issue
Jun 27, 2022, 9:16 am
#15
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OK. I'm sure UA did this in the past (I've been successful) but I remember reading several posts on these forums starting probably a few years ago that United did away with this. They will no longer ticket an itinerary that doesn't include UA flights and some agents won't even ticket if UA isn't the "major" carrier. Maybe those are anecdotal stories and users just got bad agents but there were enough reports to believe that UA will not ticket an itinerary without UA flights on it. (Search is failing me at the moment to find these).
-RM
-RM
(To be clear: this is entirely a policy decision that’s been communicated to the agents. They could ticket them; they’ve been told not to).