Fly2Connect

I was flying from EWR to CMH on Saturday evening and my flight was cancelled. UA was able to reroute me out of LGA via ORD, but it got me thinking, how restrictive are IRROPS routings? For instance could I have asked to be put on UA2490 EWR-LAX, UA 2277 LAX-ORD, UA5560 ORD-CMH or something with even more stops (maybe try and hit all hubs)? I know it sounds stupid, but being under 21 it isn't easy to find hotels and I sleeping on a plane beats sleeping in the terminal imo.

jsloan

Can they? Yes.

Will they? Probably not.

Airline reps will generally be willing to do things that make sense to them upon request. For example, I got AA to reroute me from AUS-DFW-DTW to AUS-(AA)-LAX-(DL)-DTW once, because it was the only way to make the event I was planning to attend. Flying EWR-LAX-ORD-CMH isn't going to make any sense to an agent. You can ask, but you'll need a very good story -- and while your story about preferring to sleep on the plane makes some sense, I'm not sure it would be a winner. As for hitting all of the hubs -- that's going to be a non-starter, if for no other reason than they'll want to save the extra legs for some other passenger who needs them.

zombietooth

Yes, they'll do wild routings, but like jsloan above, it has to make sense. I had a situation where, because of IRROPS, I missed my connection to the 2nd to the last SNA flight of the day out of IAH. Unfortunately, they didn't protect me on the last flight of the day, and CS wanted to schedule me on the first available flight in the morning, but I requested any routing that would get me into SoCal that night, even to LAX or SAN. They ended-up putting me on IAH-SFO, SFO-LAX, where I had to arrange for pickup to get back to my car at SNA.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Seats given to someone on convoluted and nonsensical routings take seats that others might buy or might be needed for IRROPS.

Plus, from your origination to your destination, you are basically a liability. UA wants to minimize their exposure to you by getting you where you were supposed to go w/o further liability. The IRROPS itself demonstrates UA liability (responsibility) for you. An extended itinerary only opens up more opportunities for UA to have to deal with you. They have your money already - they just want you out the door at your destination ASAP.

exerda

It can be very hard to convince them to do otherwise-nonsensical routings during irrops. I got stuck in ORD a few years back during WX, and saw I could get home on ORD-LAX-IAD (everything going east out of ORD had already cancelled). By the time I got a supervisor to agree it would likely get me home (and not just strand me in LA instead of Chicago), the inventory was gone. It was a very frustrating afternoon as I'd come up with several alternate routings, and usually by the time I got a CSR to actually entertain them, they were gone as others presumably had more success than I did it.
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dmurphynj

Reasonable requests, absolutely, easily accommodated. Things that appear to take advantage of a situation, for fun, etc. -- not so much.

For example, on the "reasonable request" list ...

Many moons ago, had a US Air flight DFW-CLT-EWR ... Flight departed 11 hours late, missing my CLT-EWR flight by, oh, about 10 hours. No changes made at DFW as we were one of two flights that got out to the northeast that day (bad ice storm...) Had no idea if we'd get out or not until we pushed off the gate. The DFW agents suggested I just get to CLT and figure it out there. As I got off the DFW-CLT leg, the gate agent handed me a boarding pass to Newark ... 3 days later. I looked up, saw a flight going out of the adjacent gate to LGA instead. They immediately rerouted me, and got me home that night. Reasonable request, no problem. Made sense to the agent - I was able to bus it from LGA to Penn Station, take the train to EWR, get my car, and drive home.

As mentioned above, there's an actual cost to flying you through the air. Loss of a salable seat, fuel costs, etc. Not to mention the possibility that something ELSE goes wrong. So if you can come up with a good reason to do something other than their default (like, sending me to EWR in 3 days) -- they're all up for doing that. But if you just say "hey, I want to take a tour of the US for this $89 ticket I'm holding" ... well, that dog ain't gonna hunt.

Fly2Connect

That all makes sense. The CSR I spoke to was seemingly not too thrilled with putting me on LGA-ORD-CMH as there was another EWR-CMH nonstop leaving that night, but did so after I explained that wanted to avoid EWR due to train delays and weather. Given that I already faced pushback on that I had a feeling the LAX idea wouldn't have flown (despite the flights having tons of availability), but its good to know for sure--thanks.

LGA-ORD-CMH turned out to be the right call and had I taken the CSR's idea I would have spent the night on the floor at EWR as the earlier EWR-CMH got cancelled as I expected...

WIRunner

They'll work with you within reason. I've been able to get agents to add in extra connections in airports where I shouldn't be connecting just to get in the general direction I wanted to go. A few years ago I was flying PSC-DEN-CLE-MKE. The DEN-CLE cancelled due to MX. I was able to get them to put me on DEN-OMA-CLE and had technically an illegal connection in CLE that I managed to make. I doubt if I asked to have a triple connection it wouldn't have happened, but again, within reason they'll work with you.

dmurphynj

Absolutely, and if you're willing to explain your reasoning - like you said, "get me closer and if things go sideways again I can rent a car from there" -- that is language they'll understand. I've more than once said to an agent "My kid's got a little league game on Wednesday at 6:00. I really want to make that - let's see what we can find to make that happen." Can't say I've ever had much pushback when I explain it that way.

This is a great case where the employees don't (and shouldn't) live by hard and fast rules, but rather the good old "do what's right" mantra. Doing what's right for both the customer and the company is sometimes a tap-dance and may not always produce a perfect result, but I do appreciate it when people are willing to work with me on something. If we can both be reasonable, that usually makes for the best outcome.

Pi7473000

I have noticed how dependent new United employees are on the app. I have encountered employees who can't do more that what I can do on the app and I have had to get a supervisor. It seems like the newer United employees have little knowledge of how to get things done efficiently compared to more experienced employees. I had a delayed flight to SFO this past month. I rerouted myself through the app from DEN to Jackson Hole. Jackson Hole to SFO. The DEN to Jackson Hole became delayed so I would miss the connection to SFO. The app would only allow me to get to SFO now through Jackson Hole. when I went to the counter for help the agents in DEN checkin had the same issue. They only wanted me to get to SFO through Jackson Hole. It took 3 employees to help and an hour support to get me back on a later nonstop. Before the pandemic United employees seemed to be much better with rerouting. Now many employees don't know anymore than average person looking at the app. The app seems to really limit thinking.

Boraxo

Concur with above.

When all DEN-ASE segments were cancelled due to snow and then showing no seats the following day we attempted to re-route via ORD or LAX. No dice.

OTOH when our SFO-PVR nonstop was cancelled the system auto-rebooked us via IAH redeye, which was a nonstarter for me. Thankfully we found an agent who rebooked us via LAX with an overnight at LAX.

Live4Upgrades

So last year when I was doing 110K in mileage runs to obtain my 1MM, I was a fan of IRROPS. The app sometimes let's you back-track. I misconnected on the last flight to SEA. So in IAH, I was given a hotel for the night and confirmed on the non-stop the next morning to SEA. However, once the agent was done with me and I was settled into my hotel room, I checked the app and it still showed a multitude of routes, e.g. thru SFO or LAX. But I saw a shocker - morning flight to IAD then the nonstop from IAD to SEA (arriving early afternoon). SCORE! The app allowed me to still change my reservation (due to the IRROPS). The next morning the UA Club agent tried to tell me why am I doing that but I calmly explained I was down to my last 50K for 1MM status; and I was happy to get more BIS miles. She then explained to me in IRROPS that the system actually accommodates more than the normal routings allowed under the Fare.rules.

Also, I discovered that once I got to IAD, I could even change the non-stop to a connection in EWR (or back via IAH). However, I was already tired so I just wanted to get back to SEA (and not during rush hour). Can't be that greedy!

Anecdotally, when in HNL and the morning 757 flight to LAX cancels (which is actually frequent enough to be annoying), the app will also offer the connection thru either DEN or IAH in addition to either SFO or LAX. I have yet to see ORD or EWR so I don't truly understand how the programming was done.

docbert

Whilst I do agree with this, don't presume the app will show all options!

A few weeks ago I was flying DEN-ORD-TLV with the long leg in Premium Plus when the aircraft in DEN went MX with what turned out to be a 2 hour delay. The app showed no options that would have got me there same-day and kept me in PP. However the gate agent managed to find that the DEN-FRA flight which was due to depart an hour earlier was delayed by a few hours, and had 1 free PP seat. She called the gate to confirm the reason for the delay (inbound aircraft, meaning it likely wouldn't delay longer) and then moved me onto that flight connecting to FRA-TLV. Less than 90 minutes later we were pushing back on the way to FRA on a flight that wasn't showing at all on the app!

MatthewLAX

Was flying LAX-SFO-SIN and LAX-SFO delayed due to flow control.

Arrived at SIN gate six minutes before departure (was told it would hold) but agent had cleared standbys and shut door.

This was the daytime service and I was rebooked 12 hours later in economy class (from business, but both business and premium economy were full).

1K desk went to work and could not find a solution, but I did - suggested flying via TPE and connecting to SIN on BR. Agent agreed (business on UA segment, coach on BR).

Required an overnight in Taipei so I lost a half a day, but UA paid for hotel in Taipei. Could have been worse.

mduell

My best reroute was to change destination country: booked IAH-EWR-BTV, IAH-EWR delayed to miss the connection, rerouted to IAH-YUL (which is where we wanted to go anyway).

Did make the now-one-way rental car a lot more expensive unfortunately.