WineCountryUA

Without a reservation or a booking you not going anywhere.

wtigerFF

A few weeks ago, I accidently purchased 3 tickets for myself on the same flights/routing. I purchased one right before flying my first segment. Then when I landed at my connecting city, I noticed that the price of the flights I'd purchased several hours later had dropped $60 so I purchased a 2nd one at the cheaper rate via the phone app, not wanting to take a chance that it might not still be cheaper when I landed at my destination.

I wanted to make sure that the cheaper fare was actually ticketed before I cancelled the original one. It didn't before my connection took off so I thought I'd have 2 reservations. To my surprise, I'd somehow purchased 2 separate tickets for myself via the phone app so I had 3 ticketed reservations for the exact same flights for 4-5 hours. Didn't have any trouble refunding 2 of them but the computer didn't notice it in the meantime. No msgs from United about duplicate reservations.

After all that, the price of the same ticket was almost 50% cheaper if I'd purchased it one day prior to departure... go figure.

mahasamatman

SHARES is not a real-time system. Most operations are executed during periodic sweeps, so there's always a bit of a "blind spot".

morelegroom

Nonsense a ticket clearly replaces a reservation or booking. It creates a precise set of obligations. e.g. a reservation for a seat is not part of the ticket.

Subject to payment or other satisfactory credit arrangements, a validated Ticket will be issued by UA or the authorized agent of UA indicating such confirmed reserved space provided the Passenger applies to UA or the authorized agent of UA for such Ticket within the Check-In Time Limits specified in Rules 5 D) and E). Such reservation of space is subject to cancellation by UA without notice if the Passenger does not comply with this Rule.

There is no other provision for cancelling a ticket and the ticket confirms the reserved space.

kaiotes

Given that UA has (relatively) lower fees for award cancellation, i'm thinking of using UA miles for the following purpose.
I do not know my origin but I know where I want to go. What are the chances that one of the tickets gets cancelled by either UA or their Star alliance partner if I use UA miles to book both.

I would have both tickets departing from two different cities on the same day +/- <12hrs but end up at the same destination on the same day.

For example.

Let's say my destination will be LHR.
I won't know where I will be coming from til Sep/Oct.
I would book one ticket say SFO-LHR on UA and another ticket from say PEK-LHR on LH (obviously w connections)

Is it better to use two different airlines even tho both are from the same alliance or should I book one ticket on star alliance and another w say One world/Skyteam? But I will cancel one for sure. I believe by the time I know where I'd depart from, award space will be gone by then.

I"m trying to avoid having their computer automatically cancel one of my tickets if both tix are from the same alliance/airline.

buckeyefanflyer

Both tickets have to be paid for so UA can't be loosing money. Years ago maybe over 40 you could make a reservation and not have to pay for it till you traveled.

PanAmWT

Before the CO-UA merger UA computer always caught double booking and cancel one of the two fairly quickly, like within an hour, usually the old one. Sometimes they called to ask the passenger first (1K or GS). After the merger AFAIK this has not happened. I asked a few phone agents who said the same, even though the contract specifically forbid the practice.

DawgmanOH

The only thing I have ever seen be an issue Post Merger is if you tried to have the same reservation on the same flight with the same MP number. It could work for some but I had it not work for me about 6 months ago.

Everything else seems to be fair game. And I, for one, greatly appreciate it. My travel plans always need to be flexible, both for work and business, and sometimes I have many things overlapping with uncertainty around what might happen.

gold23

I often have two reservations on separate airlines, departing and arriving at the same place. I actually have that tomorrow out of EWR....need to arrive in my destination tomorrow (can't leave today), and have a UA reservation and a refundable AA.

Never been a problem.

kaiotes

To be more specific, I'm looking to book two awards tix with Swiss w UA miles. Does this change the answer to my original question? Or should this be in the Swiss forum even though I"m using UA currency.

ani90

I wouldn't post details of exact intentions here.

Plato90s

So I'd like some opinions on how United would react in this situation...

The itin is BOS-EWR-(intl)-EWR-BOS, and the problem is I have a 5+ hour layover on the final EWR-BOS leg. At the time of booking, taking any earlier flights would have cost several hundred $$ more because this was a K-fare.

Same-day standby fee is $75.

A one-way ticket for EWR-BOS prices out to $72. I'd shave ~2 hours off the layover without worrying about clearing standby. So I am seriously considering booking the $72 ticket and just abandoning the final leg of the ticket.



So the question is... is United sufficiently advanced in its analytical abilities to notice that I seem to be booked on 2x separate flights for EWR-BOS on the same day?

cjermain

Interesting thread. But I just don't buy that United is going to start randomly canceling reservations when you can't possibly fly all of them.

Example: I need to fly A->B. I want to take a 5:00P flight, but don't know if I can make it. So I book both the 5:00P and the 7:30P flight, both refundable.

Are people really suggesting that UA is going to detect and arbitrarily cancel one of those? When someone pays 2X as much for a refundable fare, they are paying for the flexibility to hold a reservation they may never use. That's why UA charges so much. Start canceling those and UA starts upsetting its most profitable fliers.

I'd like to hear from someone who has actual experience having such reservations canceled.

Often1

The answer is yes although your use of the word "randomly" is not appropriate. This is a big enough issue that it is part of a specific section of UA's COC (Rule 5(2)(H)). Other carriers have similar provisions.

While the COC permits UA to simply cancel without notice, as a general matter, you will receive a call, email or your itinerary will show up with a big red notice to contact UA and you will be asked to cancel one ticket. But, you cannot count on that and if you book through a third-party such as a TA, OTA, third-party site, corporate TA or whatever, the notice goes to the third-party not to you.

This is all software-based and it is easy stuff. These are "impossible" bookings and there are varying degrees of "impossible". Some simply require verification (and people are grateful because they are likely errors) and other are ticketing fraud.

The refundable ticket issue is a non-starter. This is not why people purchase these tickets and it is not their intended purpose. You can search through FT and find rants from even GS who have had their status revoked and their MP accounts zeroed out and closed for purchasing and then cancelling at the last second (gate) on repeated occasions international F tickets (which are fully refundable).

The issue is simple, at the time you purchase a ticket, you must intend to fly it. If you hold two tickets and it is impossible to fly both of them as booked, you cannot possibly intend to fly them both.

username

Airlines have "dupe suspect" and "reservation firming" algorithms in the system. They might queue suspicious reservations for a human to contact the passenger and figure out what the passenger intends to do - especially if the flight is full/oversold.

I am not sure how much of this UA does but you certainly don't want to risk getting labelled as a troublemaker and have your account closed.