Excursionist Perk Booking Issues & Devaluation - Needs to be a Lower Cabin?
 

Anyone else having issues with the Excursionist Perk today? I've tried multiple combinations and the middle flight isn't pricing out at zero. Normally I have no issues. Specifically I have tried:

Flight 1: Europe-Europe
Flight 2: Mainland US-Mainland US
Flight 3: Europe- Europe

Also tried:

Flight 1: Mainland US-Europe
Flight 2: Europe-Europe
Flight 3: Europe-Mainland US

Prices just fine for me

Must have been a glitch at the time I was looking. It’s working fine for me now as well.

I have had issues trying to get excursionist perk to work for about a month. Didn't have any issues before then. Have you found an answer?

I am hoping someone can help me out with this. I am trying to book a flight using united miles for the first time. I am trying to book a multi leg trip on united's website. I am trying to book a flight from Grand Rapids, MI to Rome, IT. Then a second leg from Athens, GR to Munich. Finally, a final leg from Munich to Grand Rapids, MI. From everything I have read the middle flight should qualify for zero miles and I should only have just the fees to pay. When I was searching a month or so ago the middle flight was points free but now it wants 45k miles per person for the middle flight.

It’s odd. Yesterday afternoon the excursionist perk was working for me, but now it’s not again. I haven’t tried calling or chatting though.

Excursionist Perk seems to be dead (temporarily?)
 

I've been trying a variety of different excursionist perk itineraries throughout the day with no success in getting anything to price with the free segment. It looks like they've updated the MileagePlus Air Awards page to say that the free segment must be in a *lower* class than the first segment (as opposed to lesser than or equal to, as was previously the case), but even then, I cannot get any YN-(X or XN)-(anything) excursionist routings to price correctly. Tried chatting with an agent, too, but that was (predictably) useless; they chalked it up to a glitch (but did say that they'd reported the issue internally), and were also not able to get the pricing to work on their end, either. Seems like some others in this thread and elsewhere online have been experiencing excursionist perk-related booking troubles for the last month or so, so I'm not hopeful that this will be resolved anytime soon...

Restored post:

Looking to do a three segment trip next year early / mid fall in J... US-Europe with a segment within europe. Have done this before (requiring flexibility on dates) but now the portion within Europe are all showing at 45k miles rather than zero miles no matter where or when I look.

Has something changed that it is no longer "free miles" for a stopover or is it just that there is no availability?

You’re talking about the “Excursionist Perk,” and it looks like it’s been quietly gutted. Previously, it could be used for the same or a lower class of service; now, it can only be used for a lower “tier” (standard vs. everyday, I guess) or cabin. In other words, you won’t be able to get a free J award intra-Europe unless you book F.

It’s unclear whether or not this was really intentional — as written, you can’t use it for Y travel in the first place, since they is no class below Y — but I think most of us knew something would be changing when domestic F became less expensive than some intra-regional J awards.

Yes, Thanks for the answer so that I don't have to come back. That is what I was looking for - but I was doing it wrong as I was looking for something that was two stopovers! But now that I am looking again I see that only economy is available on the "stop" when I changed it to a simple out and back with a stop on the return. Which might be OK except for the baggage issue (which technically should not be a problem since it is US origin and DOT rules) but would hate to show up and pay an arm and a leg intra europe for a bag.

Going to look for out and back and take a few train trips!

Thanks. I hope my ramblings made sense!!!

(I will restore my post since you answered so fast!)

I’m not sure that the DOT regulation really helps you here. It’s mum on the subject of mixed-class itineraries.

Excursionist perk still glitching 11/24
 

Can confirm the above. Tried calling in to chat with various agents and none seem to be aware of any workarounds. None of the agents I spoke with also seem to be aware of the excursionist perk to begin with, which isn't helpful when trying to explain the situation...

I actually participated in the discussions at the time and you are correct that they did not put anything in the final ruling (and then therefore my hesitation) but did say in meetings that "one allowance means one allowance" repeatedly and mixed carrier in same class was more of a priority to airlines at the time (I was on the automation side). But that the "most international" portion of the ticket drove the allowance - so a within euorpe sector on a ticket between US and EU would look at the first marketing carrier (unless they said look at the international carrier) and the first transatlantic sector (I think). I have long since moved on / retired so my knowledge is stale. And award travel is a whole other can of worms.

Just highlighting this because I had not noticed, but I find it astounding if truly the intention.

https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/mil...ir-awards.html

What a cheap, garbage move. If they were worried about protecting domestic F, they should have carved that out, not turned all redemptions into mixed cabin ones at best.

They also haven't had left hand meet right hand with regards to the example shown, as those are clearly Y numbers (and old ones, at that).
Again, cheap and low, bad devaluation.

Right - all they would need to do is say and implement "exclusionist in US/CA not available in business/first class"

And interesting I have seen 30 day calendar I have seen shows random days of zero miles+taxes and when you select them the mileage shows up for the local business class redemption mileage and the calendar updates (still showing a random zero miles!)

jsloan do you have any insight into when this happened? I swear a few weeks ago (maybe longer, like I said I am retired - time is oddly hard to keep track of!) it clearly let me do it before I started trying to do my goofy multi stop trip!

I was curious about that too, and I checked the web archive. It's not conclusive, since the catalogued history is a bit sparse, but that exclusion was apparently added at least as early as end-September this year.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240926...ir-awards.html

Personally, last year (2023) was the last time I sought to use the excursionist perk, and it worked fine. But I have been noticing in recent weeks several queries here from people having trouble with it (edit: several posts in this thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...oblems-47.html).