UA Fan

LOL can I also do the same?

channa

So nobody from the UA side is able to clarify the policy?

We know UA can and has sent award tickets to other carriers. Yet there is clearly more resistance/reluctance on these tickets than on revenue tickets.

So what's the story? Is it a legacy rule that's no longer in place? Or some higher threshold of travel impact that they want you to suffer first before UA will consider this because of the cost?

sfogate

Involuntary rules per Star Alliance:
. When an airline undergoes a schedule change or encounters an irregularity in accordance with the general provisions of IATA Resolution 735D, the two Star Alliance member carriers agree to grant airport control (and thereby waive the endorsement requirement) for the following:
A non-restricted tickets;
B restricted tickets;
C frequent flyer redemption tickets.

. No endorsement required for any fare types when an airline encounters an irregular operation (within 24 hours of departure).

AH....UA got it wrong. UA got it wrong.

channa

Thank you. So it looks like they can be sent to *A carriers for sure. Though I know they've sent them to OAL's as well.

Anyhow, I'm wondering where this notion about not sending over FF tickets comes from, because it seems to come up from time to time. I think there's some legacy rule somewhere that's no longer in effect.

UA Fan

Is this on their website?

sfogate

It might be. I took it directly from my employee Star Alliance handbook.

Before airline alliances, no airline would endorse or send customers with award tickets or restricted tickets to other airlines. It wasn't so much a rule but it was a reality that these tickets had no value for the ticketing carrier and when you endorse a ticket over to another airline, the endorsing carrier has to pay a percentage of the Y fare to the carrier accepting the ticket.

This is still in effect but the Alliance members treat these tickets differently.

camachinist

http://www.staralliancesurveys.com/....s_14_10_09.pdf

http://www.staralliancesurveys.com/

UA Fan

Link one does not seem to work, thanks for link 2.

So in cases of invol changes, * members need to endorse only to fellow * members?

gbsfo

No, the opposite. *A members have 'agreed to waive the endorsement requirement' i.e. UA *should* ask NH to accept the ticket, and they *should* accept it if your SFO-NRT award sector was cancelled.

Endorsement would be required for UA to send the ticket to DL.

This is all in theory of course, in practice what carriers are willing to do is a different thing.

Another example would be with voluntary changes. If you had a full-fare Y ticket for example on UA for SFO-NRT, you can in theory walk up to NH and ask them to accept it and space permitting they should, as a full-fare Y ticket would have no endorsement requirement.

sfogate

No, the rule is in place to allow seamless transfer between * members regardless of what type of ticket the customer is holding during irrops/invol changes.

The airline can send your ticket to any carrier they have an interline agreement with IF they chose to. They will first attempt to re-route you on another * member and then go to another airline, with the exception of a reward ticket. Reward tickets have no fare value, the issuing carrier does not want to pay out real money to send you outside their own airlines or their alliance members.

rkaradi

So here's my ? why didn't UA send him on one of the other UA flights to SFO, give him a hotel and book him on the SFO-PVG flight tomorrow? Seems like a long ways to go for no miles to have to fly to ORD before connecting to PVG.

If anyone is curious as ofr 11:30 PM on 7/16 tomorrow's PVG flight has
9+Y
9+ C
and F9 w/ NF5

jtn

I'm the OP and to answer your question, UA did originally rerouted me to ORD then connect to the PVG flight. But when I called 1K desk they did offer to fly me to SFO and then connect to the next day's PVG flight. But I chose to keep the ORD reroute because I already took the hotel's voucher @ PDX and I would have gotten to PVG a few hours earlier by this route.

What irked me was that they wouldn't/couldn't put me on the same day's Air China flight from SFO - PEK - PVG because they insisted that there were no award inventory for this CA flight. Had they been able to put me on the CA flight, I would have stayed on the mechanically delayed PDX - SFO flight and make my connection in SFO on CA.

Thinking back and reading other posts, maybe I would have gotten on the CA flight had I just stayed on the delayed PDX - SFO flight. Then at SFO, requested the GA there to be put on the CA flight.

But at the time, without experience, I don't know if anyone would have thought to work out the steps to accomplish this. In my opinion, the agent @ PDX who rerouted me should have done this instead of rerouting me to ORD.