ohcanada

As many others have noted, you should never take no for an answer when asking UA staff to do something for you.

In order to reach PremEx before our YYZ-PEK trip next month, I went on a quick BUF-ORD-PHX-ORD-PIT-BUF MR yesterday afternoon. Since booking, I found that I didn't need the extra segments through PIT (which of course were on US and didn't get bonus miles), so I decided to try to get switched on the return to a direct ORD-BUF flight. I thought some of you would be amused at the answers I got from various UA people (in order of asking):

- PHX check-in: Can't do that here. Have to check when you get to ORD. Maybe the 5:30 a.m. check-in was before their coffee kicked in?

- ORD check-in agents: you have to go to Terminal 2 to cancel your check-in on the US flight and then come back to go standby on the next UA ORD-BUF flight, which is completely full. However, since the UA ORD-BUF flight will not clear until after the US flight to PIT, you may end up with no seat at all.

- Premier reservation line (from a pay phone in the terminal): you can't make any change to this T class ticket without paying a $100 fee!

- UA customer service agent in Terminal 2: no problem! I'll just call US, release your ticket and give you a nice E+ seat to boot. Congratulations on making PremEx!

Luckily there was enough of a connection time for me to make three attempts before having to board the US flight to PIT. Moral of the story - never, ever accept no for an answer as long as there is someone else to ask.

izzik

I wouldn't go overboard with that "don't take no" mentality.

Depending on the request, it can get pretty obnoxious.

I'd say you were lucky in finding someone that was willing to change your routing for free. I thought the first three answers were pretty normal.

Derek

I faced the same answer when traveling from ORD - YUL for a job interview. I arrived at ORD T2 well before my 9ish AC departure time to find that the flight was delayed for at least two hours (it was a day-return job interview trip). The AC reps were not too helpful, when I asked if the UA flight (sched for 7ish) had left, they thought, well, it must have, and you can't change wtihout paying a change fee, but I asked them to look into the flight and they checked and no, it hadn't and, well, it's only three gates away. The United Express people wanted to help, but I had my AC boarding pass, so had to go back to AC to unbook myself, then they could book me. Turns out, AC was delayed because of equipment, UEX (is that right?) was delayed because the crew had worked too late the night before. I got on the plane, very happy that circumstances let me leave exactly at my original departure time. Would never have been so lucky of the ORD-YUL flights went from T1 at O'Hare... oh, and it didn't cost me a penny

Morrissey

I'd say you got lucky. Normally you have to pay a fee if you want to make a confirmed change to your itinerary. It's only free to make a change on the day of travel if you go standby.

couscous

I agree with the above post, you got lucky this time.

WindFlyer

This is actually the standard answer in this situation... had to do it myself when I could not get this:


I agree with the other posters that you got lucky (and saved about 50 steps to the US gates at T2 to have them 'dump' you).

weero

On the few T classes I bought so far, it clearly stated that no changes whatsoever were permitted. Whereas in S they are subject to a charge and must be made at least 24h ahead of time.
So $100 for a confirmed change or allow you to standby deems actually very reasonable to me.
Try to do the same thing with an expensive M,L, or H fare on LH or QF - then you will love every single UA employee.

Pegasus23

Congratulations! Persistence!

I love it when people are vulnerable enough to share their experience in redefining normal!

Nice creation.

Welcome to Premier Exec!

ohcanada

Actually, only the telephone rez agent mentioned the T fare restriction. The other two "nos" had different stories.

The strange thing is that it was a UA ticket and I would have thought that UA would be happy to change me from the US flights onto their own metal as long as the flight wasn't overbooked (it wasn't). I can understand not permitting changes in advance, but it doesn't make sense not to allow this change on the day of travel.

And on the comment by another poster about being obnoxious, I was very polite to everyone and did not argue at all. I also didn't mention that I had made the other inquiries.

anotherbrian

Emphasis mine. What do you mean US flights don't get bonus miles? The Premiere 25% bonus? If so, I thought MP was pretty clear that US Airways/Shuttle/Express got the bonus as UA and UX flights.

SEA_Tigger

One of the reasons airlines frown on letting folks on an X-Y-Z itinerary drop the Y part is often-times the fare for direct X-Z service is more expensive. So if people consistently book X-Y-Z and then standby at the airport for X-Z, that is both direct lost revenue to the airline (they would have made more money if you had booked X-Z) as well as indirect lost revenue (they may have had someone ready and willing to buy an X-Z fare, but you took the seat with your cheaper X-Y-Z fare).

Now, if a seat is empty, UA has little to lose flying you direct (it's a sunk cost, anyway), but I for one would not expect it as a usual thing and continue to buy X-Y-Z routings where cheaper and to then try and get X-Z connections.

Also, in the event of codeshares, I do not know how tight the STAR reservations and check-in systems are. So they may have wanted to send you to US so US could unload you from their system if UA couldn't.

Also, at that point, you're probably technically on a "throw-away" ticket since you did not complete your itinerary as planned, which cancels all downstream connections (at least when flying all segments on one airline, but I imagine it works for codeshares, as well, so you'd think they could unload you from US, but maybe the respective airline's reservation computers "sync-up" later on) so UA doesn't have to fly you ORD-BUF except at the walk-up Y fare on a new ticket.

So, to echo everyone else, be thankful that final agent bent the rules for you, enjoy the benefits of Premier Executive, and <Mom voice>"Don't let it happen again."</Mom voice>

izzik

you should never take no for an answer when asking UA staff to do something for you.

The above statement does not imply a moderate stance towards having a request fulfilled. In fact, I would say it borders on the extreme.. and thus the act of asking multiple United representatives for the same thing .. intent on hearing only the answer you want to hear.. is obnoxious.

A bit outrageous maybe? Perhaps.. but there are more than a handful of people on here (lurkers and non) who subscribe to a literal interpretation. Scary but unfortunately true.

ohcanada

Not sure I agree with all of that. As many have said on this board, UA's rules are so complex and ever-changing that you will very often get different answers from different people. So I don't see what's wrong with making a number of inquiries about the issue to different people until you get the answer you want (as long as the request is reasonable). At some point you have to let it go, but if the request seems to make sense I for one will keep trying if there is time and nothing else to do at the airport.

I was not implying that people should continue to make unreasonable requests hoping someone will relent, or that they should be rude or obnoxious. There's enough of that being done by people who are entitled to what they're asking for.

BenjaminNYC

I'm not sure I really like the tone of your post. You were asking several agents to do something that you knew was against the rules. You expressed no real thanks that someone did finally bend the rules, and you seem to exhibit some frustration that the earlier agents did not. It seems that you expected that your "illeagal" request should have been honored immeadialty, which, certainly, is not the case.

Pegasus23

Sounds to me like crabs in a box. One crab starts to get out and some of the others pull him back and chew on him!