2006 Entertainment Book: UA discounts?
 

Does anyone have the 2006 Entertainment book yet? Are there United discounts in the back as usual? What flavour are they this year? :)

I do not believe any of the 2006 Entertainment books have shipped yet.

William

Some details about Entertainment Passbook discounts
 

http://www.entertainment.com/save/travel/united

The website above claims that they are available. I haven't seen them yet. They are usually available for fall fundraisers, as the above post shows.

Read the notes on the website. But pay extra attention to the fine print on the back of the certs.

The ambiguity with these things is usually in three areas:

1. Web purchase or not?
The printed certs cannot be used for web purchases. In addition to the six (or sometimes nine) certs in each Entertainment Passbook there are two electronic certs. These, of course, amount to numbers that can be inserted when attempting a purchase on united.com. As is typical of united.com, the discounts only apply to a few select segments which are rarely available. I hope most FTers have done the math on how they value miles so that they are willing to forego the mere 1000 mile bonus for a web purchase in order to save $50 or $75.

2. Agent/counter purchase fee or not?
To the dismay of all (except 1Ks when they purchase for themselves), UA has been charging a fee for telephone or agent purchases. Experiences differ, but many have reported that UA agents waive this fee because customers have no choice but to use an agent to make a reservation and to consumate the purchase. I think there have been some reports of getting stuck with this fee anyway. We should keep a FT watch on this.

3. Conflicting published rules regarding routing.
The rules in UA's computer system state clearly that only round trips on UA/TED/UAX can be discounted with the Entertainment book. But on the back of the 2005 certificates there is a parenthesis in the routing item which says: "(Open jaws and circle trips are allowed too!)" IIRC. I've had a couple of open jaw or circle trip itineraries this past year. Telephone agents refused to budge from what their computer screen was saying. I was forced to go to my home base ticket counter, where they were incredulous, but couldn't argue with the fact that in 6 pt type the certificate clearly allowed open jaw routing. I haven't seen the 2006 certs yet to verify what the wording will be, but watch for this. If you need open jaw tickets, plan on spending some extra time at a ticket counter.

Another fact about this discount:
A flat $25, $50 or $75 is taken off of the total fare/fees/taxes figure. It is not supposed to be figured as a discount of the fare only. At least that's how it's been explained to me.

An obvious tip:
When setting up reservations, watch how things are pricing. In order to maximize the discount, if your total fare is $130-149, or $255-299, or $405-470, ask the CSR to force a higher fare bucket to get your fare over $150, $300, or $475 respectively. I've often asked to pay a higher fare in order to end up paying UA less money.

One other detail:
If you purchase the ticket over the phone, you are allowed to mail in the certificate to a Dearborn, MI post office box. Technically, your reservation is on hold, in a "not ticketed" limbo, until the certificate is received in Dearborn and processed. Only then is your reservation considered ticketed. This has significant ramifications for those who desire to use CR1s to confirm an upgrade in advance. You have to wait until you are ticketed to request an upgrade. (I hope only CR1s are used with these. SWUs would be a waste on the domestic-only itineraries, and 500's wouldn't be applicable with the advance purchase requirements on almost all the allowed fare classes.)

I just used "Ticket By Mail" to ticket a reservation using an Entertainment Coupon and $200 in travel credits. They deducted the $200, but neglected to factor in the additional $50 because they said it is non-cominable.

For the record: the Entertainment certs are combinable with travel credits (not certificates). If you ever get an agent who disagrees with you (and most will!), ask them to look up the profile (PMO/Entertainment 2005) and scroll down to where it says that it is "non-cominable." There is a line in the policy that says: "EXCEPTIONS: TRAVEL CREDITS/VOUCHERS."

UA and travel agencies see these rules...tell them to keep looking if they claim otherwise. SOJ=single open jaw.


STOPOVERS: PER FARE RULE
ROUTING: PER RULE OF FARE / ROUND-TRIP.
SOJ PERMITTED IF FARE ALLOWS. ONE-WAY
NOT PERMITTED.



...but for circle trips you may be stuck going to the counter.

Waymaker, thanks for the great summary. Cheers.

do the entertainment book coupons - the paper ones - apply to any fare and any route?

i know the electronice ones suck but i never tried the paper ones

You may not yet have realized it, but your question is answered in as much detail as is really possible in the links and statements in the posts above.

For allowable fares, read the info in the link http://www.entertainment.com/save/travel/united.

For routings see the above discussion about domestic only round trips, open jaws and circle trips.

You can look above. It's only valid on domestic flights, as far as I know, that are booked in H, Q, V, W and S.

I'm planning to order a case of ENT 2006 this week. Will post when I recieve them and read the fine print.

Linda

Or someone could call reservations to ask. The format of the PMO profile has been the same each year: PMO/ENTERTAINMENT 200X.

Or, one could go to their website & look under Travel/Airlines http://www.entertainment.com/save/travel/united Still there for 2006. :)

Phil

No agent fee workaround !
 

After reading this thread I spent some time booking with printed coupon and I believe I've found the way to book and ticket this promo without the agent fee (heck, without need for coupon either).

1. First, I had to make the reservation over the phone. While on the phone, I was instructed that there will be fee of $5 per ticket. I tried to get it waived, no way, so I went along.

2. I was told that I could ticket my reservation at the counter, went to SFO, now they want $10 per ticket ($40 for me), tried to argue that - standard answer - it's in the god of Computer, can overwrite the god's will. The alternative is to mail coupons to Dearborn (as WayMaker wrote) and pray that they recieve it in time and that fees that they'd charge won't exceed the value of coupon. Oh, if they don't receive coupon in time, they'd book me without coupon :mad:

3. I went back home, called their reservation system, navigated to "Ticket existing reservation" and - viola - it allowed me to enter the credit card and issued the booking confirmations! The key to this process - never speak to an agent, work only with AWR system.

My book shipped Sept 1st, hope it comes this week.

domestic only?
 

I checked the rules in http://www.entertainment.com/save/travel/united but didn't see any fineprint saying domestic only? Can we use the coupon on international booking?
THanks!