bnebased

A couple of weeks ago the Premier line for reservations still gave me good people in Sydney (M to F business hours) but, sadly, MP matters are now handled in Manilla More offshoring of previously local staff.

ozstamps

1. I have often had human UA agents (when booking flights) somehow break thru flights to ORD or NYC into 2 separate animals for points earning and upgrade clearing. (An example below) They can most certainly do it IME - they just need to understand why you need to do it. ORD and NYC each have same flight # ex SYD.

13-May-05 UA 0870 C Class SFO to ORD 1,846 1,846 3,692
13-May-05 UA 0870 C Class SYD to SFO 7,417 7,417 14,834


2. Where are there 15% discounts on UA these days?

3. I booked 4 x UA It'l tickets by phone with SYD in the past week. Still staff there bus hours.

weero

G'Day ozstamps
Interesting points and a bit cheering considering my more recent UA experiences.

To 1 - well I already told it - I never found a UA agent who knew what
breaking the continuation was about.

To 2 - large discounts you only get on united.con when using certificates.
This is why I want to do it there and then change it to a useful itin on the phone.

To 3 - must have been unlucky once more .. I had no good agents in the new
centre so far. But also no really, really bad ones.

MBS MillionMiler

I've been able to do it online, but it takes the 'multi city' function on united.com...An example of what I've done in the past:

Coming home from HKG, I've routed HKG-NRT-LAX-ORD-MBS before (because I could confirm upgrades at time of booking, and it's SO many more miles than HKG-ORD-MBS). HKG-NRT-LAX being one flight number, in the multi-city function, I've selected NRT and LAX as cities, with a few hours in between each segment, but all on the same day. It issues separate 'tickets' for each segment (within the one reservation), and haven't had a problem getting the full miles.

weero

You are right that is indeed doable.
But in the cases, I am interested in, the system does no longer find the through
fare then .
For example for CDG-SYD (say via IAD&SFO), it prices a CDG-SFO and an SFO-SYD
return. Not a good example though as none of these flights have a continuation,
I concede.

bnebased

I guess I still don't get the problem. I use all sorts of online resource (including ua.bomb, if you can call it a resource) but have never ended up booking thru ua.bomb. I have always beaten the value of any online bonus by both getting cheaper prices and much less aggravation. My TA has even managed to manufacture seats in apparently sold out classes by magic tricks.

weero

Well you understood the problem very well, I'd say .

Still when buying ex. Europe, very often the published fares are unbeatable
(1200+something USD for EU-US-Oz) and better than consolidator fares.
Hence using a discount cert would be very, very tempting.

bnebased

Yes, those fares look beautiful. I asked whether the reverse fares Oz-US-EU would become available on UA metal across the Atlantic, but no good news on that front, in spite of the UA/LH combination being (nearly) comparable pricewise.

Would taking a UA/LH combo to EU with a nested UA fare back be against the spirit and/or literal interpration of "the rules"?

weero

If it is, UA doesn't care - I buy overlapping seasonal tickets in either
direction for 6+ years now. Ever since UA killed the cheapo B fares ex. Oz.

cepheid

Here's sort of an on-topic question:

My parents are taking an US/HP "direct" (1-stop) OAK-PHX-IAD flight - it's number 55 on both legs and no plane change required. US estimates the mileage for OAK-IAD at 2595. Now, this is quite a bit more than UA's estimated OAK-IAD mileage of 2408. What gives? Is US including the additional leg in its mileage estimate, or is US using some other method of mileage estimation?

UA Fan

Can you explain more, and what is the meaning of nested in post 38?

bnebased

There's an old discussion at:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/archi.../t-287731.html

weero

According to gc.kls2.com, the distances are:
2409 miles for the direct flight and 2602 miles for the segmented one.
So clearly UA goes for the direct one whereas US honours the flight path.
Yes that old thread is still valid.
'Nested' tickets are generally legal. They are non-compliant with the ticketing
rules of airlines if they are nested in a way to circumvent minimum stay requirements.

So buying A-B-A and B-A-B is fine and ok with most carriers as long as the
finaly pattern: A-B-A-B-A does not violate the stay rules (such as a weekend)
at B, then A and then B again.

OverseaFlyer

Done it before myself
April 2006
UA975 EWR-ORD 717 miles
UA 881 ORD - TPE 7450 miles
Total 8167 miles

====================

June 2006
UA 975 EWR-ORD 717 Miles
UA 883 ORD-NRT 6274 Miles
UA 881 NRT-TPE 1356 Miles

Total 8347 miles


By the way ORD-NRT got double miles
Here is from UA web
Chicago to Tokyo double miles
Ticketing dates: September 28, 2006 - January 31, 2007
Travel dates: October 1, 2006 - January 31, 2007
Offer: Purchase and fly United’s nonstop service between Chicago (ORD) and Tokyo (NRT) and earn double miles for qualifying fares in United First (F booking class), United Business (C,D booking class) or United Economy (Y,B,M,H,Q,V booking class).
Register now:You only need to register once. Register online now.