Okay, I was just about to grab one-way ORD-LAX ticket with 14-day advance restriction. Currently, it is 23:37 in Central time zone. Although I was able to price that fare out on united.com just about an hour ago, it did NOT when I tried about 15 minutes ago. Not too badly, farecompare could display that particular fare from Orbitz so I just purchased a UA (016) ticket NOT from UA directly for the first time ever in my life! Crap, I had to pay $4.99 for stupid service fee to Orbitz. But I didn't have any other option. If I wanted to purchase directly from UA, a higher fare with 7-day advance restriction would have costed me $65 more! Or maybe HNL based agent would have worked, but still $10 more. I was always under the impression that united.com uses Pacific time zone, nevertheless it seems it's NOT! So it is based on Eastern time zone? $4.99 for a worthless lesson. Pissing me off!

I never heard that conjecture. Central (or India) would make a lot more sense.

I believe that's the consensus. There was another recent thread about this as well.

Given its many singular features, I would say that united.bomb operates in the Twilight time Zone of Rod Serling. (And bookings around midnight may be problematic, because they sometimes make fare changes around then.)

Besides paying the extra $4.99 for going through Orbitz, one will miss out on the 2 RDM/$1 and 1 EQM/$1 for using a UA Platinum Visa card to charge it on united.com.

You earn the 2 RDM/$ regardless of where you purchase.

I didn't realize it was 2 RDM/$1 for a UA purchase whether made through united.com or not. But it is really EQM that I am most interested in and there is no EQM for non-united.com purchases, right? (I think I have been screwed out of almost 1800 EQM for purchases made with the help of Tech Support, and I am very unhappy about it.)

The United Airlines Website takes your internet time and calculates it for the advance purchase dates. What if I were in a country over the dateline? There is some code built in that it takes from your IP address so for instance 223.343434 could be Paris France and it would take that time into consideration since they have travelers booking from all parts of the globe and besides who wants to be up at 2 AM just to grab a fare that only people in the US can get due to the central time zone where United is based.

Hope this helps and if anyone here can contradict my philosophy go right ahead(:

No, that's not true. My IP address is identified as a Wisconsin location and I checked on ARIN. I usually purchase international tickets, and this is my second time purchasing a domestic ticket. Whenever I purchase an international ticket, I always take Pacific time zone into account and haven't run into any trouble so far even though I purchase after midnight in Central time zone. But this time, I was screwed up. Depature point - Central, booking point - Central, what's wrong?

The time zone for united.com is Central Time.

Also mentioned in this thread.

That being said, the lack of availability despite it being before midnight could be due to a number of reasons, the most likely of which is the utter failure of the website to do anything in a predictable or consistent (or oftentimes even correct) fashion. Also could be due to united.com selling out of those fares but Orbitz failing to update in a timely fashion... I've seen that happen even when not pushing the advance-purchase deadline.

BTW, does the advance-purchase deadline (be it 14-day, 7-day, or whatever) take into account only calendar days, or also the flight time, i.e. for a flight leaving at noon (let's say), would an X-day advance purchase fare expire at noon X days prior, or at midnight X days prior?

My experience tells me that only calendar days to be taken into account as far as concerning advance purchase.

In my case, I think united.bomb was in action hence messed up pricing.

Actually, it's for any Star Alliance ticket bought from anyhone. I just got mine for purchasing an LH/JK itinerary on JK stock from AAA.

Correct.

Don't forget there's a 5,000 EQM limit per year, so you may not be as screwed as you think (depending on your total ticket purchases).

I agree with N227UA on this. I purchased a ticket while in China, and it reported the ticket purchase date as the previous day (i.e., the date in the US, not the date in China).

I have detected leeway when dealing with a reservationist, even to interpreting the expiry of a promotion to be 11:59pm Hawaiian time. This goes for ticket advance purchase requirements, as well. Also, when I've had the computer "expire me" on a 24-hour book-and-hold, but it was not 11:59pm somewhere in the US, I've called (um, after midnight Central Time) and virtually* always had the reservation honored. Don't know if it was because I was 1K, and/or if it was because there was still room. *I definitely have heard "sorry" when there was no room left, even as a 1K.

I just had this work the other evening, when...

I don't think I saw that my book and hold reservation said anything to the effect that I had to purchase by 11:59pm Central Time -- either when I reserved it, or in the email. When I went in through My Itineraries to purchase, the next evening, it said, in red, just that. It sure wasn't 11:59 PDT yet -- at either end of the itinerary (SFO-LAX) or where I was while purchasing (Marin). I called the .com number, and got the ticket with no problem. No extra fee either. The CSR said that that's a lot of what he does. Interestingly, he was in India.

The points of the anecdote: It appears they're tightening up on Central Time -- in some communications. (I'm not sure it's worth going up on the mountain re consistency here, as I think the advantage still remains with us. Until I get burned a couple of times...) And it's good to keep that united.com number handy.

I know, that sounds like kind of a random question. The short version of the story: I'm trying to take advantage of a 7-day advance purchase fare on an upcoming PS flight. On the website, it says that today is the last day to purchase the fare. So I'm wondering what time does a new day begin in the world of .bomb?

The reason I ask is because I'm trying to also take advantage of the 24-hr refund policy by booking at the last possible moment allowed.

Premier Exec help desk did not know, but I'm sure someone out in FT land does

Central Time zone, since that is where Chicago is. When the merger was finalized, CO info started appearing on United.com at midnight CST, but only 10 PM here in CA.

USA central.

The 24 hours is from when you buy the ticket, and has no relation to the time of day or what day it was.