I was yelled at today by a CSR at the 1K counter for illegal back-to-back ticketing.

I have a B-fare booked that looks as follows: beginning of April I flew DEN-AMS, and somewhere in July I will be flying BRU-DEN. I booked it this way for accounting purposes.
I also have a AMS-DEN-AMS trip this week that I only booked about two weeks ago.
According to the agent, that's back to back ticketing, and it's illegal.
Was she right? I have no intention of cheating the system. Besides, the city pairs don't even match up and my B-fares are expensive.

It's not "illegal" under the law, but it may be forbidden by UA's Contract of Carriage, since you used your flight coupons out of order and returned to your origin city--if doing so made your flights cheaper, e.g. by getting around a minimum stay requirement (but unlike some others here, I don't think that circumventing a minimum stay requirement is the only way to break the rule against back-to-back ticketing). If your B fares are full fares, it should not be an issue, though, since the way in which you issued the tickets shouldn't have changed the price of a full-fare ticket.

But were they full fares? And what do you mean by "booked it this way for accounting
purposes"?

Did the CSR actually do something to you/your reservatin, in addition to yelling at you?

To me, this isn't even against the United CoC. The CoC states that for it to be breaking the rules, there needs to be intent to break minimum stay or advance purchase requirement (or any other restriction). There is obviously no intent here.

Not even close to being illegal or in violation of the CofC, not to mention it is not the CSRs place to be yelling at anyone. If the CSR believes it is a problem ticket, they should refer it to corporate for review, not chastise customers.

Really? I didn't think it said that...

i think technically it is back to back ticketing. its definitely not illegal. i doubt its against coc because i think the recourse for the airline in back to back ticketing is to charge the full fare for both tickets. but if you already paid full fare, they really don't have any recourse.

as flyinbob said, i really don't think its the CSRs job to get angry at customers who break these types of rules. (the airline could simply take action after the flight is over as easy as they can before the flight started) in the way of taking away your ff miles and status, etc... but once again, since you paid full fare, there should be no recourse at all.

contract of carriage under ticketing:
C) USE OF COUPONS FROM TWO OR MORE TICKETS ISSUED AT ROUND TRIP FARES
FOR THE PURPOSE OF CIRCUMVENTING APPLICABLE TARIFF RULES (SUCH AS
ADVANCE PURCHASE/MINIMUM STAY REQUIREMENT) IS NOT PERMITTED. UA AGENTS
AND AUTHORIZED TRAVEL AGENTS ARE PROHIBITED FROM ISSUING TICKETS,
COMMONLY REFERRED TO AS “BACK TO BACK”, UNDER SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES WHEN
THERE IS OBVIOUS INTENT TO ABUSE AND/OR MISUSE RESTRICTED ROUND TRIP
FARES. AGENTS FOUND ISSUING SUCH TICKETS MAY BE LIABLE FOR THE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FARE PAID AND THE FARE FOR TRANSPORTATION USED.
UA HAS THE RIGHT TO DENY TRANSPORTATION TO PASSENGERS FOUND UTILIZING
TICKETS IN THIS MANNER UNLESS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FARE PAID AND
THE FARE FOR TRANSPORTATION USED IS COLLECTED.

sorry about the caps lock, thats how it was on the site and i dont know how to make it lower case without re-typing it entirely

Actually, it's pretty explicit (converted to lower case for readability):

If indeed the CSR yelled at you then she needs help from a mental health professional.

Next, where did you buy the tickets? on United.bomb?
If you bought those tickets from United.com then there is nothing wrong with your purchase: You bought it from a united Airlines agent and if UA doesn't like your ticket routing then United should not sell you the ticket that they don't approve of...

UA needs to get its act together.
If they don't like "back-to-back" ticketing then they should not sell it.
This what a computer (United.bomb), is all about.
If United.bomb can't figure out what is "back-to-back" ticket then how can the customer figure it out?

Anyway, United should apologize to the OP for the alleged rudness of its CS agent.
@:-)A $600 flight coupon may constitute a meaningful apology in this case.

A little change in bolding from my perspective.

I think it's not obvious abuse at all if you booked a DEN-AMS roundtrip...and then a few days or weeks later, discovered you had a chance to take a "trip home" in the middle of your assignment, necessitating a new and completely separate AMS-DEN roundtrip ticket. Plans change. Travel happens.

Sounds like his/her client paid for the B fare ticket. B fare is a very high fare. It is in the $3500 range without min/max stay requirement. Nested ticket should pose no problem as he/she is not trying to circumvent restrictions. However, it would have been different if the OP were to upgrade to a Z fare, which is only a few hundreds higher each way, with loads of restrictions.

What I meant with "for accounting purposes", is that I booked ticket A and billed the customer. Any other trips within that time frame (such as my current round trip), are paid for by me.

Also, I still am not sure how it could be back to back ticketing, since ticket A is DEN-AMS; BRU-DEN and ticket B DEN-AMS-DEN. I will be returning from BRU on my first ticket, not from AMS.

there are many spots to bold in this rule that would be relevant to the op. obviously the op was not trying to circumvent the system so what you bolded means that the op didn't violate the CoC. i bolded the last part because the op bought a b-fare which would essentially be the full fare. so there is no difference from the fare that the op purchased and the additional amount that united would charge retroactively (thus no penalty for what the op did). therefore from what i bolded, the op did not violate the CoC. essentially what i am trying to say is that there are many parts of that statement that would clear the op from any wrongdoing and thus the CSR was entirely in the wrong. not only because they should not yell at the op even if the op did something like that, but also that they op did not do anything wrong. not sure if a $600 voucher is a little bit excessive in this case (unless the op wasn't able to fly, in which case a full refund of the ticket and a $600 voucher would be appropriate). if the only consequence was getting yelled at then maybe a $100-$200 voucher. but then again, i got 3 e-500s deposited in my account from rcc agent because i misconnected due to a mechanical even though i ended up getting to my destination at the same time i would have. so if we were to use that as a basis, maybe a $300-$400 voucher would be in order.

That doesn't matter. It's a myth that only A-B-A and B-A-B constitute back-to-back ticketing. UA spells out the definition, and they've been posted above multiple times.

i think its still considered back to back ticketing because you were taking the flights in the wrong order. but regardless, as the coc state, back to back ticketing is not disallowed just because its back to back ticketing, its only disallowed to circumvent the system. which obviously you weren't doing with the purchase of a b-fare.

also, just so that i understand this correctly, you purchased the ticket on .bomb and were not trying to purchase it with the CSR who yelled at you right? because while that would not excuse his/her behavior, it would make a little bit more sense if the CSR is afraid that he will be charged the difference in fare if you tried to purchase it through the CSR. if you were just checking in with the csr then there is no reason or excuse whatsoever for them to treat you like this.

Client paid for one, I paid for the other.