barbaraj718

I've been trying to book last minute award travel with United since I canceled my Argentina trip.

The 1K international reservation agents have been excellent and have gone out of their way to accommodate my various requests/itineraries. However, is the following just the first peek under the tent for 2002 award cuts?

When trying to book travel on Mexicana airlines, currently United would have to get me to their gateway for no charge (economy of course.) So far so good! However, NEW RULES KICK IN since my return is after 1/1/2001: IN ORDER FOR UNITED TO GET ME TO A PARTNER GATEWAY, I WOULD NOW HAVE TO PURCHASE 2 AWARDS!!! One IAD to MIA on United, then another award for the MIA to Mexico flight on Mexicana. When I asked the agent about this, she said these are the new rules for 2002 award travel.

Obviously, this also means any Air New Zealand award travel from the east coast would involve 2 awards: one United IAD-LAX and the other an AIr New Zealand award LAX to Auckland.

Outrageous! Another way to skimp on awards for 1Ks and everybody else. $@%$ %3@%#%@@$%*&

Have any of you heard about this yet? Or did I just get an agent who didn't understand???

Help!!!

chitownflyer

My suggestion is to call back and talk with a different agent. If you do not like what you are told, call back again and again, and you will probably get a different answer.

barbaraj718

Just as you suggest, I generally have good success doing the calling and calling.

I have called back again and again, only to be told the same story by different agents today.

Plus, it's intersting to note that all 1K international award travel is handled through their Dearborne, MI call center (though one agent shared that SOME calls may get re-routed to Denver during the day.) So if you ask a supervisor for an exception, you get the same one telling you "no" the 2nd or 3rd times. Maybe it would be different to call on a different day and time and hope you do not get the same supervisor!

It wil be interesting to see if it is true United is discontinuing it's "free" economy connecting flight to partner gateways in 2002.

I guess time will tell!!!

Happy New Year to all!

zrs70

Regardless of whether the program changes or not, you should be able to ticket now under today's rules for travel up to a year from now. It would be completely unethical for United to pull the plug on those who redeem before the reported changes take place.

chitownflyer

Maybe try calling different reservations(no 1K line) to avoid Dearborn, Michigan.

Hagbard Viking

Could this be related to the introduction of a Star Alliance Award Chart, where you can mix the * carriers freely (thus no need for a connection to a gateway)? The world is split into zones and the mileage requirements depends on within or between which zones you fly. Some of the other * carriers have already introduced it, and at the same time discontinued the award charts for individual * partner airlines.

Even if this is the case, like someone said above, they really should let you book by the "old rules" until the new ones are released.

djohannw

I had excactly the same problem with UA, in my case with adding a LH-connector FRA-DUS to a UA transatlantic SFO-FRA.

I was told that this has become an absolute no-go to mix carriers on an award ticket, and that I would have to shell out 20000 miles to fly FRA-DUS (140 miles, 30 minutes flight-time). The flight having a codeshare flight-number did not mean any difference also, and even the fact that a schedule-change was the reason for requesting that connecting-flight (tickets were booked and issued in July DUS-ORD-SFO rt, and DUS-ORD is gone by Feb. 14th) did not mean any difference...

So, yes, your observation seems to be true, and the "Star Alliance award scheme" by zones is obviously not in effect at UA, as I specifically asked about it and was told that that is a "LH thing only".

I finally found an agent here in Germany that really helped me out and got me award-tickets on LH only (CGN-FRA-SFO-FRA-DUS). This must cost UA a lot more than the single leg FRA-DUS only, but logic seems not to be very common these days with airlines. She was very apologetic about the situation and told me that it was a corporate decision that she could not bend at all...

Greetings - Dirk

Explore

This indeed is outrageous. A month ago, I ticketed an MP award SFO-LAX-AKL-WLG (using UA SFO-LAX, NZ LAX-WLG)without problem. A future such trip now apparently requires separate award or fare payment for either the U.S. or N.Z. domestic connector, since neither UA nor NZ operates all the way through.

pb9997

djohannw, let UA know that in fact not only LH but a bunch of others *A carriers (RG included) have already sent to the press the details of *A awards effective Jan.1/2002.

I was under the impression that code-share flights were not allowed under the current scheme, though I've been allowed to issue these kind of awards (e.g. GRU-UA-MIA-MX-MEX), though I usually prefer the award 100% UA, thus GRU-UA-ORD-UA-MEX.

djohannw

Actually I have cashed in close to all of my miles on UA by now for several award-tickets, started collecting further mileage with LH and I got my problem solved (got an award on LH ticketed), so I do not care any more really.

While LH's award-tickets require some more miles than UA's do (e.g. 70K vs. 50K D->US in Y), they seem to be much more accomodating than UA is at the moment, and the Star-Alliance award-scheme is really a big improvement, especially with the free-stopover option.

Greetings - Dirk

Explore

Why can't UA get with the *a award scheme? Is there any way to talk them into it?

Shareholder

Have you asked about the new STAR award chart. That may be the reason for withrawing the current joint carrier situation you discuss. But the agent should have advised you about that change. In the case of the new AC STAR chart, many of the new awards are better than the current AC or individual partner charts, since travel beyond the gateway can now be included for no additional mileage. You should call back and find out when UA is introducing their version of the chart which should be very much like AC's.

djohannw

Yes, I have asked them specifically about the *A-award-scheme, and they told me that it does not exist with UA and that it is a "LH thing" (spoke to a Supervisor at UA's MP desk).

I have no idea how to talk UA into using this scheme, but I guess they will use it sooner or later, but it will take some time until they adopt it...

Greetings - Dirk