iahphx

As a 1K, I have a roundtrip USA/Thailand award flight booked, which includes a stopover within Thailand. I wanted to make a trivial change in the reservation, and the agent -- and supervisor -- are giving me a hard time because my entire reservation is booked "east." I'm flying USA-Thailand across the Atlantic, and flying home across the Pacific. The only reason I'm doing it this way is that was what was available, and the flight times make more sense (due to both prevailing winds and the way the schedules are set).

I know I could simply book two one-way awards, but then I'd lose my stopover (which are only allowed on roundtrips). Is there actually a rule that prohibits this routing? And even if there is, since I ticketed it without trouble (the computer accepted it), why are they going out of their way to hassle a 1K? It seems petty and ridiculous to me.

npei

Perhpas your current routing exceed MPM rules.
Did you book award ticket prior to 3/3 integration ?

5khours

Unfortunately, you can only do one ocean on a RT. Ran into the same problem last year. The only solution is two OWs with a paid piece in between to hand the stopover.

iahphx

Well, after an hour hold, the supervisor let me make the change (which was for a segment within Thailand). She couldn't find anything in the rules that prohibits this routing. I combed through the rules myself, and the only "problem area" I see regarding crossing both oceans is a discussion of "circle routes." But is this a circle route? From the discussion in the rules (an SFO-AKL-HKG route, all over the Pacific), I don't think it is, but whatever. The computer did price this for me originally, so the computer doesn't seem to have a problem with it. I guess if you want to do it, choose your itinerary carefully, and don't change it! If it goes through, you're set. If it doesn't, call back and talk to another agent.

BTW, they originally hassled me today for having a stopover and and open jaw, claiming only one of those is allowed. This is clearly NOT the case, and the reservation was already ticketed this way. When I read them that rule, they came up with the 2 ocean rule. When the supervisor finally allowed the change, I asked why I was being hassled -- since, as a 1K, this makes little business sense for them to do. She said they were instructed to "tighten up" on award travel rules, because some agents were "being too lenient." Just odd and annoying, but at least I ultimately got what I wanted.

dparkinson

I'm similarly confused...
I want to book a ticket JFK-ZRH. Stopover there. Then ZRH-AKL (that's my destination.) Then AKL-NRT-JFK. I'm beiEng told this is a circle trip even though it follows the rule of only one stopover and no backtracking. Am I wrong or is the agent wrong?

samwkchan

There is no such rule. Phone agents like to make up rules when they think your routing is too creative (aka strange). In most cases, you should hang up politely and call back. Just hope the next agent is less imaginative.

I and my friends have heard of many non-existing rules from phone agents. Here are a few. (All statements below are false claims in UA rules. I don't imply that they don't hold in rules of other carriers. Statements in square brackets are the correct interpretations per my best knowledge.)

• An award flight can cross only one ocean and only once. [No such rule as long as the number of flown miles does not exceed MPM + 15%.]
• In a layover, passengers must take the next available flight at the airport. [A domestic layover may take up to 4 hours while an international layover may take up to 24 hours.]
• When a layover is necessary, passengers must choose the most "direct" routing. [No such rule as long as the number of flown miles does not exceed MPM + 15%.]
• An award flight from North America to Asia cannot be routed through airports in Europe and Africa. [No such rule as long as the number of flown miles does not exceed MPM + 15%.]

chinatraderjmr

I was looking for avail flights in F from BKK-LAX. almost all flights were via PAC w one flight avail via FRA BUT I was VERY surprised to see this routing avail: BKK-SYD-LAX. I called the 1K desk as figured this could not be correct a) over MM and B) routed thru a higher sector but she got a supervisor on the line and she saw it was avail (on my date and a number of others). She booked it to see if the computer would accept it and it dif (at 70K miles . I asked if I could stop in SYD and the answer again was YES as long as it was part of a R/T. I didn't take it as who wants to fly 35 hours w stop when you can do it in 19 but still found it interesting how the PMUA award routines are much more liberal.

AndySAV

I have SAV-IAD-FRA-SIN / SIN-PEK(Stopover)-ORD-SAV 90000 miles in C booked for August.

Mountainman

I thought the 90,000 mile C awards from the US to SE Asia were gone long ago. When did you book?

iahphx

OK, thanks everyone -- it seems like the consensus view is that it's perfectly legal to fly "around the world" on a roundtrip USA-Asian award. That makes sense because the computer offers itineraries in both directions -- and it generally works out to be the shortest flight times.

What was bizarre to me today was that -- even though I was already holding a ticketed reservation -- every agent I spoke to was CERTAIN that my itinerary was illegal, even though nobody could articulate why. And this was how I was treated as a 1K. Maybe it was just bad luck, but sheesh. Coming from the CO side of the business, I actually thought I would receive better customer service once the airlines was integrated (CO always seemed businesslike on the phone to me, while my dealings with UA's elite desk suggested they wanted to actually HELP me). I guess not right now. Maybe, as the supervisor told me, they're worried about being too lenient.

c1mth0g

I've been told that crossing both oceans will make this a RTW ticket (which cost a lot more miles). Easiest just to book two OWs. There are many city pairs (eg JFK/SIN) where TATL and TPAC routings are both valid.

100countrygoal

It's interesting, when I look at round-trip award itineraries from BKK to ORD, about 90% of the transpac alternatives go away if my outbound is across the Atlantic and vice-versa. It's not just a mile limitation, because again a valid one-way to Asia via Europe and a valid one-way to Asia across the Pacific most of the times won't be offered online as a round-trip pair. . . but occasionally some are. Thus UA.com (and previously co.com) must have restrictions above and beyond the 15% requirement. (and experience also shows that the restriction is also not just based on number of segments. . .)

why fly

the CO award are much better just last month i booked YYZ-LHR-HKG-syd- bkk-lhr-yyz and the lhr-hkg-syd was on Virgin business class.

todorovic

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry 9000 (Bold): Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9900; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0.576 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

That last one was actually PMUA rule (sort of) as TATL awards required more miles for redemption. Other stuff was typical creative inventing of nonexistent rules.

iahphx

Interesting. For ease, I've always just searched one-ways "there and back." It sounds like the computer logic "discriminates" against two ocean awards but doesn't prohibit them. As I said, though, I cherry picked flights from my one-way searches and the computer agreed that it was a legal routing.

It's definitely better to be able to cross both oceans on an award ticket simply due to availability. I did a lot of hunting to find flights I wanted, and I would say only 5% of possible Star Alliance routings were available for standard award travel. Given this limited availability, you really want to have options over both oceans! Also -- and especially to Southeast Asia -- flying east the whole way is generally more efficient. I particularly liked the option of taking the typical redeye to Europe at around 7 or 8 pm and then connecting mid-day in Europe to Asia. Otherwise, you have to wait until about noon the next day to fly westbound from the USA to Asia, so you "waste" a travel day. In contrast, FROM Asia, the east bound flights tend to leave late in the afternoon so you get another full day that way. If you head west, you typically have to take the first flight of the morning to make a connection in Europe.