The other day Marcus commented on a post and pointed out an issue that Gary Leff wrote about with United not ticketing partner flights, despite confirmation of booking. While what he wrote about is a slightly different experience than my own, both are probably important to know about. I’ll write first about my experience and then comment on Leff’s experience.
If you recall our post on how to book long stopovers with United, you’ll remember that we booked a ticket to San Juan Puerto Rico with layovers in Aruba and Panama “on the way”.
You geography buffs may realize that Aruba and Panama are not at all on the way to Puerto Rico. At all. However, United.com let me book it… Or did it?
What I didn’t tell you is that after that post had gone up I had gotten an email or something notifying me that the partners’ flights could not book. I think it emailed me with the confirmation numbers missing on some segments. When I logged in and confirmed my ticket, it showed the United Airlines segments, which got me as far as Aruba… and then it showed nothing else. The flights to Panama and Puerto Rico on Copa Airlines were not ticketed at all.
I canceled the ticket right away and then tried to rebook (a more direct option opened up anyways). But still I wanted to know exactly why it didn’t book and if I could get around it. After asking the artist formerly known as LuckyCoins if he had any advice (and he told me to email him more details later so he could look into it later), and after freaking out and rebooking… it just seemed to post. It for sure ticketed the second time and before it had not.
Let’s be clear about a few details and recap:
1) It wasn’t a legal routing. In fact, it was slightly absurd so I wasn’t but so upset when it didn’t ticket.
2) It was nearly the exact same flight that worked. The difference was that I didn’t have to switch airports in DC. The first time was going in IAD and out DCA, but I switched it to in and out of IAD. I have no idea how that would affect COPA’s system but maybe (but doubtful) it pushed United over the edge on how much weird stuff can be done to one ticket.
3) I was booking from two different accounts, going for the same flights at the same time. Although, I already confirmed that there were 2 seats available on each of the legs. And this is true both times.
4) It for some reason worked the second time and we flew the route.
In reality, it’s most likely a system error but those are the facts. Here are some take away lessons and things to know about United’s engine.
1) United.com is fickle.
For example, sometimes routing through Guam on the way to destinations in Southeast Asia has availability but United.com will rarely show it when using the multi-destination tool. For complicated reasons, certain things don’t show up online, especially when using the multi-destination tool.
2) The Agents CAN
When United.com is fickle usually the agents can see availability without problems. (However, the example above is more or less an anomaly in the booking system and I didn’t want to call. But that is very very rare and the problem wasn’t availability).
3) If you’re booking a normal flight don’t worry.
Listen, even a stopover in Europe on the way to Asia is considered normal. It’s using one stopover and it’s a legal routing. Don’t worry about it, just book and be happy.
4) If you’re doing, not so legal routings, check to make sure it tickets. But again, it’s rare.
Once it’s ticketed you’re fine. It’s only with the sketchiest bookings that I would watch the couple days after to make sure they ticket.
What did Gary say?
Well, read the warning yourself here. But basically he said that Continental would book a ticket on Lufthansa and Asiana and then later take back the booking without notice. He says that post merger he had the same experience on a Singapore Airlines flight not ticketing.
The funny thing is that I never had a problem with Asiana or Singapore despite complicated flights being booked. Not saying that Gary wouldn’t know, as he does own a booking service, and I’ve heard of this being true from other sources but I just hate to spread fear. Like, “everyone check your tickets now! They may not be booked…” It’s not the PR I want the mileage game to have or the tone I want to set on this site.
However, it does make me paranoid. If I see a flight without a ticket number, I’ll obviously dig deeper but I’m not going to check every time. That is until I get stranded one day (it’s bound to happen one way or another someday). :-p
Any weird experiences with United not ticketing? And will you now be double checking your award bookings?
It just happened to me four days ago. I did a very crazy route with total of 11 segments. The agent said it confirm but it will issue within a week and everything have been booked, I don’t have to worry about it. Some how I kept checking every half day that it’s issue or not. Four days ago I open my itinerary online and I found out that 2 of my flight were missing and the star alliance allotment went up again. I called them, they said it’s system error. They have to rebook manually again. But this time they issue it right away and now everything is confirm 🙂
What makes you say it isn’t a legal routing? It might not be rational or normal, but that’s a very different standard.
Much more likely is that the fare didn’t properly store in the reservation, causing it to not confirm. It happens sometimes. If the ticket isn’t issued within 6 hours that’s when I start making phone calls.
@ Sam – that’s nice that your award space was still there though! I would have laughed if they hit you with a change fee. :-p jk
@ WA – There are a couple of reasons I say it’s not legal and I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on this given the lack of routing rules available, your UA experience and your gift of never lacking in opinion.
This if anything seems like a “circle trip”, which as you know is not permitted (not that we know what the heck that means). My best guess as to why HKG is not a legal stopover on the way to SYD and yet still allowed is that the system needs to route through asia to get to SYD half the time. If it’s on the way, it’s bookable.
1) AUA on the way to SJU is a circle trip if anything and AUA is not needed to get there… at all.
2) In my experience going into a region, out and back into a region is not allowed in a one-way direction. Obviously this isn’t in all 4 lines of the routing rules but it would be why east coast to west coast via mexico is booked as two awards instead of a mexico trip. Idk.
Thoughts?
I’ll keep the 6 hour rule in mind.
Cool to read your take on the problem of ticketing for multi-stop trips. I guess the best practice is still to check the availability online. If you can’t book there, pick up the phone and call an agent. I’ve read how other people note down the flight numbers so that they can tell the agent and get it exactly correct.
By the way, thanks for the mention.
I’ve had problems about three or four times with United dropping segments, and have not been able to pin down a pattern. Partner segments sometimes go missing, and it may not even be evident if you check united.com and all seems normal. Is it that when there’s a schedule change somewhere along the way, the computer system isn’t accurate at keeping everything else as is in the itinerary, or adjusting it succesfully if necessary, but sometimes just drops segments instead? I don’t know the answer, but I do check future United award reservations periodically to try to catch any problems while there’s time to fix them.
The issue is not only on complicated international itineraries. Once it was on a simple domestic trip that required a US Airways segment, which somehow got lost.
That is so interesting in an unfortunate way. I’m surprised to hear that you had this happen on domestic trips but not surprised it’s on partner flights.
Your guess is as good as mine but my first thought was that this is a problem because United is behind on their partner info. Maybe like you said, there is a slight change and United is behind and then can’t ticket.
I’m also curious if anyone has been stranded because of this. Like, does the partner airline have the ability to see the booking at all?