United flight

[oakleaf]

United just cancelled our flight from Albany, NY to Aruba on the 30th of Jan. This flight was booked on March 19th using FF miles. I called right away and the agent told me there were no flights I could be put on for the 30th on either United or USairways. My only options were to take a flight on the 29th or the 31st or get my miles and my booking fee back. I took the flight on the 29th because I didn't want to loose a day of vacation. It's a lucky thing I could be flexible but now I have to pay for a nights stay somewhere in Aruba. It's still cheaper than buying the flight right now. Also it will be another trip to the airport, about 120 miles round trip because my wife is still flying out on the 30th using USairways. I asked for several options but United wasn't very helpful. We fly about 3 times a year and this is the first time something like this has happened. A sign of things to come!

[somerville]

When does United's relationship with Continental begin? That could be an option.

[EJC]

The same thing happened to me for my return trip from Puerto Vallarta this coming winter--except my flight was with Delta and it was a paid fare. The representative (in India by the sounds of things) gave me the same two options you were given. I decided to go with the "lose a day of vacation" option. The new ticket had a connection in Salt Lake City rather than LAX. After I hung up I called back and eventually got a reticketing specialist in the USA. He knew enough to check each segment of the flight to check for availability--and, voila, seats were available (with a connection in Salt Lake City) for my original travel date. Turns out that after November, Delta will not offer flights from LAX to Portland. Did United give you a reason for the change? I did learn that for ticketing problems, airlines, in general, if they can get you to your destination the day before or the day after your original travel date, will not put you on another carrier. At the time I felt that there should have been some compensation for my either losing a day of vacation or having to book another night in a hotel. None was offered.

[oakleaf]

The reason they gave was they had cancelled the Washington DC to Aruba leg. It looks like they might only fly that leg on the weekends. For compensation I tried to get them to put me on the same flight home that my wife was on (USair). Before I asked I checked on line to see if FF seats were available. According to the USairways site they were but when I told the agent (United) on the phone, she said there weren't any and her system was faster than the internet. I'll do what I do many times, call back at another time and hope for a more helpful agent.

[Dave M]

Originally Posted by oakleaf

According to the USairways site they were but when I told the agent (United) on the phone, she said there weren't any and her system was faster than the internet.

The agent was likely speaking accurately. As is typical for most inter-airline alliances, US Air allocates a few free FF seats to United and other Star Alliance airlines and keeps most of the free FF seats for its own customers. Thus, it's very plausible that the UA agent couldn't see any US Air seats for you because there weren't any!

[mlfrancis]

I had the same difficulty using my USAir FF miles on United - there were lots of seats at their "saver" points level but USAir couldn't get at them. I tried everything I could think of to get those miles moved into my United account, to no avail. There was even a TUGger who was willing to book my seats on United if I could get him seats on a USAir flight but there were none available for his trip.

USAir has changed its policy to only have "saver" awards for limited weeks of the year, instead of releasing saver seats 335 days ahead, then going to the "standard" awards. This has just been since the merger with America West; I never had difficulty getting saver awards before the past year. I ended up using 140K miles for 2 Hawaii coach tickets, instead of just 70K - it killed me to do it but I didn't want to pay over $1K for the flights. What I really wanted was 2 First Class tickets, which I could have gotten on UAL but the miles were in the wrong place.

As far as Aruba, stay in the Marriott Resort hotel next to the Ocean Club and Surf Club. We did that this year due to the availablity of FF tickets - the hotel is beautiful, the room is larger than the lockout portion of the ASC. We used Marriott points for one night, then just went over to the ASC, used those facililties, and were able to get into our room by 1 p.m. I'd stay in the hotel again in a heartbeat - it's newly renovated, great beds, phenomenal bathroom!

Good luck!

Mary

[oakleaf]

Dave,
I just spoke with another agent and she confimed that there are no award seats availible to United for the USair flight. She was helpful in explaining that United is only flying to Aruba from DC on Saturdays and Sundays. She said they were flying Aruba to DC on Sundays and Fridays. That should make my flight home ok.

[oakleaf]

Mary,
I hope to do the same. Use points to book 1 night at the Marriott hotel and than move to the Surf Club. Maybe with some luck I can have our room and than pick my wife up at the airport.
Nelson

[dougp26364]

The consolidation that airlines are going through is really making booking any flight problematic. This year I've had relatively major changes to every flight I've booked for next year. United eliminated a flight I had booked to Hawaii the day after I booked the flight.

All of these changes are a large part of the reason I bit the bullet and have paid a cruiseline to book our flights for us to Barcelona Spain. I'm afraid anything I book will get changed several times before the cruise departure date and I really didn't have the extra day to spend pre and post cruise let alone the desire to pay for two extra hotel nights, just because I don't trust the airlines.

IMO, it's only going to get worse before it gets better. I fear there's going to be a lot of capacity reduction, flight consolidation and flight elimination for the next couple of years.