A report on FT suggests that United has imposed new, stricter routing rules on travel between the USA/Canada and North Asia. Thus far, my research points to a case of a mistaken agent.
Still, the following new rules, apparently effective today, were read to a customer just a short time ago–
- No transit in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines on a US-North Asia award
- Maximum four segments (previously five segments were permitted)
- Must cross the same ocean in both directions
- No circle trips (circle trips were already technically prohibited)
I called the Star Alliance desk and the 1K desk to verify and both denied that there were any new rules in effect. I even asked the 1K agent to pull up the award routing rules and all recent memos to verify and she did. According to her, the five segment restriction remains in effect for travel to Asia, Australia, and Oceania, but no restrictions on ocean crossings or embargoed transit cities.
I also tried a dummy booking on united.com and was able to price an award to Japan connecting in Hong Kong as normal:
Still, I am a bit uneasy. The agent must have been reading something and though the blocked transit cities rules is just ridiculous if true, this appears like the type of move that United would stealthily make. Delta also has a four segment maxium in each direction on awards.
So for now, it seems that these rumored changes are not in effect, but it will come as no surprise if these changes turn out to be true.
Thanks for your continued reporting on this type of thing (plus the Air China post). It’s really informative and important information that gets ignored by many of the bloggers who are just hawking credit card points.
Hey Matthew! I’m struggling to wrap my head around what exactly a circle trip is. For instance, if I did SFO-SYD, SYD-NRT, NRT-SFO, with destination in SYD and stopping over in NRT, is that a circle trip? Transiting/stopping in Asia is often the only way to get to the South Pacific, and it’s permitted by the fare rules? So what would be a prohibited circle trip? Is NA-Europe-Asia-NA such an example? (of course, I’ve booked those before, and at least online some of those itineraries are still bookable)
I think with the 5 segment thing – I’ve noticed that agents will let me have 4 segments each way, or 5 one way, and 3 the other. But if I try 5 segments one way to Asia, and 4 segments back from Asia, the award won’t price. Is that your experience too?
does the 5 segments rule apply to South Asia too ?
My understanding is a few new rules date back to last October or November. I spoke extensively with the awards desk wen I was booking a trip from DC to SIngapore via Europe. What I found out was there was a (then) new rule you can not fly from the USA to Europe to South Asia via North Asia (i.e. US to London to BKK to SIN is OK but US to London to TPE or TYO to SIN was not allowed). I tried HUCA many times but could never get it to price out favorably, and then a extremely competent sounding individual at the award desk confirmed this was a new change. I think there was a segment maximum change as well, but I didn’t note that as it wasn’t important to my itinerary.
However, flying over the Pacific, US to North Asia to South Asia – no problem. I just confirmed that tonight as I was playing with an Asian trip for July. I didn’t commit to it, but I had the agent price it out and it was as expected.
The line about not being able to cross two oceans – I’ve heard that from quite a few agents but the United awards guy dismissed it. It was true years ago, but once United went to one way award travel, the computer sees a round the world trip as two perfectly valid one ways – US to Asia through Europe (allowed) and Asia to the US over the Pacific (allowed). No further analysis needed.
What about Europe? Is there a 4 segments rule? I was really given hard time with that, when I tried to book my award trip
@Dimitri: No segment limit on Europe. Even six in each direction should price.
It’s getting stricter indeed, like AA’s routing rules. I’m not even allowed to route SIN-PVG-MEL now! I have to stick to a connection point in SE Asia such as BKK.
@Joel: SQ segments must be auto-priced, so if it is SQ from SIN-PVG, the system won’t price it. IRRC, your routing should still be valid.
@All: I can verify after numerous award bookings this week that the new rules reported above are NOT in place. Whew!
@Matthew, nope. It errors out on a multicity SIN-PVG and PVG-MEL. In the past I was able to get a SIN-BKK-PVG-MEL (TG SIN-BKK-PVG and CA PVG-MEL), but now no longer.