And I guess it is…
On Monday I posted about my award trip to China scheduled for this December.
Last night, I called United to book the ticket (the award was on hold for 72 hours) and was immediately put on hold after a Chicago-based agent took a look at the itinerary. She came back on and declared the routing was invalid: no going to North Asia via Europe.
She’s right, but I wasn’t about to give up what I had spent hours putting together and what another Chicago-based agent told me was an acceptable routing.
The problem: I decided to cancel my side trips into Denver and Boston and fly into Buenos Aires one day early so I would not be rushed at Iguazu Falls. Consequently, I was trying to get a million things done during my short layover at IAD before I boarded my flight to EZE last night and was not able to resolve the issue before I departed.
The agent promised not to remove segments from the itinerary just yet–perhaps I can keep what I’ve got. But that doesn’t do me a lot of good when I want my brother to fly along and have no intention of flying United on both (or even one) transatlantic flights. I’m also not at all happy about having to spend another chunk of miles for a first class award from BKK to PVG.
I’m sitting at EZE in the baggage claim area right now, and will hit up an internet cafe with Skype in town to get this sorted out. Oh, the pains of StarNet blocking…
So how did you manage to book your first itinerary? Wouldn’t that also have been invalid?
yeah, so no asia via europe at all? what changed?
The way I understood United’s Routing Rules you could do US->Asia via Europe but you would be charged the higher of the US->Asia and Europe->Asia Mileage which would by 160,000 or 170,000 miles for Europe->Asia.
@Sean: Apparently that was invalid too, but UA’s res agents are just clueless.
As for you second comment, if I get “caught” again I will ask about that. That wasn’t even offered to me. I was told simply that the reservation had to be modified.
@BTA: I eventually got the reservation ticketed, but the rules state that you can only travel from North America to North Asia directly or via Japan. You can still route through Europe for trips to South Asia.