Always Double Check Your Award For Potential Upgrades
My Friend and I are going to LA today compliments of United and our Free Ones Ways from our France trip.
Our France Flights were booked in Business Class, so technically our Chicago to Los Angeles flights should have also been in Business.
Unfortunately at the time I booked the tickets, there was only 1 Business Class (I) seat, so I scooped it up and had the other ticket booked in Economy (X).
I’ve been checking United.com every few days to see if any additional Business Class Saver Award Seats would open up, but there has been nothing until last night!
This is kind of ironic because now it is showing that there are no more Economy Saver Awards.
Thank god that Business Class Availability finally opened up or it could have turned into that Seinfeld episode where there is only 1 First Class seat. Let me just say, “I Can’t Go Back To Coach”!
Anyways once I saw Business Class Saver Award Availability, I called up United and explained that we were technically booked in Business but because of lack of availability, they had put 1 of our seats in Economy, so would they mind switching it back to Business.
Normally because it is less than 21 days to Departure, United will try and charge you a $75 Change Fee, however this Agent did not even mention it and changed it free of charge.
The point of this is that as I had talked about last week, many times United’s Award Search will show Mixed Cabin inventory, where 1 leg is in Business and the other leg is in Economy. This isn’t a huge deal, BUT United will charge you the full amount of Miles for Business even if some legs are in Economy.
I just booked my India ticket (more on that tomorrow) and the main leg from Bombay to Newark is in BusinessFirst but then from Newark to Chicago it is in Economy.
Normally people might avoid booking Mixed Cabin flights because 1 leg is in Economy, however as you can see, United tends to open up Business Class Award Availability closer to Departure when they know they can’t sell it.
So for my India trip, I am simply going to wait until a few days to Departure and hopefully get bumped to Business on the Domestic Leg.
Additionally, this same approach can be used for people who are booked in Business and want to book First Class Saver Award.
-Parag
