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All you need to know:
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/38212

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/mileageplus/awards/travel/types.aspx
Click on "United air travel award rules:"
"You may redeem miles for travel in United Global FirstSM, United First®, United Business® or United BusinessFirst® , even if the space is not available. In these cases, United Economy in the same award type must be confirmed, and the front cabin will be waitlisted. For example, a Saver United First award must be confirmed in Saver United Economy to be eligible for waitlisting. If the courtesy waitlist does not clear, it will expire 24 hours before itinerary departure, and you will automatically be added to the airport upgrade standby list upon check-in. In these cases, you will be confirmed on a space-available basis by a United airport representative at the gate once the flight has closed for check-in. For United BusinessFirst and United Business travel awards, the difference in miles will be refunded when the United BusinessFirst or United Business class segment of the trip could not be confirmed. Waitlist requests may only be made over the phone with your local United Reservations office"


« Last edited by HolyNyc on February 02, 2015, 08:51:46 AM »

Author Topic: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability  (Read 507575 times)

Offline Matovu

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1120 on: February 01, 2015, 10:56:21 PM »
Just so people here can know what is going on.... I was in a helpful mood and I saw how badly besimchehtamid wants his business class. So I PMd him that he should send me his PNR and last name. I have access to the UA GS desk, I called them up and the first rep after 15 minutes claimed that she can not help me because its an award ticket and that the pax on the ressy is not a GS member. HUCA came to mind.... And I called again, got a nice rep who didn't even bother to understand the whole plan B Pshetel, she just put me on hold, she came back after 5 minutes to apologize for the long hold... and that she confirmed the pax in business class. She just put in IN class in the ressy which is full mileage class and reissued the ticket!

No this is NOT going to work for the rest of us and its not even worth trying to call up UA to do that. (unless you have GS access)

Just wanted to share nice success story.

Kudos to you, you rock !

Offline AJK

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1121 on: February 01, 2015, 10:59:29 PM »
Just so people here can know what is going on.... I was in a helpful mood and I saw how badly besimchehtamid wants his business class. So I PMd him that he should send me his PNR and last name. I have access to the UA GS desk, (i know someone who has GS status and I call in on his behalf) I called them up and the first rep after 15 minutes claimed that she can not help me because its an award ticket and that the pax on the ressy is not a GS member. HUCA came to mind.... And I called again, got a nice rep who didn't even bother to understand the whole plan B Pshetel, she just put me on hold, she came back after 5 minutes to apologize for the long hold... and that she confirmed the pax in business class. She just put in IN class in the ressy which is full mileage class and reissued the ticket!

No this is NOT going to work for the rest of us and its not even worth trying to call up UA to do that. (unless you have GS access)

Just wanted to share nice success story.

And here I thought there was eventually a Plan B success story ex-TLV.
2015: 116K bkd | 1.6M brnd | F: OZ,NH,AA,EK | J: UA,CA,TK,DL,TN,AF,VA | LIH,NRT,ROR,PEK,CNS,BOB,MEL,TLV & Pacific Hopper

Offline ilherman

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1122 on: February 01, 2015, 11:15:22 PM »
Dan says that there is.. Though from Israeli agents I wouldn't expect much...  I don't recall any plan B success on here.

The reason why I took the effort was because there was still J8 and in these cases the GS desk is much more lenient.

I got them to push through manually a GPU last week one day before departure when there was just 1 seat left in J. But in that case the GPU came out of a GS account.
You can say what you think when you think what you say.

Offline Centro

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1123 on: February 01, 2015, 11:19:50 PM »
ilherman, you're just great and goodhearted!!

Offline AJK

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1124 on: February 01, 2015, 11:22:09 PM »
Dan says that there is.. Though from Israeli agents I wouldn't expect much...  I don't recall any plan B success on here.

The reason why I took the effort was because there was still J8 and in these cases the GS desk is much more lenient.

I got them to push through manually a GPU last week one day before departure when there was just 1 seat left in J. But in that case the GPU came out of a GS account.

Kudos for taking the time. Just wish it wasn't so difficult ex-TLV.
2015: 116K bkd | 1.6M brnd | F: OZ,NH,AA,EK | J: UA,CA,TK,DL,TN,AF,VA | LIH,NRT,ROR,PEK,CNS,BOB,MEL,TLV & Pacific Hopper

Offline ilherman

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1125 on: February 01, 2015, 11:28:45 PM »
Kudos for taking the time. Just wish this Plan B Gesheft wasn't so difficult, and every airport agent would know exactly how to set it up. That would be precious  :)
TLV is even more difficult. But FTFY... Plenty of EWR unsuccessful stories...
You can say what you think when you think what you say.

Offline DMYD

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1126 on: February 01, 2015, 11:38:54 PM »
If we would have some more ilhermans around, DDF would have been that much better!

Offline ilherman

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1127 on: February 01, 2015, 11:48:07 PM »
Thanks guys for the comments.

@Dav, we do have a lot of other nice people around here as well!
You can say what you think when you think what you say.

Offline Yehoshua

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1128 on: February 02, 2015, 01:04:39 AM »
Wow, ilherman, that was really nice of you. I'm glad it worked out without too much trouble.

Offline HolyNyc

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1129 on: February 02, 2015, 02:43:56 AM »
@ilherman wiki updated

Offline bsimchatomid

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1130 on: February 02, 2015, 03:21:59 AM »
Glad I was able to help  ;)
Posting now from the Dan Lounge i would like to give a shoutout and a personal thanks to ilherman for all his help I'm sure I will enjoy my flight thanks again.

Offline elya

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1131 on: February 02, 2015, 06:58:06 AM »
I guess I should publicly thank ilherman as well.

Offline elya

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1132 on: February 02, 2015, 06:58:17 AM »
Thank you

Offline ilherman

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1133 on: February 02, 2015, 08:40:14 AM »
@ilherman wiki updated
Pls remove that. I still don't have any plans giving up my job ;)

Whenever I have time I'll offer to help. No reason to PM me.
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Offline HolyNyc

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Offline Million Miler

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1135 on: February 03, 2015, 05:30:07 AM »
I know this is a bit off topic but it does have to do with upgrading on UA, so I figured I would ask it here.

I Have a United ticket tlv-ewr booked in K fare, Is there anyway to have GS or 1k CS apply a GPU manually?

Offline HolyNyc

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1136 on: February 03, 2015, 07:58:11 AM »
I know this is a bit off topic but it does have to do with upgrading on UA, so I figured I would ask it here.

I Have a United ticket tlv-ewr booked in K fare, Is there anyway to have GS or 1k CS apply a GPU manually?
not allowed

Offline Million Miler

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1137 on: February 03, 2015, 09:22:35 AM »
not allowed

I knew that according to the rules it is not allowed. My question is.. Using ilherman's approach would it be possible?
« Last Edit: February 03, 2015, 09:26:09 AM by Million Miler »

Offline ilherman

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1138 on: February 03, 2015, 10:56:20 AM »
I knew that according to the rules it is not allowed. My question is.. Using ilherman's approach would it be possible?
no. They will allow for GS members to upgrade awards but not K class.
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Offline nocknock

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Re: Plan B Discussion: Booking BusinessFirst Awards Without Availability
« Reply #1139 on: February 04, 2015, 07:52:26 PM »
Flight tomorrow LHR-EWR Wait listed already and as I see that there 9 J seats and I'm not upgraded yet.