We're in an interesting situation.. for reasons I cannot explain we have to fly Coach back from Europe (the horror) and we also have a conflicting travel plan in the future. I thought to share how I'm managing the situation (and open for ideas to improve it also)
Miles: 50K UA
UR: 66K, 25K, 11K, 31K (4 accounts)
30K PP
Current flight, BCN-LIS-JFK (within 21 days)
Future flight JFK-YVR (1 week after our Alaskan cruise departs SEA..)
My goal is to ideally get us into Business from BCN and also change the date of the flight on UA so that we can use it for the cruise. It's a throwaway ticket though.
The Rules
I mentioned earlier about 'The Pattern' where @Vic Diaz mentioned the phrase 'co-dependence' it is the understanding of the components of a process which increase success. In the case of United, they transfer from UA.. but if I transfer in advance of the booking I lose the ability to use my UR for something else, and I might never get the chance to snag the business seats.
This is where understanding how the pieces move primes for success:
Rule 1 Transfer Times
Rule 2 Change Fees and Change Fee Waivers
Programs are different. With AA I could change the date on the YVR flight without a fee, with UA, I cannot. With that in mind there is value to paying a change fee (and close in booking fee) for the BCN flight as it would also push business class into the future JFK-YVR segment.
Change fees are waived if there is a substantial adjustment to my reservation, so my best case scenario is:
I have many elements of uncertainty involved in this equation, though a low hanging fruit to help is whether the business class is even viable from BCN.
Check for actual seats on major routes from BCN-JFK. If all the business seats are full, I'm never going to get that section sorted out, so my best plan of action is to wait, make no change to YVR and hope for a major change on that flight in order to trigger a free date change.
That process is lengthy and annoying, perhaps a service like ExpertFlyer etc would be a useful investment at this stage to help with the heavy lifting. Additionally, I need to be aware of changes. So I must keep an eye out for an email from United, perhaps flagging rules or links to TripIT would help with that too. Also, I might just not check for the seat and exchange the extra time I saved for the uncertainty.
The key to it all is speed and ability to execute. For example, I don't know (off the top of my head) when we are going to SEA for the cruise, or how long it takes to get there from JFK, or how to get from YVR to SEA... all that adds up to the 'Departure Date' from JFK that I need to be able to access immediately while mid vacation, so creating a data packet with that would mean I'd be ready to action the changes. I'd also need to access that both in the cloud and offline in the event that I have data issues.
So... it looks like we might be flying coach, but I'm making sure I'm ready to get us into Business for the minimum cost possible, points are primed for transfer, but not transferred due to program rules, and flights are being selected but not booked. Fingers crossed for an email from United this weekend to tell me my other flights got swapped!
Miles: 50K UA
UR: 66K, 25K, 11K, 31K (4 accounts)
30K PP
Current flight, BCN-LIS-JFK (within 21 days)
Future flight JFK-YVR (1 week after our Alaskan cruise departs SEA..)
My goal is to ideally get us into Business from BCN and also change the date of the flight on UA so that we can use it for the cruise. It's a throwaway ticket though.
The Rules
I mentioned earlier about 'The Pattern' where @Vic Diaz mentioned the phrase 'co-dependence' it is the understanding of the components of a process which increase success. In the case of United, they transfer from UA.. but if I transfer in advance of the booking I lose the ability to use my UR for something else, and I might never get the chance to snag the business seats.
This is where understanding how the pieces move primes for success:
Rule 1 Transfer Times
- UR>UA transfer time. This is instant. Knowing this means that I don't need to transfer in advance, if something happens to trigger my purchase the transfer is fast enough to not slow things down (fingers crossed). Contrast this with transferring in from SPG, the process is slower and this 'Pattern' wouldn't work.
Rule 2 Change Fees and Change Fee Waivers
Programs are different. With AA I could change the date on the YVR flight without a fee, with UA, I cannot. With that in mind there is value to paying a change fee (and close in booking fee) for the BCN flight as it would also push business class into the future JFK-YVR segment.
Change fees are waived if there is a substantial adjustment to my reservation, so my best case scenario is:
- Business class from BCN-JFK opens up
- One of my flights changes
- I call in, swap to business from BCN, and to YVR, and pay no fee
I have many elements of uncertainty involved in this equation, though a low hanging fruit to help is whether the business class is even viable from BCN.
Check for actual seats on major routes from BCN-JFK. If all the business seats are full, I'm never going to get that section sorted out, so my best plan of action is to wait, make no change to YVR and hope for a major change on that flight in order to trigger a free date change.
That process is lengthy and annoying, perhaps a service like ExpertFlyer etc would be a useful investment at this stage to help with the heavy lifting. Additionally, I need to be aware of changes. So I must keep an eye out for an email from United, perhaps flagging rules or links to TripIT would help with that too. Also, I might just not check for the seat and exchange the extra time I saved for the uncertainty.
The key to it all is speed and ability to execute. For example, I don't know (off the top of my head) when we are going to SEA for the cruise, or how long it takes to get there from JFK, or how to get from YVR to SEA... all that adds up to the 'Departure Date' from JFK that I need to be able to access immediately while mid vacation, so creating a data packet with that would mean I'd be ready to action the changes. I'd also need to access that both in the cloud and offline in the event that I have data issues.
So... it looks like we might be flying coach, but I'm making sure I'm ready to get us into Business for the minimum cost possible, points are primed for transfer, but not transferred due to program rules, and flights are being selected but not booked. Fingers crossed for an email from United this weekend to tell me my other flights got swapped!
