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Yeah it's no big deal. I have a very not-English 21 letter name, it gets messed up all the time and it's never been a problem. Just show up early and go to the counter.
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Apr 7, 2014 21:55
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Aliquid posted:I just tried to check in online for an international flight I'm taking on American tomorrow morning. Somehow, in the face of all that is good in the world I hosed up my own name and spelled it Benjmain instead of Benjamin. I can't check in early, that's fine, but they'll be ale to fix this at the counter, right? I'd get on the horn with their customer service folks right now. They'll likely help you out, but waiting until you get to the airport is not a good idea.
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Apr 7, 2014 22:00
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Mackieman posted:I'd get on the horn with their customer service folks right now. They'll likely help you out, but waiting until you get to the airport is not a good idea. Customer service refused to help, but I did badger them enough that I figured out the supervisor wasn't ever giving me a clear yes or no whether I can get it changed at the counter. Good enough for me.
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Apr 7, 2014 23:37
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Aliquid posted:Customer service refused to help, but I did badger them enough that I figured out the supervisor wasn't ever giving me a clear yes or no whether I can get it changed at the counter. Good enough for me. Hang up and call again. Standard operating procedure if you get an agent that won't help the first time.
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Apr 8, 2014 14:19
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You'll be fine. In other news AA massively devalued the mileage program overnight without warning. They also completely eliminated the oneworld explorer award. Pretty happy I transferred my spending to a much more flexible card. Where's that dude who came in for one post about his credit card spend buying all of the tickets he needed. Poor guy might actually have to shell out for tickets now.
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Apr 8, 2014 16:21
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I have a question about using the Matrix search for multiple cities. I have pretty flexible travel plans (somewhere in the US to somewhere in Italy around May 19) so I'm including several cities for both departures and arrivals but the results are really inconsistent. For example I'll search DFW, MIA, ORD, and JFK for departures, but if I remove JFK I get different results on flights out of MIA. Is there a better way to do this or should I just do a separate search for each potential airport?
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Apr 9, 2014 18:02
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Hey, I'm looking for a flight from WAS to SEA in mid to late June and I'll be gone a week, but the cheapest fares I'm finding are almost a hundred bucks more than when I got a ticket for back in the middle of March. Is this just seasonal adjustment and I'm going to have to bite the bullet, or should I keep looking in hopes of finding a better fare?
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Apr 9, 2014 18:53
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Curl_like_smoke posted:I have a question about using the Matrix search for multiple cities. I have pretty flexible travel plans (somewhere in the US to somewhere in Italy around May 19) so I'm including several cities for both departures and arrivals but the results are really inconsistent. For example I'll search DFW, MIA, ORD, and JFK for departures, but if I remove JFK I get different results on flights out of MIA. Is there a better way to do this or should I just do a separate search for each potential airport? Can you provide some specifics around the specific query you put together? Without knowing those details, the only thing I can surmise is that the results are displayed on a different page because JFK flights better meet your search criteria than some of those MIA flights.
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Apr 9, 2014 19:11
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Lilli posted:Hey, I'm looking for a flight from WAS to SEA in mid to late June and I'll be gone a week, but the cheapest fares I'm finding are almost a hundred bucks more than when I got a ticket for back in the middle of March. Is this just seasonal adjustment and I'm going to have to bite the bullet, or should I keep looking in hopes of finding a better fare? Travel is generally more expensive in summer, especially out of WAS as it's a tourist destination.
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Apr 9, 2014 19:12
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Mackieman posted:Can you provide some specifics around the specific query you put together? Without knowing those details, the only thing I can surmise is that the results are displayed on a different page because JFK flights better meet your search criteria than some of those MIA flights. Yeah, of course. I just ran these two searches to use as examples. Both are for 2 adults, for 12-16 nights, looking at departure dates of 5/17 +one month, and have FCO, NAP, FLR, and VCE as possible destinations. Search A only uses MIA as a an origin and includes flights into FLR for as little as $897. Search B uses MIA, JFK, ORD, DFW, and MCO, and now the cheapest option is $1232, the cheapest out of MIA is 1592, and it doesn't show any options between Miami and Florence. I saw this using the options in the FROM/TO box. Hopefully that gives you enough information.
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Apr 9, 2014 20:13
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Mackieman posted:Travel is generally more expensive in summer, especially out of WAS as it's a tourist destination. Thanks, maybe Ill try one of the smaller airports in the Virginia area, I'm about equidistant from Richmond as I am from WAS airports. Thanks again.
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Apr 9, 2014 22:51
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Also if anyone was thinking of doing it my buddy just managed to book a OneWorld Explorer award so I have no idea what's going on over there.
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Apr 10, 2014 21:51
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sellouts posted:Also if anyone was thinking of doing it my buddy just managed to book a OneWorld Explorer award so I have no idea what's going on over there. What's this? Sounds interesting.
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Apr 10, 2014 22:19
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Curl_like_smoke posted:Yeah, of course. I just ran these two searches to use as examples. Both are for 2 adults, for 12-16 nights, looking at departure dates of 5/17 +one month, and have FCO, NAP, FLR, and VCE as possible destinations. Yeah, I have the same problem sometimes with ITA. Never just use one search / one search engine.
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Apr 10, 2014 22:38
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theflyingorc posted:What's this? Sounds interesting. I've talked about it as nauseum in previous pages of many threads, I think including this one. Officially AA discontinued them but if you want to try to get one here is a brief summary of the very complicated rules, knock yourself out
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Apr 11, 2014 09:48
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I'm using Matrix to search for flights from ICN to SFO Aug 8-Aug 29 and I made sure to check "Only show available flights." However, when I try to go to the carrier's site and book tickets, nothing shows up. Is this a common problem with Matrix? I'm getting insanely frustrated. If anyone can help, my dates are flexible and airport selection is flexible as well. Depart ICN or GMP and arrive SFO or OAK. I can depart Aug 8-10 and return Aug 28-30.
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Apr 19, 2014 05:11
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Not really having a finger in the wind for this sort of thing: Is this just going to be an drat expensive summer for flying? I'm planning to fly from Omaha to Boston to see family and attend a friend's wedding, but nothing right now is below $400 — thing is, the rest of the summer ain't much better. But, for what it's worth... Origin: OMA Destination: BOS (or MHT or even PVD, hell) Departure: Ideally July 30; a day before or after is fine, too Return: Aug. 6, but anytime from Aug. 5 to Aug. 10 is doable
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Apr 19, 2014 14:31
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Real Name Grover posted:Not really having a finger in the wind for this sort of thing: Is this just going to be an drat expensive summer for flying Basically yeah. The days of 199 transcons are all but over. Fuels more expensive and airlines are focusing on trying to not lose a ton of money. With the economy "improving" they're bumping up the prices.
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Apr 19, 2014 16:32
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Holding out some hope that they'll come down; I checked all the airports in a 3-hour radius and for whatever the reason may be, flights from Topeka to Boston are around $335. I can't rationalize doing that for any number of reasons, but still
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Apr 20, 2014 19:49
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Is there a way to exclude an airline (AKA Spirit) from an ITA Matrix search? I can handle Spirit for 90 minutes MSP->ORD, but I think I might die MSP->PDX (which goes through ORD, and ORD->PDX is an overnight flight. E: Duh, Google to the rescue. Holy poo poo this search engine is powerful. "~NK+" is the advanced code to exclude Spirit (NK being Spirit's code). The ~ negates the NK (so not NK, can be used for carriers or airports), the + means 0 or more connections. If I just searched for "~NK" it would only search direct flights. And If I wanted only non-stop flights, I could do "N:~NK" which would give me only non-stop flights not operated by Spirit. FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 05:38
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Looking for cheap flights to Georgia and Armenia this August, maybe part of July. I know flying into Tbilisi is expensive as hell, but a flight to Yerevan is made cheaper with a stop over in Moscow. Does anyone know of any other airports I could fly into that would be cheaper? Maybe something in eastern turkey?
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Apr 21, 2014 06:01
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So this only really applies to US domestic flying but FiveThirtyEight did some analysis on Kayak's recommendation engine compared to just buying tickets two weeks ahead of time. My question is when has buying two weeks prior ever been a thing to recommend? That seems crazy close to the departure date to be worth it. At least in my experience, 7-8 weeks has always been the recommendation.
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Apr 21, 2014 14:12
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dantheman650 posted:I'm using Matrix to search for flights from ICN to SFO Aug 8-Aug 29 and I made sure to check "Only show available flights." However, when I try to go to the carrier's site and book tickets, nothing shows up. Is this a common problem with Matrix? I'm getting insanely frustrated. Matrix data is based off what airlines publish to the GDS and sometimes that information gets stale when a fare sells out or is pulled by the carrier but the GDS update doesn't happen until later. It can also depend on the airline; some of them will publish GDS inventory but it's not available via their booking engine. Generally this happens with smaller airlines, and it's not always common. That said, the cheapest I see is DL on ICN-SEA-SFO and return for $1411. Should be easy to snag that fare on delta.com should it meet your requirements.
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Apr 21, 2014 14:21
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Real Name Grover posted:Holding out some hope that they'll come down; I checked all the airports in a 3-hour radius and for whatever the reason may be, flights from Topeka to Boston are around $335. Key issue here: you live in the middle of the midwest with (comparatively) limited air service. Supply and demand drives the price up. You might look at DSM and MCI too.
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Apr 21, 2014 14:23
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FISHMANPET posted:Is there a way to exclude an airline (AKA Spirit) from an ITA Matrix search? I can handle Spirit for 90 minutes MSP->ORD, but I think I might die MSP->PDX (which goes through ORD, and ORD->PDX is an overnight flight. I know people that run classes on Matrix syntax. You can do some wonderfully complicated stuff with it. That said, it's pretty easy to sort results and not look at a particular airline if you desire without excluding it from the search. Either way works.
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Apr 21, 2014 14:25
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DontAskKant posted:Looking for cheap flights to Georgia and Armenia this August, maybe part of July. I know flying into Tbilisi is expensive as hell, but a flight to Yerevan is made cheaper with a stop over in Moscow. Does anyone know of any other airports I could fly into that would be cheaper? Maybe something in eastern turkey? You might consider two separate tickets, one to get to a decent-sized gateway in Europe and then an LCC to make the last leg out there. WizzAir or one of the Baltic carriers might be an option.
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Apr 21, 2014 14:26
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Thwomp posted:So this only really applies to US domestic flying but FiveThirtyEight did some analysis on Kayak's recommendation engine compared to just buying tickets two weeks ahead of time. That's an interesting article. I'm not a statistics expert, but part of the reason he chose the routes he did was that there is a shitload of service, often with multiple competing carriers, so it was a target-rich environment for data analysis. He mentioned (breifly, about half way through) that this doesn't really work for routes where there isn't a ton of data, and I think he massively understated that fact. Moreover, Kayak's data is only as good as the number of searches run on their website. Unless they've changed their source data, it is based solely on the values returned when someone performs an airfare search on their website. That's all well and fine, but what can often happen in that case is that you don't have any data for less traveled routes, or the data you do have contains pricing information that is incredibly stale due to the infrequency of searches for that particular route. Additionally, most US-based airlines employ some form of married segment logic that can dramatically alter the price of a ticket. For example, I recently booked a one-way ticket from ELP to AUS; the routing has a plane change in DEN, so ELP-DEN-AUS. If I searched on UA's website for DEN-AUS, I was returned a fare that was $280 one-way. If I did a multi-segment search (which doesn't employ UA's married segment logic) for ELP-DEN and then DEN-AUS, those same flights were $151 one-way. This is a really lovely practice on the part of the airlines and very few people realize it's happening. The problem, at least from a consumer standpoint, is that this data ecosystem is closed: the data is almost wholly owned by the company selling the service. They want to keep that in house so they can maximize their marketing opportunities and their revenue, which is fine in and of itself. But it rubs up against the open nature of the Internet to not be able to accurately leverage these tools. I'm also not a legal expert (and I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night), but it seems to me that if more people really understood what airlines in the US were doing from a pricing standpoint, we'd have some FTC investigations. In sum, like I said in the first post of this thread: no mere mortal knows the dark art of revenue management.
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Apr 21, 2014 14:41
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I'm seeing flights on Skyscanner for May 1 to May 5 from Seoul to Sapporo for $239. (or May 2 to May 6?) Does Skyscanner sometimes just show incorrect prices? Some sort of trick I need to know? The $500 Yangon, Myanmar flights don't show up either. Just want to get out of Seoul for a bit for cheap. http://instagram.com/p/nIFV9Kxn1l/
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Apr 23, 2014 09:58
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DontAskKant posted:I'm seeing flights on Skyscanner for May 1 to May 5 from Seoul to Sapporo for $239. (or May 2 to May 6?) Does Skyscanner sometimes just show incorrect prices? Some sort of trick I need to know? Looks legit to me, I followed the links all the way to the Jin Air (LCC subsidiary of Korean) air website and managed to get on a booking page with $152 tickets, though I was google translating the page from Korean so don't know the full story.
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Apr 23, 2014 17:10
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Geriatric Pirate posted:What's the problem here? Same fare not on ITA? If so it's because it's by an LCC which isn't in ITA's system. Figured it out. JinAir has only a few cheap tickets, but you only see how many are left by clicking on them. Everything under $400 is sold out.
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Apr 24, 2014 07:07
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Mackie or someone else with reward ticket know how for United Airlines: My wife and I have bought two tickets, one way Texas to Budapest and then two tickets, one way from Brussels to Texas that we need to cancel and get the miles back into our account. The long story is that she is a cold hearted bitch and wants to divorce me to go sleep with another guy that I work with (classy). There I said it. One pair of one way tickets were bought with my miles, the other with her miles. She is going to allow me to use some of her miles to buy a round trip to Seattle from Texas at the same time. Is there a chance that given the circumstances they cancel or lower the charge for cancellation given the circumstances? If not, what am I looking at here in terms of "cancellation and recrediting/buying a trip to Seattle?" I noticed there was an option to "combine" the two pairs of tickets. I'm not sure if that allows me to pay the fee (looks like $200/pair of tickets) once or if that is something else. Also, I paid something like $350 for taxes on those two pairs of tickets. I assume that I'm getting that back, correct? Please advise how I should be working these crazy fees. +/-$200 fees is crazy. Also seeing round trip to Seattle in May is $300. I might make her eat the fee if she really wants the miles back and pay the fee on the one I paid for. Suck it bitch.
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Apr 25, 2014 13:07
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LaserWash posted:Mackie or someone else with reward ticket know how for United Airlines: Firstly, that sucks and I'm sorry to hear that. Secondly, if you just want the miles back (full cancel and redeposit) and you have no status, then yep, it's $200 per ticket. If you want to change something about the ticket, including origin/destination, it's $100 per ticket. If you can find a use for the awards, you can go that route and save yourself some cash. If you cancel and refund, the taxes will be refunded as well. If you rebook using the same flight coupons, the taxes will be recalculated and any difference you'll be refunded the new amount is lower, or charged if the new amount is higher. This is one of the areas where having Platinum status (or higher) really shines: no fees for awards.
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Apr 25, 2014 13:53
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When you say "per ticket" is it possible that I could combine ALL of those flights and then cancel them for a one time $200 fee, total? I do have the option of combining all the flights into one reservation/ticket. What about if I cancel them and change the trip from SAT to SEA, for one ticket, on different dates? Probably not eligible for $100, right?
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Apr 25, 2014 14:38
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LaserWash posted:When you say "per ticket" is it possible that I could combine ALL of those flights and then cancel them for a one time $200 fee, total? I do have the option of combining all the flights into one reservation/ticket. No, you cannot combine PNRs. There is no mechanism in UA's ticketing system for doing that (no matter what other people may say). They will forever and always be separate tickets. If you take SAT-BRU and make it SAT-SEA, that will require a cancel and redeposit (and the $200 fee) to change because it's a different flight coupon (international vs. domestic).
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Apr 25, 2014 14:41
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How long do those reward ticket refunds take to process? So I'm looking at paying $400, getting about $350 back from taxes, right?
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Apr 25, 2014 14:56
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LaserWash posted:How long do those reward ticket refunds take to process? Assuming that's what you paid, yeah, that makes sense. Refunds take anywhere from a few days to a week usually.
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Apr 25, 2014 15:50
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Also, I'm seeing this: Which would seem to imply that I can combine. (???) They did come from different reward accounts though, so there's that. Mackie, thanks. I'm trying to book those tickets today. I want to get in ahead of the 21 days for rewards so I don't have to pay another $75 on that Seattle flight. Might just make my wife eat that $200 fee is she wants to have her round trip ticket back or not. She'd basically be forced to do that if I bought a $300 ticket myself (sweet revenge). LaserWash fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 15:50
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LaserWash posted:Also, I'm seeing this: That, "combine" option means that the website will show both reservations in the same screen. The reservations, and any changes thereunto, will still be treated as completely separate. I don't really like that feature on UA's site because it confuses customers. Hopefully they've changed that functionality with their new site coming out later this year. Also, as far as fees go, if you're paying one fee, they usually won't try to charge you twice. Depends on the agent, though.
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Apr 25, 2014 17:05
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Make sure to do it over the phone, you might get a sympathetic agent who'll waive some of the fee if they can. I changed a flight with UA recently because one of the connections felt too tight to me, and doing it online would have been $300. Phone rep did it for free.
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Apr 25, 2014 17:07
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FrozenVent posted:Make sure to do it over the phone, you might get a sympathetic agent who'll waive some of the fee if they can. Indeed, that is the cardinal rule with UA given the pisspoor nature of their ops and customer service these days: HUACA. Hang up and call again.
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Apr 25, 2014 17:10
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