Checking air frequently paid off for us!!

We are on the 6 Dec northbound Rhine XMAS Mkts cruise so I have also been tracking Delta prices- our 330 day window opens in a few days (Sat or Sun*.) Yes, prices have been variable. I typically only compare prices for days of the week as our eventual flights, but in general, prices have been tracking up and down, mostly around $3500-3600 for business class, but occasionally up as high as $4200+! Two days ago the price for our flights dropped to $2500+ the lowest I have seen and incredibly over $300 lower than the price of our tickets for our 2020 XMAS Mkts flights that I thought were very good when I purchased them last year around this time. If the prices hold, we'll have the cost of the new tickets covered and some credit left over, so I hope they stay low for few more days!

*We may stay an extra day- take a train from Dusseldorf to Hamburg to visit Miniatur Wunderland and fly home from there the next day. It is an incredible place but is probably only of interest to "children" of all ages who love trains.

Update: The (Delta) 330 day booking window opened after midnight last night, so I called and got our flights for the 2021 XMAS Mkts cruise (a re-booking from the cancelled 2020 cruise). Confirming what I had seen in the past few days, the business class fare was less than the great fare we paid for flights that I booked last year, also at the start of the 330 day window- $245 per ticket less! It won't buy much, maybe tickets to Maine, but still . . . . I was expecting the airlines would be trying to recoup losses and that fares would go up.

I used credits from the cancelled 2020 flights. I had to call to book because I couldn't access both credits online since my wife's credits were on her Skymiles account. The Delta agent made quick work of our booking.

And yes, we are extending by a day and plan to take an HB train to Hamburg to see Miniature Wunderland before flying home from there.

Now all we need is for the world to get control of COVID.

Are the markets going to be there? How will social distancing be managed with crowds?

Only time will tell!

MCD

Good question, British! I took the Rhine Christmas Markets cruise in Dec. 2019, and the crush of people was horrific -- especially in Cologne (admittedly, we were there on a weekend).

I too have discovered that airfare to Europe is about as cheap as I have seen it. Part of my post however is to rant about United Airlines. Two of our cancelled 2020 trips were on United Airlines. When I cancelled the flights for these trips, I was given E Certificates that were good for 24 months. (They both expire at the end of April 2022) I tried to use one of these certificates to book air for an upcoming Danube Delta trip we have scheduled for late September early October. (I am cautiously optimistic this trip will happen). The United web site has flights from Seattle (SEA) into Bucharest Romania (OTP) and Return from Budapest Hungry (BUD) for about $2500 in business class. One of our certificates would be more than enough for 2 business class tickets. When I went to book these flights, I discovered that my certificates would not work. Even though the flights are listed as United flights (UAXXXX) they are operated by Lufthansa as code share flights. I found out that my certificates are only good on United flights on United aircraft. My original cancelled flights were United flights operated by Lufthansa booked on the United web site and tickets saying United flight UAXXXX and my credit card was charged to United airlines yet my certificates for this trip are useless since the flights are not United aircraft.

We have 2 Tauck trips scheduled that I might be able to use the certificates. We have booked South Africa: An Elegant Adventure for November of this year and Australia Adventure: Adelaide, Tasmania & Sydney for March 2022. (I am again cautiously optimistic these trips will happen) United has direct flights into and out of Cape Town (CPT) and Johannesburg (JNB) and to Sydney (SYD). My dilemma on booking the South Africa flights is that the airfares are all over the board. I can book business class on United through Newark for $8827 per person. Two tickets would be a bit more than we have in certificates. I can book British Airways business class for $3233 with a 5 hour layover at Heathrow and pay for the tickets. It is amazing that there is such a difference in fares. (We do want to do business class on these since journey time is 24+ hours)

Sorry for the rant but I am a bit perturbed right now at United Airlines. It all might be a moot point unless we can get this Covid thing fixed.

I think once you accepted certificates and not cash back, some of your rights are lost. Could you have waited for them to cancel originally?
We are booking flights thru Tauck so it becomes their problem for the time being. Could you use your certificates for US flights? We are thinking of taking US vacations if any this year apart from those we have booked with Tauck but expect cancelled.
I was reading this morning that Australia is probably not opening up for international travels until at least the end of 2021. It was on the BBC news. If the US can’t get a handle on the Covid surges, we certainly won’t be allowed in.

British
I think once you accepted certificates and not cash back, some of your rights are lost. Could you have waited for them to cancel
originally?

In hindsight we should have waited for United to cancel the flights but at the time we knew the trips weren't going to happen so we jumped on the 24 month certificates. As long as we book something by the end of April 2022 we can use these but only on flights on United aircraft. No codeshare flights.

Australia unlikely to fully reopen border in 2021, says top official https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-55699581

I guess the only way you can get around this John is to see if the certificates state that or if it was made clear before you accepted them. There might be a chance they could extend the dates. AA are extending various things for their customers. After all, United needs to be nice to you if they want you to travel with them in the future.

BobHamburger

We have a Classic Italy tour scheduled for early October, 2021,which replaces a cancelled tour from the same time period in 2020. Due to the uncertain vaccine distribution, the question of whether this tour will happen and the mixed signals airlines give on changes, such as that mentioned by John S, I am reluctant to reserve flights.

I have no allegiance to United Airlines other than for the past couple of years my wife and I traveled enough on them to get Premier Gold status. This past year I was downgraded to Silver status. During my working life I had a job with enough travel to get Premier status for a few years. The occasional upgrades to first class are nice. I also spent one long summer in the early 70’s during my college days working the swing shift at the United flight kitchen at LAX where I cleaned up the barf bags and dirty dishes and other nasty things from the flights coming in from Hawaii and other places. The pay was good but the job not so much.

I may compose a nice letter to United saying how I don’t like their policy on the E Certificates.

British, our Australia trip is not until March of 2022 and Tauck has not yet finalized the price. We were told we have 2 weeks after the tour is finalized to cancel if we want. Let's hope we are out of the current Covid situation by then.

BSP51

****JohnS**** - I have found that a well worded letter to customer service with a copy to the CEO (United Airlines or whatever) gets positive results most of the time. I would also cc the DOT. It got me a very quick response and reversed a policy in my favor.

JohnS

Have you tried to work your way up the food chain at United? What is United's change policy now? Is it possible to book flights close to what you need (or not) using the credits, then change to the flights you really want. I have no experience with United. Delta has no such restriction. I used our Delta credits yesterday for Delta flights to Zurich and KLM/Delta from Hamburg home and still have money left.

Has anyone experienced an airline taking all remaining credits when booking a flight costing less than the value of the credits? Some retailers used to do that- it didn't matter what the value of the credits were and if you were using them to buy something cheaper- they would take all remaining credits. I think something like that happened to us at Disney a few years ago.

Also, international schedules are totally screwed up in many cases and may take awhile to straighten out. Right now I can't book flights on Delta/KLM/AF for our March J&E (which will likely not go anyway)- they just don't have any flights going there.

jeffr775

There's a travel advocate whose column appears in our local paper who says he has management contacts for problems on his website. Never had to use them but his website is: https://chriselliotts.com/. Might help to look there for United contacts to see if there's someone to contact who can help resolve your issues.

Christopher Elliott has been around for years. It would definitely be worth reading his website. When we got the Philly Sunday paper, not had it for years, but he always had a column back then

I am not sure that working my way up the food chain at United or utilizing the Christopher Elliott website (I do see his column in our Seattle paper) would do us much good. From the United web site.

I thought during these Covid time United would be a bit more lenient with rebooking’s. The certificates are good for long enough and United fly’s to quite a few places that I don’t think we will have a problem using them at some point. I'll know better in the future if I ever need to accept a certificate from United.

So you evidently have travel "travel certificates" as opposed to "eCredits." Did you have the option to get eCredits or were you limited to Travel Certificates because you cancelled not United? Is there anyway to break up your flights into United only and Star Alliance segments so you can use and not lose your credits?

Sealord

I had United first class tickets to Hawaii a while back, which we canceled cuz we could not get into Hawaii. They would not refund the cash, but there is some kind of two hour rule. If the flight arrival time changes by more than two hours, or something like that, then they must refund. Eventually, that happened, and I applied for and received a total refund.

NancyCohen

There might be a different time frame for international flights. I had TAP Airlines business class tickets bought on AMEX.com - they had a 5 hour rule. Thankfully my flights were changed by >5 hours so I received a cash refund.

If I waited until the last day or so I probably would have found out that the flights were cancelled and probably could have gotten a full refund. Both trips were into Europe, one in June and the other in August and for the most part Europe was closed. These were not Tauck trips and I booked the air myself. When I know these trips weren’t going to happen, I jumped on the more lenient Travel Certificates which were good as long as I booked within 24 months. A future flight credit would only be good for 12 months. As a side note we were booked on a Tauck Italy trip for April 2020 which was cancelled. We had Tauck book the air for the Italy trip. When that was cancelled, we had no trouble getting money back. The biggest hassle was getting the positive credit card balance back into our bank account.

From the United web site comparing Electronic Travel Certificates vs Future Flight Credits.