United booking with Chase points

[mustinjourney]

I apologize if this is obvious, but I have yet to find this exact question answered.

I'm looking at booking two tickets on United.

I have points via my Chase accounts that allow me to use points in combination with the credit cards to book flights. I have a United club card that allows for 2 bags for me and a companion as long as the card is used to book the flight. I know it works if I use my united miles to book the flight and use the card to pay the taxes -- but I am not sure if it works if I use Chase points to book all/part of the flight and use the united club card to pay the remaining portion of the fare.

For instance, if the fare is $650 for two tickets, I can use 45,000 chase reward points and then pay $86 on my united card to make up the difference in fare.

Question is if by paying the $86 (or any amount really) on my united card, does this give me my free baggage allowance?

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

I've had mixed luck with this. I think technically the answer is no. Usually "Unpublished fares" or "industry fares" are excluded from these benefits. I believe tickets purchased through Chase's travel rewards portal are classified as these types of fares. I also think $86 balance will post as Chase Travel, and not United. That said, I booked a ticket just like this a few years ago and the agent tried to charge me. I showed her the Chase card and she proceeded not to charge me.....but will probably depend on the agent you get.

If you do decide to book this through Chase, after purchase you can go to United.com and within the "Manage my Reservation" tab it displays "First and second baggage service charges per traveler as listed below:". Once ticketed if it shows $0 for the 1st bag you are good to go. If not, it will show the $25 fee. I think even Chase tickets booked this way can be cancelled within 24 hours....so if you book and they say you need to pay the fee, you can always call and cancel and get the points back (but def double check that).

One word of warning....make sure the United tickets you buy are not their new "Basic Economy" fares. These fares don't include seat assignments, carryon bags, and are basically fares you'd find on Spirit or Frontier. I know some people have reported tickets booked through certain bank portals have booked into these Basic Economy fares. If you do book, please report back on if you get the bag free or not

 

[mustinjourney]

I've had mixed luck with this. I think technically the answer is no. Usually "Unpublished fares" or "industry fares" are excluded from these benefits. I believe tickets purchased through Chase's travel rewards portal are classified as these types of fares. I also think $86 balance will post as Chase Travel, and not United. That said, I booked a ticket just like this a few years ago and the agent tried to charge me. I showed her the Chase card and she proceeded not to charge me.....but will probably depend on the agent you get.

If you do decide to book this through Chase, after purchase you can go to United.com and within the "Manage my Reservation" tab it displays "First and second baggage service charges per traveler as listed below:". Once ticketed if it shows $0 for the 1st bag you are good to go. If not, it will show the $25 fee. I think even Chase tickets booked this way can be cancelled within 24 hours....so if you book and they say you need to pay the fee, you can always call and cancel and get the points back (but def double check that).

One word of warning....make sure the United tickets you buy are not their new "Basic Economy" fares. These fares don't include seat assignments, carryon bags, and are basically fares you'd find on Spirit or Frontier. I know some people have reported tickets booked through certain bank portals have booked into these Basic Economy fares. If you do book, please report back on if you get the bag free or not

Thanks for the advice. I hadn't thought about booking the ticket and then checking to see if the bags were free during the free cancellation window. I've managed to sweet talk the gate agents before, but like you said, I'd rather not have to hope for the best. I knew about the basic economy, but I hadn't heard about ending up with those when booking through points. Luckily the tickets I already booked for DW and DD with points came with regular economy (actually -- my wife lucked out and was allowed to choose a premium economy seat at no extra charge)

I'm still holding out purchasing the tickets until another month or so. We're flying out of IAH to MCO the Friday after Thanksgiving, and the price of the fare is $325 for just that one leg. I can normally get a roundtrip for $220-$300, so this one is much higher than normal (I assumed flying out on Friday would be quite a bit cheaper as it should not be that busy). I've been watching it since April and it hasn't come down at all (it's actually gone up about $75 since it first came out). This is my first time flying around a major holiday, so I wasn't sure what was normal. In the past, it seems like fares are really high when they first get published, and then they slowly come down until about 4-10 weeks before the flight. After that, they go way up. I booked my wife's and youngest daughter's tickets with citi thank you points so that I could at least hedge my bets, but those were 100% points, so I didn't use the chase card for any fees. I know we're going to end up with at least 3 checked bags, so I need to make sure I get the free baggage.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

Yea, we are going in October and flights are the highest we've seen in years for this time of the year. I've noted this trend in another thread, but I think airlines are keeping prices higher for a longer period than they used to. I would suspect this holds even more true for holiday travel days. Historically I would buy my flights about 3 months out. Now I've been getting the best deals about 3 to 6 weeks out. That cuts it closer than I like because if they don't come down we'd end up paying much higher fares. Lately I've been locking in decent fares with Southwest points and then if something lower becomes available on American or United (my preferred carriers) I book those and cancel the Southwest award seats. Having a decent stash of SW points helps hedge runaway flight prices.

 

[mustinjourney]

Yea, we are going in October and flights are the highest we've seen in years for this time of the year. I've noted this trend in another thread, but I think airlines are keeping prices higher for a longer period than they used to. I would suspect this holds even more true for holiday travel days. Historically I would buy my flights about 3 months out. Now I've been getting the best deals about 3 to 6 weeks out. That cuts it closer than I like because if they don't come down we'd end up paying much higher fares. Lately I've been locking in decent fares with Southwest points and then if something lower becomes available on American or United (my preferred carriers) I book those and cancel the Southwest award seats. Having a decent stash of SW points helps hedge runaway flight prices.

I did book the return flight on Southwest using SW points -- but the Friday outbound flight to MCO is sold out on SW (at least the wanna get away fares), so booking through them isn't really an option. Never seen that happen before. Also -- SW and united are at different airports in Houston, and since I've already booked my wife's tickets on united, I'm hoping to avoid flying southwest so we don't have to go to different airports. I will if I have to as it would save us about $200 just on the return flights alone (SW has them for $110 each and united's are $225). Uber ride would cost $45, so I'd still come out ahead (plus the bags are free on SW as well). Like you, I hate playing this game of chicken -- but it sounds like I have done about all I can do.

 

[mustinjourney]

quick follow up -- I actually found someone that asked this question in the flyertalk forum. The answer, as you noted, appears to be officially no. Of course, YMMV.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...ggage-fee.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...s/1750470-united-charged-me-25-check-bag.html