Reader “A North” asks:
How long is a United ticket hold or award hold good for?
When you hold a ticket on United using the paypal trick, the following is what I have found from my experience:
- If you hold a revenue ticket that involves United flights or partner flights, your reservation will be held till midnight of the third day from the time held. For example, if you hold the ticket at 3pm on Tuesday, your hold will expire at midnight on Thursday. If you book on 12:01 AM on Tuesday, it expires on midnight Thursday giving you the maximum hold time of 72 hours.
- If you hold an award ticket that involves only United flights, your reservation will be held just like in the case above (max of 72 hours).
- If you hold an award ticket that involves any partner airline flight, your reservation will be held till midnight the next day. The maximum hold time is 48 hours assuming you create the award hold at 12:01 AM.
If you choose to extend your hold, you may want to follow these directions so you don’t risk losing your existing reward.
After you have held a ticket, you can find the correct expiration date and time of the hold by doing the following:
1. On the United home page, look under “Reservations,” then click on “Change/View Existing reservations”
2. The next screen shows your existing reservations. It makes it very clear that your “reservation is not ticketed.” Click “view” to see the details of your nonticketed reservation.
3. After clicking “view”, the next screen shows you the details of your reservation and the exact expiration date and time of your hold. If you are ever unsure about your expiration, this is the screen to check that information. It also gives you the option to “Purchase Now” which is what you want to click if want to go ahead and ticket the award. Obviously, you can cancel your hold from here as well.
4. After clicking “Purchase Now,” the rest is pretty straight forward and you ticket it just like buying a ticket from United. There should be no changes in the price or miles, which is the whole point of the hold!
Hello,
Does anyone know which timezone this is based off of? Is it local, NYC or zulu?
I believe it is the timezone where the hold is done.
Wow. This is so cool! Mille Grazie! Thank you so much for this!
Be advised — I tried the trick this Mon, Feb 9th. It appeared to have worked, as the reservation showed in my account. It stated that it would be valid until midnight tonight (2/11). It was still there this morning, but when I went to book it this evening, it was gone. I called United, and they said there was nothing they could do :(.
Note: I purposely posted the same thing in the original thread detailing this trick, just to make people aware. Hope that’s okay.