Heads up to deviators
 

Hey the email we received from Flt Mgt regarding United and some others canceling tickets that are on the same day is correct. United just canceled my ticket home because I had not deviated yet in the system. I was still 5 days out from the day of the trips. No notification or anything also. I just went to get the info to pass on to the F/O and the ticket was gone and it now cost 125.00 more.
Just a heads up.

Thanks for the heads up. But what is the advantage of deviating and keeping the original DH?

I think maybe you mean not officially deviating, booking your soon to be deviation ticket, and keeping the scheduled all at the same time? The advantage to this is for any revisions or if you block in late for whatever reason that puts you under the required rest.

I.e. Scheduled layover in LAX is 803, you're 4 minutes late...they have to rebuild the backend DH. Or, you're in CDG on an Int'l trip, and they revise your backend DH more than 60 hours out. I always wait until the last minute to deviate the back end.

I'm sure someone will be along to say they are required to rebuild the paring regardless if you've deviated or not. Well..they're required to do a lot of things...

So these tickets aren’t fully refundable if there is a cancellation fee

As if I needed another reason to avoid United at all costs. Thanks for continuing to validate my bias.

Here I am! They are required to rebuild the pairing so it's legal on paper. And I've found that they are actually pretty good at it (my experience only). If I'm close to a legal rest before a BEDH, I make sure I check the pairing to ensure it reflects the actual block in time and if it doesn't, I call and have them fix it. But every time it's happened, when I opened ViPS to check, I had a Crew Notification showing a trip revision with the new DH. And associated extra CH.

Just make sure you are complying with the timelines in 8.C.1.h.i. and ii. (Sixty hours international and 8 hours domestic). There have been Irregularity Reports filed on those who haven't followed those timelines.

Just being sure plans don’t change or want to trade the trip. Also, live on the Gulf Coast and watch the Wxetc.

This could be a PITA come winter time. Nothing like snowstorms to kill your plans.

What email was that? recent? I don't recall seeing about this??

Well another hit to the ease of commuting.

.....one more reason to validate my wanting to retire at 62......

FCIF 19-0325 on July 24th.

HI,
Can you elaborate on the scenario specifics?

Did your deviation ticket and the scheduled ticket have any flights in common? Or were the tickets completely different from each other and just leaving from the same city on the same day?

One thing folks may consider if they are 100% certain they will never use the scheduled DH ticket: Once they have the deviation ticket they want, call global travel and cancel the scheduled ticket. This still allows them to delay officially deviating in VIPS until closer to the deviation deadline. If they do this, a trip and deadhead revision would be required in the event of disruptions prior to official deviation. It just removes the potential for ticket cancellation by the airline while still retaining control over when one deviates.

Ok now I am in front of a computer not on my Iphone. haha

When the bid was closed and lines assigned I scheduled all my deviation tickets with FedEx Corp travel and all were under bank. I had not deviated at this point as I was not sure if I wanted to trade any trips, or WX issues and I had to get my daughter to college etc.

The deviation tickets were on the same airline that the pairing tickets were ultimately purchased on in this case United.

I have a IOE student so I was emailing him my intentions to deviate and going to give him my flight info and discovered the ticket was gone about 5 days prior to the day of travel. I was going to deviate that day also but had not officially deviated at this point.

I called corp travel and the person was nice and explained that most of the carriers are moving to do what United did and United is currently the worst. She told me that if you schedule multiple tickets on the same airline on the same day or even in some cases the day before or after. The airline will look at them and decide for you that you cannot use both and they cancel one or both of the tickets. You will receive no notification the ticket just disappears. In my case the ticket price was now 125 more on the same flight.

She said that using a different airline will currently keep this from happening or try not using your frequent flier number "she was not sure if this would work" In my case I had no idea who the company was going use out of Memphis.

Yes your idea of calling to cancel the scheduled ticket is good but in my case it's a easy 50 min commute 2x a day to get to MEM to take the scheduled and I had never encountered this before. I see this as Bull Shi! not just for us but business travelers who might have multiple tickets in case meetings go long or plans change.

The bid pack and pairing publish the flight with flight number and airline. How did you not know what the scheduled flight was? If you knew the bank, there had to be a flight associated with the pairing.

Well I just learned something I had no idea. I just look at the accepted fare dollar number. Really would not have mattered as in my limited time as a commuter 1 1/2 years I have never had this happen.

I’ve traded trips after deviating. Is that a no-no?

Contractually allowed since deviation window (60hr) is greater than the trade window restriction??? I am not aware of a restriction. If it wasnt allowed dont you think you would of been notified by company?

There are restrictions for some international trips.

3 conditions, when all apply to your situation, will restrict you from trading, dropping or accepting a PDO bump on your trip.
1. You have deviated.
2. The deadhead flight on which you deviated starts or ends outside the contiguous 48 U.S., Canada or Mexico.
2. You are within 14 days of the the showtime of the trip.

So, don't deviate early unless your baseline fare is significantly higher than established and you need to deviate before the start of the trip's bid month to capture the higher fare.

Not sure what I'm missing here.. Are you saying you a buying deviation ticket but not deviating so you still have your scheduled ticket also? I haven't deviated in a while but I didn't know that was even possible? I thought once you select a deviation ticket, your scheduled one goes away?

You're correct, If you buy the ticket using the deviation and deadhead section of VIPS (orange boxes associated with the specific deadhead leg you're deviating), then you can't buy the deviation ticket without cancelling your scheduled ticket and officially deviating.
However, if you want a deviation ticket while still retaining the scheduled ticket and not deviating until closer to the deviation deadline you have two options:
1. Call Global Travel and book the deviation ticket you want.
2. Select another orange box (last leg of a front DH trip, first leg of a back DH trip or even a non-DH leg from a completely different trip). You can alter the city pair and dates to what you want and use the online system to buy your ticket without deviating. This is because you're not selecting the orange box for the actual deadhead leg, therefore the system will not deviate you.

Buying a deviation ticket doesn't make the scheduled one go away (and it's perfectly legal to have both). Deviating or cancelling the scheduled deadhead ticket makes it go away.

Thanks for the info! Didn't even know that was possible to do it that way!

Here is something to beware of....it has happened to me and others. Booked a deviation ticket, kept the scheduled, did NOT deviate (because I wasn't sure what I was going to do, trying to pick up a trip to turn into). Company never bought a scheduled ticket, probably because the flight was sold out. Called crew schedule when I realized there was no scheduled ticket the day prior when I got a trip, and realized they hadn't issued a scheduled ticket.

Put on hold, finally was told, "We see you have a deviation ticket to your home, therefore you deviated and we didn't buy a scheduled ticket". Fortunately I knew better, and told the scheduler, "I absolutely did not deviate, and according to the contract I can book both. I am taking the scheduled flight". They magically found a ticket, and cut the BS as soon as I called them on it. But what if I was unfamiliar with this? I wonder how many people they have fooled this way.

TRUE
 

This has happened to me as well, 3X in the past 6 months...........only on United however. Deviation ticket went away with NO notification, but scheduled ticket remained. The bad news is that when you deviate, the scheduled ticket goes away AND the deviation ticket was gone too!! No way home, and if deviating from Europe you may never get a ticket home..........or stuck in the middle seat in coach for a 10 hour flight home. OUCH!!!!

Has anyone asked how are they linking you to both the scheduled ticket and deviation ticket? If it's your frequent flyer number, would it be wise to have the company delete your FF# and then you add it at the gate of the flight you actually take?

I have a unique name so it could be by name. But surely the aren't looking and seeing two John Smiths leaving PHL with one going to MEM and the other to PHX and assuming they are the same person.

SF

Adding to the masses.... I am also being jacked around with Deviation tickets. Ridiculously cheap tickets are being "bought " by the company from MEM to XXX when there is no way someone off the street can buy a business class tix from MEM to XXX for $300!!!! MEM was/is (according to Kayak/Priceline, etc.) one of the most expensive submarkets for airline travelers.

Trade the trip with another pilot than trade it back. Make them buy multiple “Frontier” class tickets.

Think i might take a break from deviating. Seems like its getting complicated, time consuming and expensive. Anybody else having to JS after spending our already small bank amounts?

If you think the prices are invalid, contact ALPA CE and give them specifics. If it doesn't seem right, there's a good chance it's not.

It's difficult to understand if you're talking about actual tickets purchased or Baseline/Established fare issues.
Keep in mind:
There are specific, contractual timing requirements for determining the Established fare that you can check based on the date/time listed on your pairing. Make sure yours aren't in violation of the CBA.

The actual ticket the company purchases has no effect on the Baseline/Established fare. i.e. if your Established fare is $2000 and they find a ticket for $1000, you still get the $2000 if you deviate or the extra $1000 for other expenses if you don't.

I've had my Established fare lowered after I flew the pairing to match a cheaper ticket they found for the scheduled DH. Had to input a discrepancy to get it raised back to the original amount. There are all kinds of "grabs" happening regarding DH tickets, fares on pairing, etc. The folks that control those things seem to be counting on lots of newbies that aren't going to know to question things. They make a change or attempt a new interpretation and see what they can get away with. Know the CBA and educate the new folks you fly with.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for using a hotel in lieu of deadhead when deviating? We have a tab on expense reports for pre-approvals>3days. Does this mean we can deviate, cancel a backend deadhead, and stay in the hotel using our dev bank? Having trouble finding a source document

It's for swapping the banks on a backend DH and a frontend DH SAME CITY for paid hotel and perdiem up to 3 days. If more than 3 you have to get a pre-approval. Look at Section 8.C.3.d.

Ex: B/E DH Seattle Saturday and F/E DH Seattle Monday. Don't want to commute home and prefer to just stay in SEA. Give up the 2 banks for the hotel and per diem. Kind of like turning it into a weekend layover.

Thank you!