Perhaps this will require a separate thread down the line but wanted to share my experience redeeming Connectmiles... miles.
You have to call in and after what felt a bunch of menus with eithe press 1 or 2, you will reach a first agent that may be able to tell you availability and/or prices. However, he/she can't ticket.
You need to ask for the "redemption department" for that. I'd advise you to save yourself some time and just ask for "redenciones Connectmiles" as soon as you get a human. Keep in mind this department has limited hours and is only open Monday-Saturday.
So if you want to redeem your Connectmiles on a Sunday, you'd be SOL.
Once you have someone from "redenciones" you can start the process. Award space on Copa that you see on the United website may not be 100% accurate. I found AC's Aeroplan to be much more accurate.
Even then, if you know what you see, feed each flight info to the agent. One by one. And ask to double-check if you are sure the space is there. This happened to me on two occasions and I kept insisting until they "saw" the space.
IME: The process for redeeming for Copa flights is relatively quick. 10-15 mins.
Redeeming on Star Alliance, however, is not. It can get messy and be brutally slow as they call the airline directly to confirm the space. This may take up to 24-48 hours.
Once you have your space, they will ask for your 4-digit PIN, they check the taxes (a few minutes on hold) and then ask for your payment info. At this point they also subtract the miles.
If everything is OK, the agent proceeds to issue the ticket and provide you with the record locator.
A few minutes after that you'll get two emails from Copa. One letting you know X amount of miles was taken from your account and one with the actual ticket.
Some good bargains to be had in the award chart and remember you can still request an upgrade on an award ticket.
Last edited by Viajero Millero; Jan 10, 2016 at 9:32 pm
Reason: Typo