I'm going to bring up the Australia topic again related to award availability.

Does anyone know if the award bucket for a business class ticket to Australia is the same if I would use US or UA points? The reason I ask is because I have two flights coming up, PHL-LAX on US and PHL-CDG on UA. Normally I would put my points on US to get the status bonus but I am considering asking for comp PremEx on UA to earn a status bonus and get my UA balance to 90K for an award ticket.

If there is no difference in the award bucket for US and UA miles I won't waste a one time status comp opportunity on UA.

Any info or advice would be appreciated.


Jay

UA has two types of awards, saver and standard.

Saver=less points needed to redeem

Standard=more points needed to redeem (premium)

US flyers cannot redeem for Standard, only saver. This is, I believe, the rule throughout the star alliance.

Assuming US has its computers working and the res agent knows how to do it, the inventory for saver awards with US miles should be the same for saver awards using UA miles.


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by JayBrian:
I'm going to bring up the Australia topic again related to award availability.

Does anyone know if the award bucket for a business class ticket to Australia is the same if I would use US or UA points? The reason I ask is because I have two flights coming up, PHL-LAX on US and PHL-CDG on UA. Normally I would put my points on US to get the status bonus but I am considering asking for comp PremEx on UA to earn a status bonus and get my UA balance to 90K for an award ticket.

If there is no difference in the award bucket for US and UA miles I won't waste a one time status comp opportunity on UA.

Any info or advice would be appreciated.


Jay</font>

If you have a Mileage Plus account set up, you can check UA saver award availability using www.united.com (http://www.united.com)

Dividend Miles agents should be able to access the same inventory.

Once US enters into Star Alliance, you can use 90K miles to get to Australia in business class instead of the 110K.

I thought I could already get a UA business class ticket with 90K US miles.

Maybe you are right. A couple of weeks ago, at the DC FT lunch with ozstamps, he was talking about how the 90K business class ticket to Australia was the best value. Someone else there told me that I would have to wait until US entered Star Alliance in order to get that. I don't know -- maybe they meant on Quantas -- maybe I just wasn't paying that much attention.

[This message has been edited by Alysia (edited Nov 30, 2003).]

For US Airways Mileage Saver awards, I can fly on UA metal, right? An agent was going to put me on a UA flight for a Mileage Saver award. Can I fly on UA metal for Mileage Saver awards to international destinations? What UA class code would show me inventory in ExpertFlyer for a US Airways mileage saver award? Is UA's coach award class N? Is US Airways's coach award class is X?

Are transfers from Starwood still allowed? The helpful agent told me that SPG to US transfers had not been allowed for years. I haven't called another agent yet. The SPG site still lists US Airways at 1:1 with 5K bonus for 20K transfer.

For US Airways Mileage Saver awards, I can fly on UA metal, right?You can fly on UA, or any other Star Alliance member airline, to any destination they serve in the world, on what is technically a Star Alliance award, which are all "saver' (i.e. capacity-controlled).

What UA class code would show me inventory in ExpertFlyerI believe UA blocks all award seat availability information from ExpertFlyer.

Thanks Choster.

I believe UA blocks all award seat availability information from ExpertFlyer.

Correct.

Use Seatcounter,
and enter
UA UA
as your preferred airline. Make sure to enter UA in BOTH of the first two boxes.