US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-2005 America West merger) - Award Travel Problem/Nonsense

US states that award travel must be in the same class. I want to travel ELM-SFO in F, but there is no F service between ELM and PHL, an obligatory segment for all flights from ELM. Online booking says that there are no seats available ELM-SFO. However, when I break the flight into two segments, i.e., ELM-PHL and PHL-SFO, there are award seats available, Y between ELM and PHL and F between PHL and SFO. If I book the segments separately, it will cost me an additional 20K miles, 10K of which I do not have. (I presently have 50K miles.)

I called the award reservations center to explain my problem. The CSR said that she could book the award, but it would cost me $5.00 for talking to a human being (I don't have a problem with that!) and 50K FF miles, which is 10K more miles than booking online. I declined.

The CSR suggested that I talk to a website technical support person about the online booking problem. The CSR technical representative came up with a novel solution: book the segments separately (see above). Her calculations came to 90K for the flight -- 40K for the ELM-PHL segment in F, even though there is no F service available and 50K for the PHL-SFO segment in F, which included an additional 10K for not booking online.

Has anyone else encountered this problem and, if so, were you able to solve the problem to your satisfaction?

Yes. I have seen this problem before. but on an international flight with. the website won't show availability if one segment does not have an F Class cabin.

.....Has anyone else encountered this problem and, if so, were you able to solve the problem to your satisfaction?

Yes, and Yes. It's just a quirk of the system, and US offers an easy way out for Preferred members.

Check P fare class availability for your upgradeable flights (PHL-SFO-PHL). If so, book 40k Premium Economy Award ELM - SFO. The Premium Economy Award is booked as Y fare class and can be upgraded anytime in advance for Silver-Gold-CP members. Immediately after online booking, call your Preferred line with your Confirmation Code, request an immediate upgrade, and pick the FC seats you wish PHL-SFO-PHL.

Yes, and Yes. It's just a quirk of the system, and US offers an easy way out for Preferred members.

Thank you for the advice. Only problem is that I lost my preferred status on US. I neglected to update my profile, but have since eliminated the reference to elite status on US.

I'm thinking about trying to get a *A ticket BGM-SFO on UA in C. It's an hour and 15 minute drive to the BGM airport versus 10 minutes to ELM.

Yes, and Yes. It's just a quirk of the system, and US offers an easy way out for Preferred members.

Check P fare class availability for your upgradeable flights (PHL-SFO-PHL). If so, book 40k Premium Economy Award ELM - SFO. The Premium Economy Award is booked as Y fare class and can be upgraded anytime in advance for Silver-Gold-CP members. Immediately after online booking, call your Preferred line with your Confirmation Code, request an immediate upgrade, and pick the FC seats you wish PHL-SFO-PHL.

Great tip.

You could also try redeeming your UA miles on US and that would get around the problem I think. I don't know if UA charges 1Ps a booking fee though.

You could also try redeeming your UA miles on US and that would get around the problem I think. I don't know if UA charges 1Ps a booking fee though.
Unfortunately, I don't have nearly enough UA miles to book in F or C. I don't know whether UA has the same policy as US in re *A awards, i.e. one can't be booked on a *A award if the booking carrier has award space available to the same location.