Genkoopie

As I'm sure most of you have experienced this before, I'm kicking myself today for not pulling triggers last night.
Mrs. Genkoopie and I have been thinking of taking a trip to New Zealand for a long time and finally decided April '18 is time to go.

Looking last night at flights and finding sweet award space in business.
UA839-NZ102 LAX-SYD-AKL 04/03/18 70k business all way thru (IN7 I6 if you can believe it)

UA98-NZ722 LAX-MEL-AKL 04/04/18 70k business all way thru (IN3 I2)
and so on through all of April.

Stupidly I told my wife, "let's check out vacation schedules tomorrow then we can book after work!"
Come home today - all business saver space from feb-end of bookable schedule is gone! (Except some asiana flights through ICN but the mrs scoffed at the total flight time).
lesson learned - book now, ask for forgiveness later
wonder if my incessant searching for routes on multiple devices alerted RM they accidentally released hundreds of saver business awards XD
-to waiting

jsloan

UA's 24-hour cancellation policy is your friend.

Here's hoping they re-open the space you were looking for. ^

Genkoopie

Even worse in my frenzied state of mind i blew past cancellation fee is a rounding error of dollars so double whammy.

garkster

It does change day-to-day, so if you make offerings to the correct deities , hopefully you'll get a good outcome.

Hipplewm

Check back over the next 6-8 days, when I was frantically obsessively checking for my family's summer trip and also a trip to Singapore for my wife and I, there were times when it would go from IN7 to nothing to IN5 to IN9 all in the course of 2-3 days.

I am not even sure it isn't a bug and it goes back and forth for some reason

FlyerBeek

More so than the award availability, I'm actually more amazed that IN didn't equal I! That's a rare find.

-FlyerBeek

Kacee

The algorithm can be overly sensitive, so small changes in input (i.e., UA sells a P fare or two) can cause big inventory swings.

I definitely agree with the "keep checking back" advice.

PsiFighter37

In recent months I have seen IN>0 but I=0. Perhaps another ploy to get folks to sign up fo credit cards

jphripjah

Yes, I've also had space disappear and then re-appear 12-24 hours later.

Dublin_rfk

Borrow / use a different device and/or IP address. I normally use my +1's device to research travel.

Michael D

when I have cancelled an I or an O to change to another flight, if the bucket re-opened it was after 24 hours if at all.
YNNV

RandomBaritone

If you're suggesting that UA's IT system records individual award searches, then causes those specific awards to become unavailable to specific customers before they're booked in some nefarious plot to sow frustration and keep miles from being redeemed ... no. That is a myth.

Saver award inventory is constantly changing due to both revenue management and open awards being scooped up. I'm personally waiting for a specific saver J *A SFO>DEL itinerary to open up for a date this fall, so I'm checking regularly. I've seen itineraries literally change by the minute.

UA is not evil. People just like using their miles.

jsloan

I don't believe that Chase cardmembers are eligible for IN/JN, just XN/YN. And XN isn't even a published benefit, last that I saw.

Right. It doesn't happen on paid itineraries either. For one thing, they publish the inventory to multiple sites. It's not really possible to return different inventory to different people, and, if they tried, there'd be a 50-page thread on the board with people posting different examples.

PsiFighter37

IN is definitely for Chase MP cardholders. Pretty sure JN is as well.

WineCountryUA

Sure about that? -- it has not been reported before.
Thought this was just Plat or higher benefit

This is part of the last seat guarantee