No More Starnet Filtering??
 

I am flying ORD-MAA in one week on an award reservation. The only possible best routing I got was ORD-IST-DXB-MAA and on the return MAA-DXB-IAD-ORD. I thought that it was the Starnet filtering that blocked any trip via Europe (since luthansa is about the only carrier that will fly to MAA from Europe).
Today I called to put in request for special meals. Got a wonderful agent who started of with a greeting and How may i help you? I thought I had reached the HNL center and asked to check for flights to MAA via FRA. To my surprise he found PLENTY of availability for my dates and was ready to make the changes!!!!!!
I changed my inbound and kept my outbound the same since we have plans to stopover in istanbul and did not want to change plans again...
Finally, he asked me if I had any other question. Curiosity got the better of me and I asked him if I had reached the HNL call center. To my amazement he said "No sir, this is the call center in CHICAGO!!!!!!"
Still cannot believe it.. but a happy camper.

Would be a pretty fast aboutface after this: ;)
Washington Times - United Admits to StarNet Blocking!

I agree.. I had not seen the recent posts on that thread that talks about successful bookings on LH.. looks like the power of the press is working.......

Was succesfull yesterday...
 

booking two I Class Awards on LH & NH including european and domestic Japan flights.
However was 6 month ahead.

Thomas

Interesting timing. I tried to make a change to an LH intra-Europe award segment about a month ago, and nothing was available. I tried again yesterday, and all LH segments for GVA-FRA were available in Biz. Didn't think much of it, but now that you mention it....

This may explain why I was able to get a seat in OZ F one week prior to departure! :) And I thought I finally found an agent to perform a manual sell! :)

I tried calling 20 times in one day and I couldn't get it...until my 27th time last afternoon!

Kudos to UA! ^

Hmmm, well before we break out the party hats and balloons isn't it possible that right now the "balance" is just in such a way that people are having some success? I think we need a much larger sample size before getting too excited, that said it would certainly be nice.

Just called to get 2 business seats on an OZ flight from ICN-SIN. NH shows it as available. UA Rez agent (who was extremely helpful btw) could not even see it. In fact the only way she could see it is if she tried to sell me a revenue seat. I asked her if the flight was just zeroed out for award availability and she said no - it literally doesn't even appear when searching for award tickets.

I'm afraid StarNet filtering is still alive and well folks :td:

Hmm.... I called 2 days ago to try to change dates on an LH award from SFO-KUL (via FRA) in November, and the agent found nothing, in spite of my seeing availability on LH using the ANA tool.

Motivated by this thread, I tried again just now, and today's agent found availability on LH flights that yesterday's agent didn't! I was especially surpised to find availability on the non-stop from FRA-SFO on LH, because UA usually always wants to put you on their metal. Could be coincidence (maybe I just won the agent lottery), but either way, I'm very happy with the result!

That's a long way! :)

I am leaving for KUL next week after an agent successfully changed my flights to a day earlier...thanks to the removal of Starnet filtering. I am now in OZ F/C and LH F BKK-KUL instead of SQ F all the way.

Perhaps *Net restrictions were lifted for some LH metal.

ORD is just as good as HNL.

DTW is the disgrace :rolleyes:

Three days ago, I called UA to try to tweak two tickets. Nothing was available on LH. Yesterday, I was able to get two F seats on MUC-CLT, a route for which agents had consistently told me were never available for award redemption. Further, I was able to get the feeder routes in Europe.

While it will be wonderful news if UA has actually lifted Starnet filtering, my hunch is that it simply is the on/off switch UA uses for LH being turned to on again.

Still can't book an LAX-FRA outbound in LH F, ANA shows it and I can go ALL the way through paying for the res on ANA.

Yeah worked for me too!!! Nice find OP. I had a intra Europe tix that ANA has shown LH flights available in spades, but UA res could never find availibility.
This was going on for a month plus and I had checked every other day. Today the agent found all four flights from MUC-CDG on LH had 2 seats and she even commented that she was surprised at how many were available.

Now if only i qcoulg find SQ availibility!!!