<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by lessthanjoey:
United lets you do just what you're asking. That's what "standard" awards are - you can redeem them out of the general pool with no blackout dates or restrictions - if there's a seat, you get it.
On the other hand, people generally want to use saver awards as they're a lot cheaper in terms of miles.
You can't have it both ways!</font>
United is who I flew in my example. 11 months out and there were only 4 25k award seats avail. Something is wrong. the plane sits 100 in econ. There should be 100 seats avail. Using extra miles would be dumb.
we must go back to how it once was.