Read the UA board about UA's StarNet filtering. That may present problems for someone such as yourself who flies beyond the UA gateways. The upshot is that even though partner award inventory is availible to UA, UA chooses not to let you have it. US, CO, and BD among * carriers do not block StarNet availibility to their members, and would seem to be better bets.

I am a NW/DL refugee myself, and chose CO as my new carrier of choice. Under Jeff Robertson, DL's award system really sucks.