I found a 1st class award flight for my wife SYD-FRA on TG through
BKK. So far so good. But then the UA 1k desk wanted to charge me
200,000 miles, even though the chart says only 180,000 miles
for Oz-Europe. They argue that I am going through a 3rd region and so
the cost is the sum of the costs for SYD-BKK and BKK-FRA. This seems
absurd as all flights to Europe from Oz go through a 3rd region. In addition,
when I've got similar award flights in business before, I've only been
charged the (direct) mileage in the award chart. I queried this with
the supervisor to no effect -- they made up some excuse about it being
the mileage in the chart for economy but not for business and 1st (which
sounds a load of crock to me as I can find no such rule in
all the information on united.com!).

Anyone had this problem? Any advice how to get a flight for the
quoted 180,000 miles? Thanks