I have seen phantom availability on united.com for LH flights. Others have commented on it as well. I'll see availability on LH F but it cannot be booked. Agents do not see it, and awards can't be taken thru to booking on the online.

Yesterday and today, I have seen the reverse: united.com is not showing availability when it is actually there. This is on United metal, when you would hope that United.com would show the correct availability.

I have an award booking using bmi miles. When I booked it, all I could find was EWR-IAH-SAN when actually I wanted EWR-SAN. I set up Expert Flyer for the nonstop flights, looking for I inventory. I could also see it on united.com. I needed to wait for the bmi call center to open. By the time that it did, I could no longer see the award space. I set up the Expert Flyer alert again. It went off again. United.com continued to show no availability. I looked at the award tool on ANA.com and found one seat shown. I called bmi, who also saw the award seat and reissued my ticket.

It's frustrating enough when they show award space that isn't there, but it seems to me to be an even greater issue when they fail to show their own award space.