Originally Posted by
mherdeg
UA may *choose* not to do OAL rebookings for irrops on award tickets if they *choose* to set and follow a policy that award tickets only get rebooked on UA or on Star Alliance carriers. I've certainly heard reports of agents refusing to re-book an award ticket outside of UA and citing "policy". Whatever their rule is, I haven't seen it publicly published anywhere.
I believe the IRROPS rules allow any OAL for award tickets. This has been in place even back since 3/3.
Originally Posted by
mherdeg
In this case it's a bit silly that they didn't rebook you on EVA — EVA Airways is not a *A member but they are United partner and you can book award tickets on EVA with MileagePlus miles!
Just because they're partners doesn't mean they have an arrangement to take each others' IRROP tickets at a favorable rates. IRROP tickets are booked usually into Y or J or F at the last minute, not space-available award buckets that are restricted by the carrier.
Star Alliance does have such an arrangement to help one another out. But OALs are OALs, partners or not. This is not to say the carrier is paying Full Y/J/F (they most certainly are not), but it is likely not as favorable as the Star Alliance rate (which is why alliance rebookings are preferred to OAL bookings).
Irrespective of the financial arrangement speculation above, UA should have rebooked on EVA per their own IRROPS policy.