Originally Posted by
LHR/MEL/Europe FF
flight cancellations happen. And this is acknowledged by the CoC. If your flight is cancelled often the airline that cancels will put you on another flight. Sometimes they muck this up because they only change their segment, and all your connecting flights now mismatch.
however at other times the airline canceling does nothing, then it is up to USDM to try and find alternative accommodation for you. They can either try different airlines, or, if you make out an exceptional case, they will sometimes speak directly with the other airline to figure something out (via the star alliance desk). If nothing can be worked out then you may have to take the full refund.
sticking solely to the 'I have a CoC' line may mean you end up with nothing unfortunately. So be proactive and see what else you can find.
I've had AA, UA and DL all put me on a revenue fare code with another airline when an award flight has been cancelled by them or by another airline. In case of UA it was DL in full F (that was surprisingly easy, I just asked for that and instead of two connecting UA flights that I was originally rebooked on, and I got on a much better direct DL flight, that only had one seat at full F open at the time, that UA was able to get for me in under 10 minutes) and in case of DL it was UA in P, while in case of AA it was AY in full Y.
So US here really should put you in a revenue fare class on an alternate flight of their own, another Star Alliance airline, or even a non alliance airline. It is up to them to accommodate you, and if there is no award space, they should put you in a revenue fare class then on any other airline that can get you where you need to go, when you need to go (the nice side effect of which then is that you earn full miles and qualification miles on that segment, e.g. on my UA award flight I earned full Delta miles + 150% MQM bonus, and likewise on my DL award flight I earned UA miles and also the P class bonus on that). Most airlines have such "other airlines accepting their tickets" in case of cancellation set-up, as they do it for each other from time to time as needed, so I am pretty sure that they don't actually pay the other airline full F/J/Y fare or what not that the fare class comes with (and likely nothing, it's probably just on a mutual barter basis I'd think).