Originally Posted by
biggestbopper
In my experience it is best to call UAL to check the available flights.
Look at the partners list to see who might go where you want to go and check possible routes before you call since the agent does not always know all the options on non-UAL flights.
Do not depend on the web to show you all available options.
Well, the only thing I'd add to this is that I'd use a good search tool to find what's actually
available as a Star Alliance partner award before calling the agent.
I'll give UA (or CO) credit: their own site is now 100 times better than it was a few years ago. Premerger United.bomb was a primitive piece of junk. But now, you can do a ton of searching right there, segment-by-segment if you have to put something creative together. I still tend to poke around in Awardnexus first, usually so I can run a parallel Oneworld search, then write everything down, and then call the agent (if I must) with known "good" flights in hand. Saves a lot of time on the phone.
I haven't run into any strange issues like Starnet blocking on present-day UA. There are known blocks on US, my other *A carrier, so I don't even try to go there.