I booked two one-way saver awards TXL-FRA-ORD for me and a companion, same flights, separate PNRs. All LH metal, in Business class (I).

United.com was showing phantom availability for the TXL-FRA leg. In fact it still does show this if I search TXL-FRA-ORD, but both the ANA tool and United.com, if I search directly TXL-FRA, show there is no award space in any class on this short leg. FRA-ORD continues to have real availability in I class.

I booked instead TXL-DUS-FRA for the first leg, continuing to FRA-ORD, with an agent. Agent confirmed she couldn't see anything awards TXL-FRA direct so we had to go this route. Everything ticketed and confirmed fine.

To tempt fate, I used United.com to do the "change" feature to search again for availability direct TXL-FRA. At the end of the booking, I got the expected error because it was phantom space. But when I pulled up the PNR on both United AND on Lufthansa's site, both showed confirmed, with the direct flights. Earlier when I had gotten the error and these were waitlisted, I couldn't select seats, but now I can.

I think I have reason to be concerned for BOTH reservations:

- On mine, the LH PNR still shows all FOUR flights as confirmed (TXL-DUS, DUS-FRA, TXL-FRA, and FRA-ORD) on LH.com. I can even select seats on the "old" flights. I've asked UA about this and they say they don't see it, and LH says United has to remove it but that everything is perfectly fine and confirmed on all my flights.

- On my companion's, everything looks normal on both UA and LH. However, I pulled up the e-ticket on Saudi Airlines' website, and on the FRA-ORD leg it shows "RQ" for waitlisted. Lufthansa however shows everything confirmed. MY reservation on Saudi's site only shows the flights I expect and shows everything as "Paid", so this differs from my companion.

I have repeatedly asked both UA and LH if there is any reason for us to be concerned about any of this, and they say no, but I'm not convinced. Any advice?

If everything DOES work, it seems I have somehow gotten confirmed space on a flight that was NOT showing true award availability by using the change feature to switch into phantom space.