Mike Jacoubowsky

Here's what's really screwy. UA is selling flights on Kenya Air, which is not a *A partner. But they're not selling flights, code-share or otherwise, on Ethiopian. Not unless you force it by looking for award travel and then choosing the buy option, which gets you a Y fare.

The relationship with Ethiopian is rather odd indeed. Then again, Ethiopian may have one of the few IT departments that would look to UA as being something to aspire to. The hoops I had to go through to buy a ticket from them approach legend status. Thought they were purchased on the website (https no less, all seemed fine, including the extra visa security step), then got an email saying they were not confirmed, please give a call. The phone call was confusing, to say the least, but what ultimately came of it was a form they sent me to fill out and fax to them (fax? my business got rid of its fax machine quite some time ago), along with a fax photo of my drivers license and the front & back of the credit card. But they misread the zip code and called back a day later to say my card was declined. And that led to a fraud check by my CC company, which deactivated my card until I called them to explain things. Eventually it all worked out, but... wow... just wow.