Understand that what you appreciate in award booking is the old CO engine (SHARES) that the UA folks hated and which created so many problems for the merger.
For awards, it has been the best part of the UA/CO merger.
Prior to that one was limited to AC or ANA website for checking then one had to call in with UA and spend an hour or two on the phone booking the award.
Yup I do appreciate it! I've had to call in once or twice, but in general its fantastic. Of course you broke the first rule of UA/CO booking
For Asia awards, I try for AA first then go with UA if I can't get it with AA. I suppose I should be happy there is a backdoor way to find AA partner flights using BA.com, otherwise it'd really be impossible.
AA's redemption rates are obviously the lowest of the group, which means better use them up before they raise them!
FF ratings
AA:
Availability and flight searches: 1/5
Award Value at low level : 4/5 (would be higher if they allowed a stopover)
Fees: 4/5 (free date changes!)
UA:
Availablity : 5/5
Value: 4/5
Fees: 2/5 (Change fees, close in fee, have to ask to waive the phone-in booking fee)
Neither is perfect, happy to have both. SkyPesos rate even worse. Love my BA Avios for short jumps too, and thank them for hosting a good search engine (invoke Fight Club rule here too)
Cheers,
RdM