Admittedly it's been 2 years+ since my last EI award ticket reservation so YMMV, but there was some archaic system in place at the time where you had to call UA reservations who would set up the reservation and send it off to EI for confirmation - the agent said to call back in 24 hours to see if it had been confirmed
When i checked the UA website the following day the EI segment showed confirmed so I didn't bother calling UA back until approx 36 hours after the first call only to be told that the segment had been canceled and I should have called back to have the ticket issued :-(
Then the availability for my BHD-LHR segment disappeared and I ended up having to go BHD-LGW much earlier than originally planned so as to get up to LHR for my onward travel...
lesson: the description "confirmed" on the UA website with an EI segment doesn't mean it's ticketed - the agent explained that you actually have to call back again to get the ticket issued - ticketing is NOT automatically processed even if EI confirms the space
Last edited by exupery; Sep 28, 2015 at 8:33 pm
Reason: to clarify my cumbersome Irish English