Aegean Airlines (A3) award booking experiences using United miles
I have a complex award ticket already booked that involves an intra-European Aegean segment on a 320. The entire itinerary is booked into business with the exception of this single segment. While the 2-3 hour flight in intra-European business is nothing to write home about, the blocked middle is certainly better than 3-abreast in Y, plus I've paid for business and I'd just assume get the marginally better experience.
United can't/won't let me book into I inventory on this segment even though I know it is available (ua.com, ANA, etc). I can only get them to book X. This held true for a different A3 segment as well (different star hub to same destination; I am connecting to this segment so connect point is somewhat arbitrary). When I asked a second agent about this she went for help, and came back about 10 minutes later saying that "this segment isn't covered by our agreement with Aegean, probably because they charge bank for this route." I agree that this is likely a bit of a moneymaker for Aegean, but it is news to me that Star Alliance carriers not named SQ are blocking subsets of inventory like this.
For reference, the flights that I had trouble with are all intra-European flights into HER (bypassing ATH).