Originally Posted by
WhyNotTravel
In July, I made two business class roundtrip MileagePlus reservations, but when I received the confirmation from United, the return date was incorrect. I immediately called back and had it corrected and received a new confirmation. The flights were to be on alliance partner, Asiana Airlines.
What is commonly referred to as a "confirmation number" is better phrased as a "record locator." It allows your record to be looked up, but it says nothing at all about the status of the flights contained in that record, as you've unfortunately found. 
Originally Posted by
WhyNotTravel
Our outbound flights were without issue, but upon checking in at HKT for the return flight home, we were told by Asiana Airlines that there was no reservation for us and they could see in their system that United never fully confirmed the return flight when they corrected the date.
Sadly, this is a fairly frequent occurrence, especially with award tickets. It's possible that Asiana (OZ) never actually had award space; it's also possible that they did have space, but UA failed to communicate the reservation status properly to OZ.
Originally Posted by
WhyNotTravel
I was instructed to call United to reissue the ticket so we would be allowed on the flight. After spending two hours on the phone with United, they were not able to reissue the ticket because it was a mileage award and the system had no award seats available even though there were available seats on the plane and suggested they rebook us on an itinerary that departed two days later and on different partner airlines.
This is standard. There's nothing that OZ can do without a valid ticket, and there's nothing that UA can do without award space from OZ. The fact that there are seats available on the aircraft doesn't mean that there are seats available for award tickets. Having said that, OZ could have opened up award seats as a courtesy, but that would have required cooperation between OZ and UA, likely via a conference call.
Originally Posted by
WhyNotTravel
I told United that was not acceptable since we were traveling with 4 other family members (separate reservations) and we had to return to our jobs and couldn't miss two more days of work. United changed the itinerary anyway and when they did, Asiana Airlines was no longer able to put us in standby status to be eligible to make the flight we had booked.
I sincerely doubt that OZ could have put you on standby in the first place, since you didn't have a valid ticket for the flight.
Originally Posted by
WhyNotTravel
Needless to say, the flight departed leaving us stranded in Phuket. I called another airline to help us and they were able to book us on the next flight out of Phuket. I have sent a request to United via their online form for reimbursement, due to their failure to fully confirm the return trip with Asiana Airlines even though I was sent a confirmation by United of the roundtrip itinerary. I am a frequent flier and have never had anything like this happen...we even had seat assignments. Was there a way for me to know the trip was not confirmed before I checked in at the airport with the itinerary sent by United?
You should receive a refund of the miles used for the segments that failed to ticket, although that may be a bit of a fight since you originally had a confirmed seat and then changed it. The chances that UA will reimburse you for the cash spent to purchase a new ticket is virtually nil. They may throw in a travel voucher as a customer service gesture, but I'd be shocked if it would cover your out-of-pocket costs.
When making a multi-carrier award, you want to make sure that each carrier involved sees confirmed seats
and the same e-ticket number. When you changed the ticket, it's likely that UA reissued it, generating a new e-ticket number. It's likely that the new e-ticket was never transmitted to OZ, so in their system you had a reservation that was linked to an invalid ticket (the old e-ticket was marked as exchanged/reissued -- essentially, voided -- when you made the change). Additionally, to make sure you're looking at the right document, you can enter your UA e-ticket number (starting with 016) in the Manage Bookings tab at
http://www.saudia.com . Saudia provides the ability to look up the status of anybody's ticket in their Global Distribution System (GDS), which seems to be the same one that UA uses. If your flight coupons show a status of "OK" or "Airport Control," the ticket is valid; if they show "Exch./Reissued" or something else, the ticket is not valid and you need to get a new receipt from UA.
Anyway, I'm sorry to hear about the hassle, but I hope this information will help prevent a recurrence in the future.