Originally Posted by
pushmyredbutton
Likely because there are no *A partners that fly between SYD and MEL according to the routing rules. Doing a dummy booking doesn't appear to be allowing me to transit New Zealand while on a SYD-MEL award.
I believe that Australia and New Zealand have a full open skies agreement, so I’m somewhat surprised that you can’t find SYD-AKL-MEL on an award ticket. Having said that, considering that the OP was asking about a same-day transfer, I don’t think SYD-AKL-MEL-LAX-SFO was the intended route. :-)
So, yes, I think the root of the problem is the lack of MileagePlus redemption partners in Australia. UA can sell you that itinerary for cash, because they can sell a seat on Qantas or Jetstar. But they can’t sell that ticket with miles, because neither of those airlines are MileagePlus partners.