FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - TAP (TP) award booking experiences using United miles
Old Jan 21, 2018, 12:19 pm
  #14  
emcampbe
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: SFO/SJC
Programs: UA Silver, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold
Posts: 14,854
Originally Posted by PsiFighter37
The plating restrictions are annoying. LH flights are all restricted to high-fare bucket classes if you are booking as standalone flight on UA's website. Sometimes, flights don't even show up (e.g. I could not book LUG-ZRH standalone, but LUG-EWR (with stopover in ZRH) shows up. AC seems to actually have JV pricing that makes sense (e.g. I booked YUL-YQB on 016 stock at $73). Not sure about NH. I think it's a mix of UA's (in)famous technology and plating restrictions that make it a PITA to book partner flights.
i pretty much wouldn’t expect UAs search engine to give good options on partner airlines when it can’t even do it with its own flights. I more often than not see legal, simple all-UA connections on domestic flights not shown (I.e., <4 hours). Sometimes, it only shows, say, a connection through ORD that’s 40 minutes but not the same initial flight with the 2 hour connection (which, depending on day and who I’m traveling with is a much better option). Heck, sometimes it misses complete optimal connections, even consistently on the same route, again, all UA. I would never count on it to get partner flights right. I just look on Google flights now, and if I have extra time, play around with multi-city.
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