My wife and I missed an United awards flight return flight back home to Tokyo ( we made the Tokyo to Seoul flight out). I called United on the way to the airport when I realized we weren’t going to make it on time. We also had bags to check in, though our seats had already been booked. They said the next two days were booked as well as the remaining Asiana flights that day (United itself doesn’t fly the Tokyo-Seoul route). Asiana itself (the star alliance member we were booked on) was even less helpful by phone, saying if we wanted to try and rebook by phone, we needed a Korean credit card.
Anyway, we arrived at the airport at 18:35 for a 18:50 flight, even though I imagine the flight didn’t leave on time as both our other flights left late (Tokyo to Seoul nearly an hour late, our purchased flight Seoul to Tokyo about 25 minutes late). We were told they had only business seats available that night, for about $460 USD each for the next flight, which we ended up purchasing. We looked into alternative flights on other airlines, but one had crazy routing through Hokkaido and the other didn’t leave until late the following evening.

Are we due any compensation? We noted to both airlines we had a flat tire in a taxi on the way, but Asiana wasn’t much help and there is no United counter at Incheon airport.