Steve, I have 2 experiences witn award tickets. On the first they (the Exec Club people) made a mistake in issuing the ticket and mixed up my name with that of my sister(whose travel plans were slightly different on the return). THey said it was impossible to change the names on the ticket, but issued each of us with a note explaining why our names didnt match our passports, and also noted this on the booking. In the end, no-one actually qureied this (although she got upgraded to Club World coming back on the strength of my gold membership!)

Also last year I had an award trip Warsaw - San Francisco and was travelling with a friend who had a non-award ticket. The day before the trip I had some bad personal news and decided not to travel, but didnt want to ruin my friends holiday. They were able to re-issue the ticket in the name of her husband at short notice. I do think its a re-issue thing.

The people in Germany have always been helpful (although i see my membership will be handled from Slovakia now) Maybe the UK ones are not so helpful? Or their rules are different? I know that UK Exec Club don’t do one-way award tickets but in mainland Europe they do, no probs. also with gold it is possible to get tickets at short notice and also to cancel without penalty.