Hello, I have a question on the excursionist perk. which logic would suggest is at least in part related to the only rule that seems to contain any potential gray area, namely
"The cabin of service and award inventory of the free one-way award is the same or lower than the one-way award preceding it."
I have always interpreted this the easy way by only thinking of the class of service. In other words, if my first leg is in business class, I should be able to get an excursionist leg for 0 miles either in business or in economy. However, in my current search I am coming across a problem that seems to stem from the second qualifier specified by the rule above, i.e., the "award inventory", even though some extra considerations might point to a bug.
I am trying to purchase the following award trip:
Bogota (BOG) - Mexico City (MEX) April 26
San Diego (SAN) - New York (NYC) Anytime after that
San Diego (SAN) - Bogota (BOG) Anytime after second leg (it does not even matter as the problem shows up before)
For the first leg there are several business class awards throughout April. For example, I chose a BOG-PTY-MEX operated by Copa airlines, departing from BOG at 8.43 am on 4/26 and arriving in MEX at 4.30 pm for 27,500 miles and $108.55. It is denoted as Business (I), which according to some site denotes Discounted Business Class and according to others denotes Business Partner Award. The problem show up with the second leg: I cannot find any 0 miles offer for any date in the calendar, neither in business nor in economy.
I can understand that Business (I), as a discounted award might not allow to get a non-discounted business ticket on a domestic United flight, which probably represents a higher value in terms of "award inventory" (even though it's a bit strange that at no date United offers a discounted business award on that route), but why there is no 0 miles availability in economy either? Is Business (I) also valued below an economy class award? Or is this likely a bug in the United award calculator?
Thanks everyone in advance for any insight you could give me on this issue.