Originally Posted by
doctor_who
All my attempts to book available SFO - EWR Star Alliance award using Turkish Miles & Smiles points have failed.
Website booking:
The Turkish website typically shows at least some inventory when booking Star Alliance partner award, but now seems to ONLY show flights which include at least one leg on the TK metal
Customer center:
After more than 20 calls and interacting with people with different levels of experience I was not able to confirm a single availability of United SFO-EWR, despite many being available on other Star Alliance sites (X, I).
Ticketing offices (by email):
I have emailed most US offices and those who got back to me all refused to help make a reservation, referring me to the phone customer center.
Does anyone have any details about what's going on? Is Turkish airlines intentionally withholding inventory of partner airlines?
You can't expect TK has the same award inventory as UA, just because it's for route xxx-yyy and one airline has X class inventory, it doesn't mean that all *A airlines have the same number of award seats.
It's same with OZ, I tried to get CPH-SEA in February 2023 to look for any seat in year 2023. There was only 1 day available in October in X class and only CPH-SEA but not return. It's not TK withholding the seats, it's UA that doesn't let TK has access to those seats.