It was a non-stop one-way flight on EVA. Had the UA ticket number, but EVA and UA showed waitlist. My fault not to check the online status after getting the ticketing email, but didn't think this could possibly be an issue until now. There was a minor schedule change, which maybe triggered it, but the UA agent basically said despite the ticket number, it was never actually confirmed with EVA... which is the part I suspect was wrong.

They basically said nothing they can do with EVA at this point, so put me on the UA flight at the "discounted" rate of 88K... I'd like at least to ask for the price differential back between saver partner and saver UA, but wanted to confirm that the agent was mistaken when she said that the existence of a UA ticket number does not guarantee EVA confirmed the flight for this one-way one-segment ticket.