Originally Posted by
eponymous_coward
You're in an AC hub/AS spoke. I'm in an AS hub/AC spoke (and UA deserted this hub decades ago so it's a UA spoke). We are not the same, and this definitely affects our experience of AS vs AC/UA connectors to awards.
(Fortunately *A is pretty decent to Asia out of SEA.)
I would imagine things improve a bit once you can mix AA and other OW carriers on an AS award.
Yeah it is harder to be a AS spoke person, but AC is barely having a hub in YVR either. But I did exhausting search for my need to do MEL-YVR and set up alarms on a few website for any premium space between Oceania and North America on AS, and yet after 2.5 months of wait, I did not get one single premium award(in QF/FJ, it is 80k on AA which is just bad, literally better just redeem on AV or AC), down to just 3 days before my last available date. The program is super frustrating even with maximum flexibility, while *A has so many choices that there is always a solution. UA had MEL-LAX, MEL-SFO, AKL-SFO, CHC-SFO every day I searched for the last 14 days before my departure and that was super reassuring. But I understood using AS is hard, but once I get to use it, it should be rewarding. But now, it is just hard to use, and hard to earn.