I also had a few United Award bookings before and got the impression that this is a very decent airline. That's what makes this experience so surprising for me.

I now have two pending charges on my credit card and they're not replying to my emails anymore in which I asked how to proceed, and told them in a rather frank way that this behavior is unacceptable . I guess I am on the black list now. Now I do not know what to do. I could just try with another credit card or just book with another airline, but what if they later decide to actually validate and confirm my reservation. This is such a mess. Nobody has a clue what is going on or what I should do to resolve this. Ugh.