I have had no luck bringing up award flights on UA so far. Good catch on Aeroplan. Aeroplan is tempting but I'd really prefer to burn by UA points as I value them less due to UA's continual devaluations and UA has free cancellation vs Aeroplan's $90-ish fee. Once I include positioning award flights on another carrier to get to NYC (since UA unlike AA and DL releases almost no saver space either on its points or to partners) I am getting around 1.8 cents of value per Aeroplan point which is OK but not great (I'd burn UA points at 1.8 cents all day long).