So here’s my current situation: I booked a United award for 2 PAX and a lap infant on LH in J routing ARN-MUC-LAX. Can I change my origin to something like Zurich or Dublin (given that the award space exists) without having to throw my MUC-LAX back into inventory and hope that it shows up again?
Since this is on LH on the long segment, the award space is not managed by UA but by LH. UA is just a reseller here. The assumption that
award space exists for MUC-LAX is wrong. Space exists but this may not be award space. Especially with J. The logic is a bit different. For MUC-LAX LH has a higher probability of selling J than for ARN-LAX. Hence the
award space was only created for ARN-LAX.
To give another example, I was looking for J award NYC-FRA the other day (flexible whether JFK or EWR). EWR-FRA on UA direct was available for 200k something (dynamic pricing). Then I tried EWR-MUC (same day) and I got EWR-FRA-MUC for much less and EWR-FRA was the same UA flight. It's a weird logic. But basically routes that easily sell J wont have much (cheap)
award space.