Originally Posted by
MumbaiFlyer
I've found that it's almost always beneficial to try and book through another airline to a partner airline than to book with that airline directly, e.g. through Virgin for Singapore or through Continental with Virgin. The miles required are usually, as you found, substantially less for no good reason.
All my flying is on UA, and hence my interest is in international awards with *A carriers. I wonder if things work very differently with the other alliances, though.
With *A I believe one is more likely to get award availability with the carrier whose miles they have accumulated rather than by crossing over with those miles with one to use them on another alliance member. And here's the biggie, which may or may not apply to those other alliances - if one if flying on UA metal all the way, no mix-and-match combo of flights be they codeshares or not, then they can change dates even on the return portion after they have started their trip; if it is not all the way on UA for an award that one redeemed using UA miles, then they can make no changes to their itinerary, neither routing, nor dates, once they have begun their travel. So don't know about the advice so far as non-*A carriers go, but definitely not the case for *A ones.