transpac questions:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">I find it difficult to believe that a UA Reservation Agent can make the call to give away a Saver Award, where one does not exist, based solely on the fact that one does not have an partner miles in their mileage accounts?</font>
Well, that's not how it works exactly. The Reservations agent is not the one who shakes something out of the tree. Usually after your pitch, they forward your request off to Revenue Management. The key is to get them to give as the "reason(s)" to go the extra mile, as much ammo as they can. And that ammo can be the "Take a look at my account" thing.
Revenue Management does have the power and authority to override inventory restrictions under special circumstances. I just try to give them a special circumstance.
BTW, others have found this successful for them. In fact, as I mentioned, I'm not the first to use this stratagy. But as a current example,
AuH2o just was denied an exception and finally allowed one when he dropped this "see all those are flight miles" shoe. (See his post in United)
Keep in mind this guarantees you nothing. It's more an subtle art form how you use it than something you can demand, count on, or expect them to react to in any way. I've had agents in effect say "so what." But I just call and eventually get an agent who says, "Yes. You've got a point there. Let me see what I can do."
But I can say it's definately been the deciding and/or contributing factor many a time for me and others.