hyperzulu

Sorry if this is something that's been discussed before - I couldn't find anything definitive. Even though I plan to call before transferring points to VS to book a RT ANA award, I've been tracking availability on ExpertFlyer and the ANA site. But just for better understanding, I also searched United and Aeroplan. With particular dates in mind where ANA shows availability (not waitlisted), ExpertFlyer agrees, Aeroplan agrees and United says no. So just trying to understand if a call is in order to verify availability (I suppose this might be prudent regardless), but I just don't want to make a big deal about earning points to transfer, only to find out the awards never existed outside of ANA in the first place. Is the general rule that if another *A partner has award availability, VS should be able to see it, even if not all *A are showing available inventory (i.e. United)?

24left

This issue - not just for ANA availability but other *A - comes up often on the AC forum.

I read posts on the other *A partner forums where availability shows at one or two partner sites, but not across elsewhere. We are often reminded that airlines do not always release the same availability to all partners. ANA may release to UA MP but not Aeroplan, LH may release to Aeroplan but not SQ or ANA.

See comments in this thread. References to ANA start at post 9.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-...te-issues.html

hyperzulu

Thanks I guess unless someone else has seen this exact scenario before, I'll not know until I call VS. In this case I don't think it's an issue of UA not being able to see ANA award availability. I can see all partners show award availability for the outbound leg, but UA is the only one missing the return on this particular date.

Tokyoite

hyperzulu

Thank you. Is there no issue with them checking? When programs have to "request" awards, it makes me generally uneasy. For instance JAL checking an award on Emirates is not a simple query, they literally pull award inventory out when running a query. I've had this happen where the award was no longer available for redemption because a JAL rep checked whether a partner award was available. Luckily the award came back into inventory later on.

Edit: Called anyhow and VS saw the same availability as United. I presume while this may not always be the case, it is this time around. Looks like I'll have to find new dates.