I'm seeing some space on United from London via Washington, i.e. out on Sept 11, back Sept 22.

You then as the call centre to tack on the EDI-LHR where I assume you'll find seats.

Best way to check is to go to www.continental.com, plug in the route and it gives you a 2 month view of availability. Look for the green or blue squares on the calendar for business class seats.

Availability on the direct flights from EDI or GLA to EWR is very scarce. Oct 18th or 26th has a seat from GLA going West.

Good luck.

Thanks

Aare those seats avaliable for redemption? they said there wasn't any on those flights

I'd recommend trying the fantastic www.awardtravelr.com for *A availability - it's also great at finding routing options.

A tip to keep down your tax would be to start from somewhere outside the UK too and then get your connection separately.

gallen9

Historically, the availability on the Continental website has been accurate for BMI too (but this could have changed). The problem with the call centre is - for whatever reason - they're pretty useless most of the time.

They often struggle to see availability on a flight later in the same day so asking them about a 2 month window is a bad strategy.

You need to do the research then call and say:
"I'd like a seat in business class on UA935 on September 1st. That's leaving London at midday for Washington."
You then say "and i'd also like to fly onward to Denver on the UA1123 at 5pm the same day."

Unfortunately they need to be spoon fed the information :-(

thanks for your advice guys much appreciated. Wth the suggestion to find the avaliable flights how do i know what is avaliable for award flights?

On continental.com, there's a choice to search between price, schedule or award travel. Pick the latter option and you should be set.

I use this tool - http://beta.awardtravelr.com/?refer=true has worked perfectly and no problems getting the flights that show available booked

Personally I use KVS which is a paid subscription, but AwardTravelr, Award Nexus, Wandering Aramean tools, United website, Aeroplan website or ANA website should all work fine.

seems from what bMI have told me that the united website shows you Uited awards only and they are not open to non united award use.

You need to look at Saver award availability only and that has always in my experience matched what the ICC can book

Great thanks,i did see there was a saver and a normal option but the saver one was pretty much always unavaliable lol typical

seems to be very very difficult to find anything at all. is there a particular way of doing this? No matter what dates I try I can never seem to see anything that works. I am trying to do around 10 days in denver from Glasgow or edinburgh from middle of august to end of september and they have to be usable by BMI points. Any suggestions?

thanks again

flights from the regions and Scotland are very difficult to find, you may do better to look for flights from mainland europe and consider a separate flight on a low cost carrier with an overnight stop. this will likely pay for itself in saving on APD

I had thought of that actually and was looking at Dublin which seems to be kinda avaliable. Out of interest how much is the APD on a flight from the UK to the US?

I had actually looked at departing from Dublin but returning to either Glasgow or Edinburgh but there is nothing at all coming back which makes it difficult. Will see whats avaliable coming back to Dublin though I would prefer to go straight back the scotland.