fredekr

Hi everyone,

This is my first post and I've tried to search and read the wiki but I couldn't find an answer. There may not be answer...?

Anyway, I am trying to fly my family of 4 LUN to PDX. The only carrier currently flying is ET. I have miles on Chase and Capital One, each enough for two tickets. My plan is to transfer enough miles for two tickets from Captial One to Avianca, and enough miles for two tickets from Chase to United. The United Mileage Plus website shows three tickets available, only in business, on the chosen itinerary. Avianca LifeMiles shows two tickets available, only in business, on the chosen itinerary.

So, the question is: Once I transfer miles to Avianca and purchase the tickets, will there still be tickets available through United? Obviously there are only a certain number of award seats available, but clearly they have different allocations since UA shows 3 seats available and Avianca shows 2.

I want my family to fly together. I am worried because the itineraries that match between the Avianca website and the United website do not appear to be available for purchase at a reasonable price anywhere online. So, if purchasing on one website removes them from the other, then my family will be on different flights. Because the situation is changing daily here, I want to book very soon (ticket prices more than doubled between Thursday and Friday).

Many thanks for any help or suggestions you can offer.

Mwenenzi

Welcome to FT
They may be same 3 ET award seats being available to Star Alliance. With UA offering 3 to its ff members and Avianca offering 2 to its ff members. You generally cannot add these together,. Very common for a ffp to only offer 2 bus class awards. Getting 4 business class awards on the same flight is always hard tending to impossible. More chance with economy seats

When do you want to travel? If soon, the visa/passport/government requirements for transit will be a major consideration.
Lusaka a hardish place to get from. May need long haul flights from another regional city and separate tickets from Zambia to that.
South African Airways is in Star Alliance and partner of UA, but has major financial issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennet...tional_Airport
Route-->Great Circle Mapper

fredekr

Thanks for that info. That is exactly the insight I was looking for. Economy would have been fine but there were no economy award seats available.

Pre-COVID, LUN was served by ET, EK, SA, TRK, and KQ, plus a couple small regional international airlines. At the moment, the only scheduled international flights appear to be ET. I have booked two business award tickets via UA and purchased two economy tix via ET.

Thanks again!