There is no caveat needed. There is absolutely nothing wrong with redeeming miles on United.

The real caveat should be with CO miles, i.e., CO miles are worthless for getting awards on CO, but you may have a reasonable opportunity of getting an award on one of their partners.

In the past I was 1K on UA and Gold on CO and I will agree that there's never been a problem a problem getting UA awards--whether UA or Star. As far as CO, I've yet to fly on CO for an award. I have been able to get awards on NW using NonePass points but even those have been difficult at best without having to use the higher mileage awards.

Maybe I'm just lucky or it has something to do with being in Houston, but I recently booked a standard reward ticket from IAH-GIG with no problem (booked in October for trip in January) - and it's only 35000 miles.

This is the only time I've booked an award ticket from CO, so I can't say whether it's always this easy from IAH. But it can be done.

I am interested in this discussion, b/c I also have tons of MileagePlus miles (thanks to the MP Visa), but have yet to find the availability I want for saver awards...at least by checking the web site.

FF

For years we tried to use our onepass miles for award travel from Europe to the US for my in-laws without success. Continental NEVER had anything from any European gateway, though they occasionally had partner award availablity on a convoluted routing. That said, last December we were able to book two 35K awards from LAX to Honolulu for travel around Easter. CO had several dates available and we didn't really have a problem. Delta, on the other hand, had NOTHING the whole month.

The bottom line is that unlike with CO, the miles I earn on UA I can actually USE whether for upgrades or outright tickets on an airline/alliance with a REAL global network.

The only affiliation I have left with CO is about a million (literally) miles that I just can't get any redemption on. And that's even as a Platinum elite for whom CO supposedly makes better award availbility. It's all downhill from there.

Avek has been interestingly enough very quiet lately, especailly in the face of the GLORIUOUS changes and repercussions of the CO nOnePass program. Wonder what gives?

Everyone keep bashing CO about redemption. Two things here...1. You can almost always get an award you just have to use AllPass. It will cost you more miles but instead of complaining about huge amounts of miles that can't be used just cough up the extra miles and use them 2. If you need a last minute award the availibity is pretty awesome at the lower levels. Maybe a week or 10 days out.

These are features of pretty much every frequent flyer program.

Most programs offer awards without capacity controls (more or less) for extra miles. So CO isn't offering anything competitive here. Where they fail is at the standard (lower) mileage requirement.

Airlines also dump award seats into inventory when it's clear the seats won't sell. CO is not at all unique in this regard. I've had great luck on UA with F awards to Asia this way. I know of one member of this board who has even had great luck using UA miles for SQ F awards. And CO is no SQ. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

IS he still a member of this board - Jim Phillips above is also is wondering aloud about his whereabouts. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

And he DID need to phone United EIGHTEEN times to badger them into issuing it, so who among us has THAT kind of time. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

But yes, back to topic, UA has ALWAYS came thru for me. We moved out CO miles into HH this year as they were useless by and large.



------------------
~ Glen ~ sipping bubbly from a UA 747-400 exit row 15 near you SOON!

I've had low 6-figure balances in both programs ever since moving 175K from CO to UA before the door slammed mostly shut, and can say I've been much happier with UA availability so far. They literally saved my summer Asia trip after CO/NW had their solid wall of no-availability. If you've been on the phone much trying to book CO awards (and you still have to use the phone if you want stopovers, open jaws or anything complex), you often might get the impression they're not really trying. They'll say that entire 2- or 3-month blocks are devoid of award seats 5-6 months out (even to multiple airports) but, of course, there's EasyPass. Or, if you'd consulted the "Reward Travel Forecast," you'd see that Atlanta-Cleveland is wide open and you can also get good availability to Bogota.

About all I can say good about CO is that the 25K intra-Asia award is still a good deal, and I'll keep some miles so I can do more of those. Some of the Micronesian destinations and CNS and DPS are good as trips from places like MNL, HKG, TPE and Japan. It's probably because Continental Micronesia is underbooked due to sky-high paid fares on the monopoly routes; if that changes, it'll no doubt pinch award availability.