I am very new to the whole idea of a world-wide alliance, so please bear with me and my seemingly novice questions.

I am heading to CPT (CapeTown) later this month. I need to leave SEA on 4/16 and then return from CPT on either 4/28 or 4/29. When I play with the UA website, the flights from FRA-CPT on LH (UA codeshare) are sold out and the same for the return.

So, to the novice questions... Is the longhaul FRA-CPT-FRA simply sold out or is UA's portion of seats on that flight sold out (I am not too familiar with how selling codeshare seats works)? I am finding that the LH website is hard to navigate and I cannot tell.

Is there another way to get to CPT via Asia that I am missing?

Would my best choice be to fly UA to LHR and then BA or SA to CPT?

many thanks in advance.

A couple of other options you may wish to look into:

SQ flies to CPT one-stop via JNB. The JNB I believe is every day. However, the flights continues to CPT some days and Durban on others.

OS currently flies to JNB and on to CPT with a code-share partner (LH??). However, this flight was ending soon (or may have already ended).

Varig no longer flies to South Africa on its own - only thru code-share with SAA = no UA miles even when booked with RG flight number.

Booking thru LH would be a bad choice because if its labelled with their flight number, you'll only receive 50% miles for the FRA - CPT portion. Of course, if ticketed thru UA, full miles plus any premier bonus, but that option does not seem to be working for you.

even if booked as a UA-(code-share) flight number, LH metal flights (in paid eco, non-transatlantic) will only be credited 50% into your Mileage Plus account.

To show you the LH availability, with the UA booking 'machine', before searching the available flights, just click on LH too as preferred carriers to show up.

(added 'non-transatlantic' after reading leroy's post)

[This message has been edited by Rudi (edited 04-04-2001).]

So, if you flew with a UA-coded LH flight from USA - FRA - CPT, you would receive 100% miles for USA - FRA + Premier bonus if applicable, but FRA - CPT - 50% miles and no Premier bonus - even with the UA flight number.

Thanks, Rudi.

I flew *RTW in December. All my flights had to be booked on the carrier who owned the metal. For example, I was not allowed to book LAX to Frankfurt under the UA code share flight number; it had to be booked as LH.

I really don't know if this is a *alliance rule or not; the agent insisted that it was.

LH 572 on 17APR has only very limited availability in Y and C plus adequate availability in F and A. B,M,H etc. are sold out. You might try get waitlisted for FRA-CPT on the LH flightnumber, there might be a slight chance that the WL clears. Ditto for your return flight. CPT-FRA is sold out in the entire Economy cabin on both of your desired return dates.

A good travel agent will book you on any *A flt (rtw), no matter what carriers flt. no it is - as long as any carrier involved is *A member and those codeshares aren't explicitly excluded.
I once got a NZ F class seat on a UA flt. (metal)when A class was sold out with UA.

Hi Chexfan:

Just curious what you decided to do? Thanks!