Partner Award Availability
 

Not sure if this should be here or the US forum, but...

I'm going on a trip in March with some friends, and they've already booked their flight on US Airways (PHL-LAS 3/30-4/2). CO and UA say on their websites that tickets can be booked using miles on partner airlines, including US Airways, but when I search the award tools, and when I call the reservation office, they don't have any reward tickets available on any US flights for my dates. My questions are two-fold:
1. How long before the flight does US make its award seats available on other *Alliance partners, specifically CO/UA?
2. Are these seats typically available for 25k RT(saverpass), 50k RT(Easypass) or 60k RT(what US is charging)?


Thanks!

Honestly partner reward availability fluctuates so much that a straight forward answer is not really possible... I have booked many times on partner airlines using CO Onepass miles, including Lufthansa, Asiana, Singapore, SAA, Thai, AC, but never specifically USAir. In the cases I have booked partner rewards, there is really no trend of when or even IF reward availability for certain flights would show up for the CO Agents or on the web for one pass miles. If you absolutely must travel on specific dates, best bet is to either pay for the exact flight you want, book on another airline if available with points, or take the gamble of waiting it out and checking availability often.

The Good news is that I have quite often booked partner rewards at CO Onepass Saver rates, but again... this is not always the case.

Whenever the operating carrier wants to, which might be never.
CO/UA won't have access to the "rule-buster" versions of inventory on US metal. If they show up at all it would only be at the SaverPass level.

Thanks. Guess I'll wait it out.. :-/

Are you trying to get on the exact same flights as the friends?

FWIW, if metal isn't a priority, though XY isn't currently available, I'm seeing good XF on UA metal for that itinerary.

Ideally, yes. I'd rather fly CO/UA out of EWR, but all my friends are taking the same flight, so it'd be cool to be with them for carpool/drinking onboard purposes. The flight I'm looking at has a ton of empty seats on it and it's pretty far away, so I guess I'll wait. Worst case, I'll book something using miles semi-last minute