TWAB747nomore

I have been having an impossible time finding OA F on most of the other star carriers

snic

A lot of those costs, however, will be incurred whether there are butts in the F seats or not: fuel, FAs and even a fair amount for food, because they are going to have to accommodate people who buy F tickets at the last minute: they need to fly with a full pantry even if the cabin is nearly empty. Wine and liquor, on the other hand, probably costs LH in proportion to the number of passengers. On my recent flights in LH F, with the cabin nearly empty, whenever I ordered a new wine or spirit, they opened a new bottle for me because no one else was drinking it. I'd have a couple of glasses, and I assume the rest was poured down the drain.

But to my mind that doesn't justify letting the F cabin go half-empty instead of selling *A F awards. LH gets compensated for those, and I imagine the amount of compensation covers the costs that are beyond what LH incurs whether or not the seat is full.

I saw lots of phantom LH F availability on the CO website last December; I'm not surprised that this continues on the new UA website. But I don't think it has anything to do with married segments, as the agent told you, as I tried to book these tickets both with and without connections, and the agents could never see the inventory I saw online.

small ring

Please accept my apology if there is a thread that covers this ... I have spent the last 30 minutes trying various searches ...

I am looking for information on how to book non-UA award tickets with UA miles ... preferably online.

Thank you,
-p

tods27

Not to sound trite, but if you use the award search on united.com, it should show partner flights if they are available. If you are not seeing LH as an option, there probably isn't any availability on LH.

What route and dates are you looking for?

rankourabu

2 million miles, GS, and you be never been to United.com?

FortFun

Generally, it can be done on united.com. Some recent posts in the thread below, however, make it sound like there may be issues at the moment.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...-recently.html

chainboy

Here is a link to the search for award tickets. This includes partner airlines.

I hope that this helps.

-Ethan

DBCme

For all the issues of this post-merger airline... their online award booking is a major improvement (it has a few issues though). Namely, ability to book award travel on many *A partners; not limited to just a few as it was prior to 3/3

Tron37b

You can definitely book LH awards on the new .bomb. I have been looking at booking an award ticket (NYC-DEL) and came across many LH tickets.

The real question is how to easily search for *A award fares for the rest of the *A partners that don't show up on .bomb.

Best of luck^

sbm12

Most, if not all, partners do show on the new website. If they aren't showing up in the results it is because there is no inventory, not because the site doesn't see it.

Dr Jabadski

2 days ago, on United’s website, I ticketed an award ticket, business class, Lufthansa, for this summer JFK-Warsaw via Frankfurt. 50K miles, $36.00 taxes/fees. Called UA, got the Lufthansa reservation #, called Lufthansa, selected seats, then viewed my reservation on Lufthansa’s website, all within 40 minutes (at 3AM).

exbayern

I see multiple awards in LH F for multiple dates and routes, but EVERY single time I try and book on UA it tells me not available, and web support says 'the flight is already sold out'.

The flights can be booked using AC miles.

This may be a new method of Starnet blocking for LH F.

EXTREMELY frustrating that the LH F shows on the UA website but cannot be booked.

exbayern

There are many dates where LH F shows availability via UA, LH, AC websites.

But it cannot be booked on UA; booking goes all the way to the payment screen then errors out. It CAN be booked via LH or AC websites.

I have sent specific examples to UA Insider after being told repeatedly by support that the UA website is not in real time and that what we see doesn't actually exist. (What then is the point of the website??!)

jakeg104

Actually, it can be booked. Sometimes. Kinda like how everything is at UA these days. Here is how:

- When you see availability on UA's site, confirm it actually is a real availability with KVS (or something similar).

- If you see it both on UA's site and on KVS, then call into UA customer service (and hope to God you have 'status', which doesn't mean a whole lot for UA anymore, except you get routed to someone in the US after waiting anywhere from 5-45 mins). Tell him/her to book it.

-If the agent says they cannot see it either, then go back online, go through the booking process, and when you get to the payment information screen, under:

Note: Due to the mileage redemption required for an upgrade, only a credit/debit card may be used to purchase this reservation with an upgrade.

For your security, we use standard SSL encryption to protect the transfer of your payment information. If you would prefer to complete your purchase via phone visit our phone order page.

click on the 'phone order page' hyperlink (actually i do a 'CTRL+Enter' so it opens up another browser) and it will give you a PNR of that booking you are trying to make. Have the agent call their internal web support team to force the PNR into his/her screen and it can then be booked.

- If the agent you talk to won't/can't help, hang up and try it again. If the 2nd person can't/won't help, hang up and try again. if the 3rd... you get the idea.

I have sucessfully booked my mom from MAA-FRA-IAH/IAH-FRA-MAA on LH F using UA miles (actually CO miles, but who cares any more) about 2 weeks ago. She just flew back last Monday, so i know this method works.

- Get ready to give up about 2 hours of your life talking to agent(s) though.

exbayern

I read that verbatim to the supervisor after being on the phone for 3h20h with web support supervisor.

He says that you don't know what you are talking about.

Thanks though! The flights which I tried to book show 'waitlist' but he claims they will drop off after 24 hours and that it is impossible for him to do what you say.

ARGH! (I need a break before my next round of calling as your wait times are extremely optimistic... and I am 1K)