tonkatsu

Hi, I'm trying to book two tickets to Italy for my wife and I in March using miles. The website shows no saver availability on UA, but pretty decent availability on LH and/or SR. However, whenever I try to book a ticket, I get all the way through the booking and get the dreaded "We’re sorry, but united.com was unable to complete your request. Please try later or contact united.com Support in the U.S. and Canada at 1-800-396-1751; the U.K. at 0800 028 5003; elsewhere use the local phone number" message.

I've tried calling the Premier Exec line twice. The first rep was very unhelpful, and simply said "there's no availability on partner airlines, you must have done something wrong." The second rep was the opposite -- tried multiple options with me, all of which show up as available for saver fares on my screen, but not hers.

Any idea what is going on? Any tips for how to actually get these tix, which appear available? Or is their availability system for partners just totally FUBAR? Thanks......

villox

You might try calling the actual united.com support number listed or ask to be transferred there to see if they can help you.

mherdeg

You may also be seeing "phantom availability" on Lufthansa (LH) and Swiss (LX) — in particular, premium-cabin availability on LH longhaul flights shown more than 14 days in advance is usually "phantom". (By which I mean "incorrectly shown as available on united.com and nowhere else and impossible to ticket.")

tonkatsu

Thanks, I tried that number first, they told me to contact reservations to get it ticketed. It was the web support line, who could do nothing.

It must be phantom, because the UAL agent claimed nothing showed up under saver at all (for economy, biz or FC).

Thank you for your replies.

WineCountryUA

Are you try to book F seats? There is a long exisiting problem between LH (and therefore LX) on reporting F seat award availability.

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

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

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

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ards-fake.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ity-again.html

JSteele

I have personally experienced this multiple times for flights on UA and even US metal. This issue is not confined to LH flights. The worst part is that it happened after transferring UR points to UA.

But thankfully, I have had some success getting UA supervisors to release saver award seats on UA metal. In some cases, the flights I got were better than what I was trying to book.

Just ask and see what happens.

mduell

It's known to be inoperative. Has been for years on CO.sux before the PSS merger. They don't care or are unable to correct it.

tonkatsu

Yes, it was F seats, but I also tried a few coach seats and got the same error. Thanks for the thread links -- obviously I didn't do a good job searching the forums. (As you can see from my post counts I'm not very experienced.)

I appreciate the info. Terrible that they don't correct this!

mrja08

I'm looking to book an award ticket from SEL -> TYO. Prefer using GMP to HND, but united.com shows no availability from those airports. However, i can transfer my partners amex points to NH. I did a search on NH website, is showing availability on OZ between GMP to HND that's not showing on united.com. Any reason why this is the case? I'd prefer to just use my miles..

saaws

My award reservation was whacked due to the phantom availability (even within 2 weeks from the departure date). When I called the 1K line, the agent screwed up my reservation and her supervisor, who was a GS agent, took care of it for me. The supervisor even logged into United.com herself using my account and saw the website showing phantom availability and was surprised. That was two months ago.. and nothing is being done to fix it it seems even though they are aware of the website malfunction.

I just searched HND-GMP and the united.com showed availability for 12 July - 20 July nonstops served by OZ or NH.

blahmeh14

Hello all you nice people on flyer talk!

I don't have an AMC account, so I was wondering if one of you could quickly check the award eligibility/availability of first class seats on flight LH415 on April 8th out of IAD using the ANA tool. I am getting the famous phantom awards showing up when I try to book on United.com, so I am trying to get a little justification to try and get them to do a long sell over the phone.

Much appreciated,
blahmeh14

tcook052

As this seems a UA related question I'll move your query to that forum from where you'd placed it in the Mileage Run Discussion forum.

Welcome to FT!

tcook052
Mileage Run Forum Moderator

mherdeg

The "ANA tool" ( https://aswbe-i.ana.co.jp/p_per/sky_...gin.do?LANG=en ) does not show any LH F availability for that flight and date.



There's a known bug in united.com where it often shows Lufthansa first-class availability on flights where there is no availability and it cannot be ticketed. As a rule of thumb, if you see LH F award availability on united.com more than 14 days in the future, it's probably a lie.

You can sign up for a free ANA account online.

You can do a Star Alliance award search by first searching for ANA flights availability at the above link (e.g. search for NRT-SFO), then clicking the "use star alliance" button once you're on that results page.

You can search for availability within the next 3-4 days by **reversing the order of your search** -- although the ANA tool grays out all award availability on the outbound in the next 3-4 days, it does not hide award availability on the return segment. So if you're looking for award availability on IAD-MUC for Saturday, and today is Thursday, just search for award availability from MUC to IAD departing Friday and returning Saturday, and you'll see the IAD-MUC segment availability you want on the date you want.

It would be wrong of UA to "long sell" you this award space that doesn't exist but it would be totally fascinating if it works -- let us know what happens!