Be careful with AC. There's been reports that if you want to book Preferred seats (their equivalent to E+) and have booked with someone else than AC, they won't be able to move you to it until checkin.

seat38a is buying business, not coach.

Cons of both: having to fly AC :p

Air Canada doesn't honor 1K or Star Alliance Gold status
 

I booked some flights with United, but unbeknownst to me, some of them were codeshares with AirCanada. Beware! Air Canada do not honor any of my 1K/Star Alliance Gold benefits -- no advanced seat assignment, no Economy Plus seating and no free luggage allowance. This is very unusual -- most codeshare airlines (e.g., Swiss Air, Lufthansa) are very accommodating to United 1K travellers.

Welcome to FT, Tanager!

Flying Air Canada will only get you Star Alliance Gold benefits. This means, only priority check-in, security, boarding, waitlist, baggage handling, and extra baggage allowance. No advance seating assignment or Preferred seating.

I found out about this one today - if you book on a codeshare flight (rather than directly with the operating carrier), the booking is not eligible to apply *A upgrades.

Why would it make any difference?? Has anyone gotten around this?

correct
Discussed in http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...-carriers.html

Before travel only the marketing airline can make the change -- but upgrades can only be done by the operating airline. So you need the ticketing airline to change the ticket to a native flight number. Same issue on using UA GPUs on LH or NH.

Tickets booked back in May for the flights:
IAH-SCL-IPC
IPC-SCL-IAH
ticketed on United, flying on both United and LATAM.

Problem is - can't get seat assignments for the LATAM segments.
United says seats not available until check-in, and LATAM doesn't even recognize the record locator.

I tried signing up for LATAM FF program and adding the flight, but it still acts blind.

Any suggestions on how to get seats?

Thanks :confused:

get the LATAM record locator for UA. If you don't see it online you might have to call UA.

LH 481/480 vs UA 9458/9459
 

I'm about ready to pull the trigger on a pair of non-stop business class tickets from DEN to MUC.

In order to avoid any connections and all the related possibilities of what can go wrong, I'm planning to book non-stop flights. Lufthansa flights 481/480 do the trick, but United also sells code-share flights (9458/9459) on those flights.

FWIW, I have MileagePlus Gold status though 2018 and am narrowing in on a million miles. I realize that no matter how I book I will not get any miles counting towards the million miles. However, are there any other considerations that I should keep in mind before I book my tickets on either the LH flights or the UA code-shares?

Thank in advance,
Rich

Booking on UA, the LH flight / UA codeshare will earn PQDs
but codeshares present problems for upgrading with UA miles or GPUs, purchasing an upgrade to Prem Economy, seat assignments, actual partner fare class is hidden, ..

If a UA codeshare, LH will not touch the ticket until the day of travel. Codeshares lead to an extra layer if you need to do something after ticket purchase.

If you don't need the PQDs and have no UA flights, best to purchase directly.

Native flight numbers are always easier. However, you need an 016 ticket for PQDs (if relevant), and UA flight numbers make it easier to plate 016. YMMV.

Also - for business class tickets, the RDM when purchased from United can be significantly more.

or not ... BOS-YYZ-NRT-PEK-YYZ-BOS for $1.6k ... earned almost 3x keeping this on AC with 300% of distance.

I agree in general with this and my default would be native flight numbers, particularly since I've had trouble getting seat assignments on LH with a UA codeshare.

My one caveat is that if you're a UA elite (particularly 1K or GS) you will likely have better results calling to make changes before travel has commenced if you ticket through UA. LH phone agents are not particularly pleasant or accommodating, and they're certainly not going to waive a change fee, which UA agents will do pretty frequently.