Award with partner airline in Europe - same day change / stdy ...
 

Context : I have an award ticket that was booked as UA metal over the Atlantic and with a partner intra-europe ...

example : IAD UA FRA LH LYS or IAD UA BRU SN LYS

at the time of booking the only options for the intra Europe flight had a long connection time ... 5-6hrs+ while there are earlier flights for the European segments (not avail for awards or sold out at time of booking )

The question is : is there a possibility to standby once I get to Europe for an earlier flight ? is there an option to "confirm" (instead of standby) during a specific time window before the flight ?
is that allowed/ruled by each partner airline ?
anyone has any experience with this ?

Does the type of award (saver / full) makes any difference ? does the cabin booked make any difference ?

Thanks !
Pbr6891 ...

Any standby would be subject to the partners rules for your ticket. UA has nothing to do with standby on another carrier.

So I guess I would have to figure out what farecode/bucket the partner segment gets booked into by UA when booking ...

I wonder if this is pretty standard for each partner airline (SN ,LH) meaning for example a United economy saver award always book in XYZ on LH and ABC on SN ? or is it dynamic based on individual booking / inventory avail on partner ?

There's no figuring necessary. UA books all award flights onto native flight numbers, which means native inventory buckets. There are no such thing as saver or standard awards for partner flights -- they're just partner awards. They book into X, I, or O (economy, business, or first). It's not dynamic.

Having said that, the governing fare rules are United's -- not the operating carrier's. I've never seen a fare rule that specifically allows standing by for an alternate flight; standby is an airline policy not governed by the fare rules. Standby is common on US carriers and virtually unknown elsewhere. You can ask, but expect to be told 'no' absent unusual circumstances (overbooking, impending bad weather, etc).

As for changes -- except for the day of travel, only UA can change your ticket, and you'll be bound by UA's change fees. I see from your profile that you're 1K; if that's still the case on the day of travel, there will be no charge for changes. However, you may need inventory on all unflown segments of the ticket, including those you're not changing.

In theory, you may be able to make a change by calling United even while underway (e.g., at your European stopover). This has the possibility to cause issues, though, as the partner airlines theoretically have up to 24 hours to confirm the request, and UA will sometimes have trouble pushing updated ticket information through to partners.

Hope this helps.

Yes that helps a lot ... Thank you !

Occasional success stories with some of the more flexible carriers (e.g., TG), but with carriers like LX or LH, fat chance.