ECR12

I am looking to book a Biz award to Europe (from the US East coast) for early June. I see Biz class availability on Lifemiles that wasn't showing on United or Aeroplan (but IS showing on expertflyer).

I haven't called any of the plans to attempt booking but any idea if this is more likely to be phantom availability, an error on both United/Aeroplan sites, or real difference in availability?

N104UA

If EF is showing you have a good chance of it being real, I recommend calling

sbm12

EF uses the LH Group inventory IIRC, not *A partners. And LifeMiles is known to have access to more space than other partners.

ECR12

This is helpful, thanks sbm12

mrt88

I've been seeing quite a bit of availability come up on AC and NH that isn't on LH, no idea what's going on. wondering if LH is tired of too many credit card miles from the US being spent? hehe

jmanirish

It's actually the opposite. EF notes: "The Lufthansa Award search shows partner award inventory. Availability to Miles & More members may be greater."

Came across the same situation and posted about it in the LH F thread. EF/NH/SQ all showed availability. UA and NH couldn't see it. No idea if it is deliberate blocking or a system error. It doesn't make sense because there are similar awards that are being shown.

In case anybody wants to follow along from home:
LH 452 (MUC-LAX) is available on 5/21/18 on EF and SQ, but not UA or AC.
Yet the same flight is available on the next day (5/22/18) on UA.

In the past, the potential work around was a long sell. But I finally got an agent to try to long sell (or so she claimed) on a separate flight (the unicorn LH F West coast TATL). She said she knew just what to do as she's done it for revenue flights, but when she tried, the system blocked her and gave an error message so in the end I wasn't successful. And of course the O is now gone.

sbm12

It is LH point of sale though, right? It used to be.

jmanirish

N104UA

I am having the same issue, EF and NH are showing availability on LH, but I can't find it on UA, has anyone had luck calling in?

ECR12

I called United and they did NOT have availability (which was being shown on ExpertFlyer and Avianca). I decided to use Avianca and had no problem booking online after transferring the Citi pts. I was hoping to use my United miles rather than redeem a transferable currency but the trip's only a month away and I wasn't seeing much else out there.

jmanirish

No luck. Even had what sounded as a very knowledgeable agent try to circumvent the system - with no luck. Second time I saw LH 'O' open up, I transferred Amex points to SQ and sucked up the high taxes/fees. This was also >14 days out, so consistent with what the bloggers are reporting that LH F is available to *A partners further out, just not UA or AC.

I hear you. Sadly I didn't have any citi points to transfer to aviance, so SQ (and the related surcharges) was my only choice

AustinPilot

For a bunch of XXX-FRA-JFK itineraries in August, LH awards in biz seem to be available via AC, NH, or SQ. None of them come up when searching via UA. Very annoying.

Kmxu

Did you search individual segments? If FRA-JFK has biz award available, call UA to get to book your trip.
Good luck.

AustinPilot

Individual segments, both XXX-FRA and FRA-JFK, are all available (in I) when I search AC, NH, or SQ. Neither segment shows on UA. UA offers some LH but only on complicated 2- and 3-stop itineraries with overnight layovers.

jsloan

Call UA; this is the rare situation where they might be able to book something that doesn't work online. No promises, but it's worth a call.