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COPA (CM) award booking experiences using United miles {Archive}

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Old Jun 12, 2014, 8:58 am
  #1  
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COPA (CM) award booking experiences using United miles {Archive}

I used to see plenty of COPA awards on Central/South American segments from MEX to PTY, EZE, SCL,GIG..

I just checked yesterday and could not find a single award on direct MEX PTY for example September dates...connections in SAL,SJO possible with TACA, LACSA, even Avianca through BOG but nothing on COPA.

Are awards on COPA dissapearing or is this a temporary thing?
Just wondering...
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Old Jun 12, 2014, 9:54 am
  #2  
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So CM is following UA and LH in drastically reducing award availability. Not surprising I guess, but yet another disappointment for sure.
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Old Jun 16, 2014, 8:32 pm
  #3  
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Well after several days of searching I could see that COPA flights to PTY from many cities in Central/South America are non existent.
That is really strange.Anybody has information what is happening here?Used to see plenty Copa award and now the only available awards are on Avianca and Taca
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Old Jun 16, 2014, 8:41 pm
  #4  
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I'm glad that Copa stopped coming up so much for the awards I was looking for. I would never pay for a Business Class award on such substandard metal.
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Old Jun 17, 2014, 5:25 am
  #5  
 
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Last week I tried to book a copa award that was showing as available on expert flyer.com but not on ual.com. The agent first said it was unavailable but when I asked her to request the space, she said she called someone and he/she manually grabbed it because it was indeed available.

Not sure if my experience is indicative of wider problems with agents an ual.com booking (or at least seeing) copa space but just wanted to post as an FYI.
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Old Jun 25, 2014, 1:24 pm
  #6  
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As far as I remember one month ago I was checking some awards on COPA and MEX PTY was the neccesary leg on my awards. I could see a lot of seats even in december.

After some days they dissapeared totally. Now I was not able to find any MEX PTY flight at all any day of year.

Today I called United to check if there are no awards at all and a
helpful agent could see these awards.
What could be the reason that ua.com will not show these awards???Tehnical problems?
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Old Jun 25, 2014, 1:33 pm
  #7  
 
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I see that you are in D.F. and a 1K. Can you call the Star Alliance Desk? 877-726-7282. I have had good luck with them as they seem to know what to look for more so than regular agents.
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Old Jul 10, 2014, 9:58 am
  #8  
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I wrote UA about the issue to see Copa flights MEX-PTY.
It is not possible that out of 4 daily flights there is not a single award available whole year...there needs to be some kind of glitch preventing Copa awards to be shown on ua.com
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Old Jul 10, 2014, 10:31 am
  #9  
 
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Originally Posted by mahasamatman
I'm glad that Copa stopped coming up so much for the awards I was looking for. I would never pay for a Business Class award on such substandard metal.


Perfect reason to deny others, without such hangup, from accessing valuable award inventory.
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Old Jul 24, 2014, 4:01 pm
  #10  
 
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Exclamation Did something happen to Copa award availability?

Over the last week, I've been planning a trip using my United points from Brazil to Central America.

There had been plenty of availability over the coming months. This morning, however, all copa flights became unavailable and I can't find spaces on any flights from Brazil to PTY on any date.

Seems too much of a coincidence to be true, so I think there may be something else at work here. Does anybody have any thoughts on what might be going on here?

Thanks!
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Old Jul 24, 2014, 4:08 pm
  #11  
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I presume you are referring t award inventory. Have you called in or did you just look at the availability (or lack thereof) displayed by the UA web site? UA had some IT anomalies today so this is likely just another one.
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Old Jul 24, 2014, 4:12 pm
  #12  
 
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Xyzzy, thanks for the quick reply.

Yes, I'm referring to award inventory.

I did call and they only found availability next year.

Hope you are right and this is an IT issue - seems like a plausible theory. I know it's impossible to know for sure, but what would be your guess on when something like this gets resolved (based on your experience and other times you've observed IT anomalies)?
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Old Jul 24, 2014, 4:14 pm
  #13  
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Something happened for sure with COPA awards...I noted it already 2 months ago, reported it to UA, business saver awards appeared again (MEX PTY which I was watching).
But....for the whole year you can barely find saver economy on this route (5x daily flights) and others no matter what day...

Only if you call an agent can see sometimes some availability...
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Old Jul 24, 2014, 8:45 pm
  #14  
 
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How did you report it to UA?
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Old Jul 25, 2014, 12:30 am
  #15  
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Originally Posted by davidbr55
How did you report it to UA?
I'd guess he called 1-800-DONTCARE, the exclusive line of UA's customer disservice department. :0)
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