Award availability issues tied to MP changes?
 

I have been looking into a single Bus award redemption for ORD-LHR and have not found anything between now and June either as Saver or Everyday awards. I realize both are commercial hubs and probably limited availability is normal, but wonder if something else is in play. The award calendar will show a value but the flight selection fields show none available. Anyone have any insight or thoughts.

??? Saver J availability is difficult everywhere, but there are business Everyday awards available virtually every flight.

Is J Everyday award availability tied to FF status? I did not qualify last year nor will I qualify for 2020, but I have the necessary miles. Since I was not even seeing Everyday availability, my reasoning was maybe something else was up.

Elites and Chase cardholders have access to last seat availability (JN inventory). General members don't have last seat availability, but non-elite Everyday inventory (ZN) is still available on virtually all flights. It was open on every flight ORD-LHR I checked (about ten) before posting.

Kacee, thank you for your reply. When I went back to UA website yesterday Everyday availability was now appearing, and was also appearing today. I even now saw some Saver availability for the return leg. Not sure why it was not showing up the previous two days. Thanks again.

New question for all..... When looking for an award trip ORD-LHR for May, I was only able to find Everyday for outbound but did find some Saver for the return. So I schemed that I would book the return at the Saver level, and then deal with the outbound when I either found a more reasonable miles requirement (either lower Everyday or possibly Saver at a later date). However, when I tried to only book the one way return segment for the Save Award, it would not show any inventory for Saver (same date and flight as selected in RT). Sounds like their dynamic pricing model is also being applied to award redemption... i.e. get a much better price if you book RT than booking individual tx for outbound and return. Sound about right??

No, that doesn't sound right. Thankfully, there haven't been any reports -- yet -- of UA mucking with pricing and/or inventory for a roundtrip vs. a one-way flight. I was unable to replicate the error you described -- when I found a one-way saver award from LHR to ORD, it was available as 60K points whether it was a one-way or part of a round-trip.

Can you provide some example dates and flights? Do you have status with United? If you continue to see issues, try calling.

I will try both calling MP service center and also posting to the lurkers. Regarding my specific itinerary, I have been looking at ORD-LHR departing Thurs May 21 and returning LHR-ORD on Tues May 26. It is so weird because sometimes I do see Everyday award on the outbound and sometimes I do not.... the outbound Saver awards I have seen are on LOT. I still have not been able to see the RT combination of Everyday award on outbound and the Saver award on return.... but I can see them individually if I search outbound and return separately as one ways.

I currently do not have status with United.... I am a Chase cardholder.

LOT isn't a bad option for J. I wouldn't hesitate to fly them. There are 30k economy savers on UA metal available for those dates. I regularly fly in Y ORD-LHR, its a quick flight, 2-3-2 on the 763 isn't bad. Just depends on how many of your points you want to drop on J. 155k o/w is ridiculous.