United partner agreements
 

On flights to Europe in cities that United isn’t currently flying direct any longer, which partner flights can it switch you onto if they canceled your existing flight?

we were on a nonstop to Athens. There are ways to get there with air canada, Lufthansa, Swiss, Aegean. But not sure if United can swap us into all of those.

What kind of ticket are you on? Award? Revenue?

Revenue

If UA cancelled your flight.
​​​​​​call them and tell them which flight you'd like to be put on. They should be able to reprotect on any airline. Especially those mentioned in your OP.

They said they don’t have an agreement w air canada on flights to Europe. Even though their are codeshare flights. Not sure if there’s a separate during covid agreement.

There was an earlier report in this forum of an agent saying this also, it is puzzling.

However, whenever I have a phone agent not being helpful, it is always worth trying a second call -- never just stop with the first unhelpful response.

Past experience for revenue tickets is UA prefers, rerouting
1. UA metal
2. A* partners
3. non-partners (that interline and this requires supervisor override in non-irrops -- generally rare)

Couldn't have said it better.

In short Huca :)

AC has a joint venture with UA, so there are certainly agreements in place. Perhaps the issue will be entering Canada, albeit only in transit? Flying straight into Schengen would perhaps be easier.

within #2 , they also generally prefer JV partners vs. other *A. So in that case, it would be all the carriers the OP mentioned except for Aegean. Also, other LH group carriers could work, like Austrian.

Are people still booking flights with Star alliance after all these refund scandals?

Booking flights on United stock with Star Alliance flights is subject to United rules. Booking flights on other airline stock would be subject to the other airline rules. Given that OP has a United ticket, this seems to be a non-issue.

I don't get the sense that Star Alliance, overall, is any better or worse than any other group of airlines. Quick searches for AF/KL, BA, KE, and CX all turn up at least some anecdotes that are similar to what we've seen from *A airlines, in terms of denying refunds (or at least delaying them substantially).

via FRA/MUC on LH will be the easiest. UA/LH work reasonably well together. Don't foresee any issues on a paid ticket.

Also depends on what class of service OP was in. If J, LX and AC are probably preferred over LH.

Thanks for all the responses.
was booked in J. The best outcome would be to get united to book on the delta nonstop from New York. But not sure what has to happen to get that to be a possibility if there is availability on one stop routes using partners.

Is that actually possible?

not sure what has to happen to get them to use interline agreements and how that actually works.