LondonFlight

Hi everyone,

I have just called United trying to redeem miles to travel from LHR to BKK in C on July 1st or 2nd, coming back on July 10th or 11th... and was told that seats for redemption are only available in Y. The agent was not necessarily helpful and I confess that I was not impressed - this was the first time I contacted United to try to book an award ticket. Out of curiosity, my partner suggested I should call Bmi Diamond Club to check: there is availability in Business Class on those dates with Swiss via ZRH (the one I really would like to book), Lufthansa, and even Thai via Oslo on the way out. Can someone help me and suggest what I should do make this reservation? I would really appreciate any assistance.
Thank you!

SEA1K4EVR

Checking ExpertFlyer..which shows Swiss availability but not LH or Thai... there appears to be lots of business class award availability on July 1st.. LX 325 LHR-ZRH connecting to LH 180 ZRH-BKK. And on the return July 10th LX181 BKK-ZRH and LX 316 ZRH-LHR. If LCY is more convenient there is availbility in and out of there as well LCY-ZRH-LCY on Swiss.

Now, it's possible United is blocking this availability.. search for "starnet blocking" and there is a giant thread about it. But I would suggest calling United back and giving them the specific flights and see if that helps.

Edited: I just checked booking this on Continental.com.. there is availabilty in business class on Lufthansa as well via FRA. You would have to open up a Continental account and transfer your United miles there..which is free. The CO site doesnt show any Swiss options.. only LH, TG, and SK.

star_world

How many seats are you looking for?

ex LHR - none of the direct TG flights are available in C on 1st or 2nd.

ex FRA - no direct flights are available for 2 people, flights on 1st are available for 1 person. Watch out for availability showing on co.com in a premium cabin - it will show an itinerary where only one leg (eg: LHR-FRA) is available in C but the remainder in Y.

Agree with the comment above about calling UA with the specific flight numbers.

rankourabu

Call UA armed with specific flight numbers you want!
The agent probably just looked up direct flights.

Another option is to transfer the exact amount of miles to your Continental account (start one if you dont have one), and book online (LH/SK/TG only, no LX/SQ online)

Lots of options on your dates
Check Aeroplan.com and choose the one you like best.

As for StarNet blocking, there is no way that UA would block all TG/LH flights Europe-Thailand.... what reason would there be to block CPH-BKK for example??? You just got a really useless agent.

LondonFlight

Thank you for your help. The award ticket is for myself - Swiss has an "offer" to BKK from LHR available in July so my partner will buy the ticket in C. But I'll need to get availability using miles first and only then the other ticket will be bought... The suggested LX 325 LHR-ZRH connecting to LH 180 ZRH-BKK on July 1st with the return July 10th LX181 BKK-ZRH and LX 316 ZRH-LHR would be pretty perfect. Having now checked on both Aeroplan and continental.com, I will call UA tomorrow with the flight numbers to see what they say, thank you so much for the idea.
What exactly does United get by blocking availability? I had read about it here in the past but never quite understood the point in doing it.
I am always amazed but the knowledge that you guys have. ^ Thank you again!

Karter

I flew LX in C from LHR-ZRH-BKK in August, so if UA is blocking it, it's certainly not a permanent thing to block LX. As others suggested, try calling.

rankourabu

Where United flies the route, for example LHR-LAX, or SFO-FRA, or NRT-BKK, they have been known in the past to block access to inventory offered by a partner on the same route (other routes too, but common routes most often)

This pushes you to use United flights for awards, which are often only available in the double ripoff point values.

SEA1K4EVR

Inquiring minds want to know... how did it work out?

JenGal

I'm curious too. When I booked a *A award with UA a few months ago(including the LX ZRH-BKK flight -4 different airlines all together), the first thing out of the phone reps mouth was that there was absolutely nothing in F to get me from IAD to BKK. Couldn't get me any legs at all in F. I fed her the exact flights I wanted (and had seen 2 F award seats available), and magically ... I got all the flights booked. She wasn't looking at anything but UA flights and wasn't about to without me suggesting it.

This is the type of thing that makes one pity customers trying to redeem their miles that they've been accumulating for years for a once in a lifetime trip ... they call UA and the agent says "no can do." Many wouldn't know to have the agent look for *A flights.

rankourabu

its probably more like:
no can do, but we can offer you a standard award.