Put a hold on an award ticket before purchase?
 

AA allows to put a hold on an award ticket before purchase for as long as two weeks.

I could not put a hold on a UA award ticket before purachse, something wrong?

You can get a courtesy hold of 24-72 hours (someone else will remember exactly which), but you can't do it online, only over the phone.

Wow, AA allows for a two week hold? I'm glad UA doesn't do that. People would be holding six different itineraries trying to decide what they wanted while blocking other people from that inventory. It's hard enough to get saver awards without that happening.

You can put awards on hold for 3 days, but only when calling.

And when I did it about a month ago, I was told the new rule was the the miles were immediately deducted for a courtesy hold and would be put back if the hold expired.

It depends on the CSR. I put a hold on a ticket about 3-4 times the same thing because they couldn't issue the ticket for some reason and then some will deduct miles some won't.

This happened to me as far back as Jan 2005.

To add some *A perspective, M&M still has a 3 week courtesy hold (that can be extended under certain circumstances) w/o deducting any miles until ticketing. Combined with M&M's unrestricted *A award bucket availability (unfiltered, unlike MP), holding multiple alternatives provides additional flexibility. OTOH, most M&M awards are still more expensive than comparable MP awards, at least on a mile by mile comparison. However, M&M *A awards remain date changable ($40 change fee) even after flying the first segment, which adds another level of flexibility. Also, through some of its partners, M&M offers plenty of opportunities to "buy" miles in large chunks (six figures and more) for about 1 cent per mile or less. In conclusion, it's very nice to have mileage balances on more than one program.

Two examples from 2006: In order to get from LAX to the World Cup in Germany this summer (flying F or C), MP was utterly useless (no availability except for ridiculous routings on inferior UA metal), while M&M provided several convenient options on NZ and LH metal. I put some of them on hold and eventually made my decision. OTOH, in order to get from LAX to SYD in F next month, MP awards are much cheaper (at least until 15OCT) and, since on UA metal anway, easier to book. I could do it online on ual.bomb, and it actually worked! Amazing.

The good thing is, for the dozens of times I've done this, they have always immediately redeposited the points, as promised. Don't have to wait for them to repost, or worry that something will go awry and it won't happen. One of the 100% reliable parts of the MP system...

I agree. Three days is plenty.
I've heard of people having them held for up to a week, something about sending something in the mail I think. Not sure exactly, but it's in another of the award threads.