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Washington Times - United Admits to StarNet Blocking!

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Washington Times - United Admits to StarNet Blocking!

 
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 8:50 am
  #1621  
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Originally Posted by PanHam
I'm having similar trouble getting onto the new config F from ZRH - JFK on the 8th of September. UA shows no availability in any class of service on LX14.
While there are four award seats in business class at the moment, there's nothing in first.
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 9:34 am
  #1622  
 
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Originally Posted by lucky9876coins
While there are four award seats in business class at the moment, there's nothing in first.
Expertflyer right now shows quite a few available F award seats for LX on the following days

9/4 LX14 O2
9/6 LX16 O1
9/8 LX16 O1
9/9 LX16 O2
9/10 LX16 O2
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 10:51 am
  #1623  
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Originally Posted by Ripper3785
You're right. They could. But there's no history of them doing that.
Question: don't some airlines maintain two separate sets of award inventory? That is...one bucket for "native" awards and a separate one for *A awards. (I'm talking about a generate practice, not so much UA's 1K economy awards.)

I had always assumed that airlines could choose to make more seats available to their own fliers than to the alliance - a totally separate discussion from United's filtering of seats that definitely are being made available to the alliance by the operating carrier.
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 11:05 am
  #1624  
 
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Originally Posted by rjque
TG is regularly blocked. Some TG routes (i.e. Asia to Europe) appear to be blocked all of the time.
I must be lucky - I got ZRH-BKK in F. Although I had to insist that there was such a flight - the agent kept saying only LX flew that route.

Another strange thing - the agent seemed to have had to send a request and wait something like a minute for a reply (this was for LH, LX and TG), which seemed odd since the ANA tool doesn't have any kind of a wait to see availability.

Don't know if I just happened to get a clueless agent (I had to tell him that 1Ks have a special inventory of NY seats).

Last edited by c1mth0g; Aug 4, 2009 at 11:51 pm
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 11:21 am
  #1625  
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Originally Posted by c1mth0g
I must be lucky - I got ZRH-BKK in F. Although I had to insist that there was such the flight - the agent kept saying only LX flew that route.

Another strange thing - the agent seemed to have had to send a request and wait something like a minute for a reply (this was for LH, LX and TG), which seemed odd since the ANA tool doesn't have any kind of a wait to see availability.

Don't know if I just happened to get a clueless agent (I had to tell him that 1Ks have a special inventory of NY seats).
If the agent tells you the flight doesn't exist, it is certainly blocked. It sounds like in your case the agent did a manual sell, which is one way around the block but is also prohibited by UA management. You, indeed, got lucky.
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 2:17 pm
  #1626  
 
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Originally Posted by c1mth0g
Another strange thing - the agent seemed to have had to send a request and wait something like a minute for a reply (this was for LH, LX and TG), which seemed odd since the ANA tool doesn't have any kind of a wait to see availability.
Not odd at all. Agent sees availability, then has to contact the carrier for confirmation of the seat.
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 3:04 pm
  #1627  
 
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Originally Posted by pinniped
Question: don't some airlines maintain two separate sets of award inventory? That is...one bucket for "native" awards and a separate one for *A awards. (I'm talking about a generate practice, not so much UA's 1K economy awards.)

I had always assumed that airlines could choose to make more seats available to their own fliers than to the alliance - a totally separate discussion from United's filtering of seats that definitely are being made available to the alliance by the operating carrier.
It's certainly possible. Unfortunately ANA Tool doesn't check LX availability so I can only check via EF/M&M, which both would be checking native availability. When I call UA it's just not available, though the agent can see the flight.
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 8:30 pm
  #1628  
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Nick wrote an interesting article on UA in his Washington Times column on August 3. ^

Link just below.

edit

Last edited by dhammer53; Aug 3, 2009 at 9:24 pm
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 8:33 pm
  #1629  
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Originally Posted by dhammer53
Nick really blasted UA in his Washington Times column on August 2. ^
Do you have a link. I did not see it in the travel section.

Last edited by Benny8444; Aug 4, 2009 at 9:51 am
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 8:38 pm
  #1630  
 
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Originally Posted by Benny8444
Do you have a link. I did not see it in the travel section.
I think its Nicholas' column on the 3rd instead of the 2nd.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...nt-flier-mile/
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 8:44 pm
  #1631  
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Originally Posted by dhammer53
Nick really blasted UA in his Washington Post column... ^
Washington TIMES

corrected
Originally Posted by dhammer53
Nick wrote an interesting article on UA in his Washington Times column on August 3. ^

Link just below.

edit

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Aug 3, 2009 at 10:15 pm Reason: updated to show correction
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 9:14 pm
  #1632  
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Originally Posted by elCheapoDeluxe
I think that when someone searches for United Airlines on Facebook they won't find the group because the airline-word is missing from the group name. Can you adjust this?
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 9:23 pm
  #1633  
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duplicate
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Old Aug 3, 2009, 10:33 pm
  #1634  
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Great article! ^

Unfortunately, it seems the ones with the most miles aren't the ones that want to spend them on Y tickets. Maybe UA will get that someday.
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Old Aug 4, 2009, 1:15 am
  #1635  
 
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While I hate that UA or other star carriers block certain routes for redemption, I must say UA overall is pretty generous when shelling out miles when compared to its Asia competition such as NH,CX,SQ,TG, etc and generally has lower redemption levels that competing carriers. My guess is that means something has to give somewhere. However it sucks when you are told by CS agents that the flight does not even exist. When China unblocks facebook I will be joining the group.
-UFFA
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