Need guidance using UA miles for awards on Star Allince Partners
 

I've been out of the loop for quite some time.Haven't flown for over 6 yrs and know things have changed quite a bit since then.
I am hoping someone can guide me to the proper thread or ??? as to the proper, best way of using United miles toward awards on other Star Alliance partner airlines.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Brent

You'll need to call. Nothing can be done on line, with the exception of getting an idea for availability. Do a search for "ANA Tool".

You need to call UA frequently and completely ignore ua.com. Often new seats appear on the 1st of the month, also. ANA tool is a good start, but many (most?) times it has seats which UA doesn't.

It helps to have a huge amount of flexibility and plan on flying in economy. Also helps if you want to travel alone. The odds of finding a pair of premium class award seats on a specific date are extremely long.

Emphasis should be added to "extremely long", as in LOOOONNNGGGG

"

yes,I am flying alone but hope to flying in 1st or biz class using miles.(if that helps)

Thanks again

The rather obvious starting point would be the United Airlines FAQ Sticky thread at the top of this forum. In it, there are links to several threads that would be of assistance (i.e., those relating to Star Alliance partners & award travel thereon). At least read the most recent portions of the relevant threads there.

Download the *A timetable and know the major hubs near your destination. It can be common to double connect or even triple to your final destination especially if you want to fly in C or F.

Here is an excellent tutorial on how to use the ANA tool:

bmi FAQ No.4: Redemptions - Finding Award seats : the ANA online tool masterclass

Last time I wanted a pair of tix, I was able to book C on US. But, that was back in 2006. And I didn't really care where we went. I basically told the reservations agent that I wanted 2 premium class tickets from Denver to anywhere in Germany, returning from anywhere in Italy. I also gave rough dates that I wanted to travel. It took the agent 30 minutes to find the flights I wanted, but he was able to get me two weeks DEN-PHL-MUC/MXP-PHL-DEN. As long as you're pretty flexible, you can get some great routings. YMMV.

Let's not forget, the always fun, agent roulette! I would also place a reservation on a courtesy hold if a part of the routing was my first choice. I'd then call back and try to keep changing the thing until I got the routing that I needed. This worked for a US award using 80K miles in business class award for travel on US-LH-UA. All for travel within 5 days. My routing: DCA-CLT (on US), CLT-MUC-STR (on LH); then returning FRA-JFK (on LH) with a 'forced' connection on UA from JFK-IAD. I say 'forced' because one agent insisted that I could not return to WAS via JFK since his computer had not given it as a valid routing. That was time for another agent! I requested the flight to JFK then asked the next agent to connect me on UA from JFK to IAD.

You need to use other Star Alliance airlines' web site to check possible availability of flights, since United does not allow you to search other Star Alliance airlines' award availability on its web site.

Availability of Star Alliance awards using United miles will be a subset of the flights listed on the other airline's web site. But at least you will know what flights are possibles -- any not listed will have no availability, so you can avoid asking about them.

Then call United on the phone, with the list of possible flights to ask for. The United rep will try to sell you United flights if possible, but if you know exactly what to ask for, the United rep should then tell you if it is available for United miles.