US cheating on award travel again
 

I checked several flights in business to Europe for May and June time frame.
Between May 25 and June 25 I spoted many flights with either empty (as nothing sold) to virtualy empty (as in 2 sold out of 24).
USAiways has those seats available for highest number miles and none for lowest.
They have no right to devaluate our hard earned miles like that - and I hope the United Million Miler case will prove that Frenquent FLyer program is a contract. The Judge in Chicago refused to dismiss the case just because there is the escape clause: "we can change anything and void everything anytime even without telling you".
Or is it that they do not want pay for our travel on Staralliance as they are getting ready to jump to pittyful Oneworld? This is still cheating.

It's not really cheating, that is the beginning of peak season. They can charge whatever they want in terms of miles and you can choose to pay or not pay. My true advice to you is to keep watching and maybe the price will change to a medium or low award from the current label of high award.

:rolleyes:

Umm, low awards have always been capacity controlled, and you'll find that on any airline. US doesn't say that every seat will be available for low award redemption. If you want that, then pony up for a standard award. If US thinks they can sell a seat, they're not going to give it away. That's true of upgrades as well.

US tends to be a bit stingy with Envoy awards, but keep in mind you're also looking during a peak travel season too. You're not the only one looking for those seats.

Take a look at Star Alliance awards. You can do this on United's or Air Canada's websites and usually you can find what you're looking for if you're flexible. I booked quite a complex itinerary in C for July (actually July 5 - right during a holiday) for SAN-PHX-ORD-WAW-VIE-PRG-VIE-ORD-BWI. That's a mixture of US, LOT, and Austrian. UA and AC had a decent amount of availability to Europe in the summer - ironically it was the domestic F seats that were hard to come by (US had F, UA didn't).

Good luck.

Off-peak Envoy has been officially eliminated as of a week ago and IME low awards are very difficult to come across. I ended up doing a partner TATL award on UA in C - same price as a low Envoy award plenty of seats available a few weeks out if you're flexible with your dates.

What you see on the seat chart has little to do with the number of seats sold or number of awards available.

Yes, they do. It's in the T&C's.

The UA MM suit was allowed to go forward with the explicit note that "defendants had a contract with Million Miler members which differed from the contract they had with other Mileage Plus members" as the program T&C disclaimer only referred to "MileagePlus membership and benefits, including the Premier Program, "

I'm pretty sure aware availability doesn't fall under a completely different contractual arrangement than the DM program. And I'm pretty sure those seats will be full, regardless of what any seatmap (which only bares a passing resemblance to tickets sold) says today.

But you can file another lawsuit and give it a shot.

Look for a Star Alliance booking. I had no problem finding 2 seats in business to London for this summer last week. US Air of course wanted high award but there were 100k awards available on Star Alliance carriers.

Yes, use United.com to search for availability on *A. When low level shows up on that site, US will be able to book your seat by calling reservations.

If you have to go and since you are CP, you could always book now and just change once lower level seats opened up.