I just bought a one way award ticket (from Mexico to the U.S.) on Continental ! I've been waiting for this ever since United bought Continental. I got the email yesterday that this is now a reality. I am psyched.

Started on June 15. And actually since earlier this year, one could transfer miles freely between Onepass and Mileage Plus and then book one-way awards from Mileage Plus.

Yep, I got my one-way award ticket home from BKK by booking on CO's site. UA didn't show any availability, but CO did! I transferred the necessary miles from UA to CO, and bingo! My flight was last week. I booked it in early July.

It is a good idea to do one-way searches even if you are planning a roundtrip. I've noticed that there are sometimes different search results for the same dates.

An example is a search that I was doing for a fodorite trip. The desired itin was PHL-NRT-OGG-PHL. Searching for a one-way NRT-OGG I got several options including NRT-HNL-OGG. When doing a multi-destination search I got only one routing option: NRT-SFO-ORD.

The other reason to do one-way searches is to quickly check on the classes of service for the flights when you choose one of the "mixed cabin" options. The result might show one leg in F and the other two in economy. This seems to occur frequently for searches I've done for travel at the end of the year.

I've been search LAX-DEL/SYD/JNB/CPT/VFA and other places. I've seen mixed cabin availability for LAX-SYD on TG, LAX-BKK in biz and BKK-LAX in F. IIRC, when I checked LAX-BKK, with BKK as the destination on the same date, that I did not find availability on TG.

I am going to try another strategy when I find mixed cabin options where one of the legs is in economy. That is to search for just the leg that has economy. Dec 26 has a UA/SA mixed cabin itin for LAX-LHR-JNB with UA in F but SA in economy. So I will search for just LHR-JNB to see if biz class is available (SA does not have F)

June 9 search. LAX-BKK-SYD and PHX-LAX-BKK both show availability in business class on the Thai nonstop for the LAX-BKK leg. But searching LAX-SYD only has economy on the Thai nonstop.

I meant: But searching LAX-BKK only has economy on the Thai nonstop.

So I called OP and was told that there are 2 biz class seats available on the TG nonstop LAX-BKK on June 9. Then I checked online and it is available now, different result than just 90 minutes ago.