United Partner Award Seats
 

Is there a trick to getting award seat on United's partners? I don't see them on UA award chart.

Some are available on united.com. Those that are not, you call.

Depending on the carrier who's actually doing the flying....

Take your locator number, contact the flying carrier and tell them the situation.

Ask for your locator number from this carrier.

You should be able to get it.

I doubt the OP is talking about seat assignments.

Hi,
I actually JUST got off the phone with UAL about 5 minutes ago asking this same question (after waiting on hold for about 20 minutes). According to the woman I spoke with, if there are any alliance airline flights that qualify for award miles use, they will show up when you search for your trip under 'Book Award Travel Now'. All that came up for me were UAL flights, so I thought I needed to look elsewhere for the alliance flights and I just couldn't figure out where. Apparently, according to her, it was just coincidental that there were no alliance flights available for award use for my trip. Don't know that I really believe her answer, but that is what she said.

That is clearly untrue. There are so many Star Alliance airlines and not all can be booked on UA's website. It might be true for YOUR case, but doesn't mean it is true for all other partner flights.

My experience - about 10 months ago. I thought I researched flights and "costs" in miles on UA site. When I called to book, they had completely different info - some much better. I was told you can not book aliiance airlines flights online, that the availability and cost can not fully be researched online. (I ended up with 2 RT business class seats to Europe on short notice in summer with fewer miles than I had found on UA site).

So you have to endure calling UA - who outsourcers their customer non-service to India. If you can not understand the agent or think the answer is bogus, call back and talk to someone else.

I recently booked an award trip on UA which involves flights on Swiss and Lufthansa. I saw award availability on TAP but I didn't like that schedule. I've also researched award flights to South Africa and South African Airways was there. I'm not saying all partners' availability are displayed on the web site but at least some are.

I have discovered that when I log in with my FF account the award availablity is better.

I've been using the Contintental, now United, award search for the past few years. I have seen instances where only United flights are shown even when I know other Star Alliance carriers go the destination.

But, I have also seen each of these *A carriers available:
Air Canada
Air China
Air New Zealand
ANA
Asiana
Austrian
EgyptAir
Ethiopian
LOT
Lufthansa
SAS
Singapore
South African
SWISS
TAP
Thai
Turkish

The others might not have appeared in my searches because I am not looking to go to places served by them, like Croatia or Venezuela.

Also saw former partner Qatar and a former CO partner, maybe Virgin Atlantic, which had award availability for LAX-LON-JNB. It is tons better than the old united search.

It also depends on the day. For some dates, I see Singapore airlines available for LAX-NRT but on other dates it just does not appear as an option.

Also, I am led to believe that Thai is not making award seats available until within 6 months of the travel date. One time, I searched for Thai availability six months out. For the week before that date: no availability. For the week after, Thai was available. YMMV.

I recently used the UA website to book a trip using UA miles. Prior to booking I checked the site fairly regularly to figure out which flights I wanted to try and get. Thai AIr seats were available way further than 6 months out. What I noticed is that different partner airlines show up at different times and generally later than the UA flights show up.

I was able to book on UA site two first class saver awards for December 2013 from ORD to BKK, including first class on Thai A380 from FRA to BKK! You just have to keep looking. Availability changes daily (or even more often than that)..... The one time I did call a UA agent, she did not have the same availability I was seeing on line, and she suggested I book on line, which I did, and was able to get what I wanted on a first class saver award last July. I rarely speak to an agent on the phone.