Over the past few years, United Airlines (UA) award availability has become increasingly difficult to find on many Star Alliance partner airlines. Recently, it looks like that may have gotten even worse…and by design.
Dan’s Deals has published an in-depth post showing that United appears to to be blocking quite a bit of saver award space from being able to be seen and booked by its Star Alliance partners. Dan’s checked United nonstop saver availability on a variety of routes and cross-referenced it with Aeroplan, Turkish and Avianca LifeMiles. They found that most of the saver awards that United was making available to its own members weren’t bookable on any of the partner sites. Instead, they found only more expensive connecting itineraries. Currently, whatever block is in place seems to be primarily affecting economy awards.
United certainly wouldn’t be the first airline to limit award availability to partners, but it would mark a distinct departure from how the airline has operated up till now. For many folks, limited UA award space would be a distinct blow to the desirability of partner programs like Avianca LifeMiles or Aeroplan.
Since this seems to be a recent development, Dan’s Deals reached out to United to find out if it was a bug or if it was indicative of an intentional policy shift. They received the following reply:
Inventory for all fares – including awards and revenue – is dynamic and always changing. We have nothing further to share at this time.
That doesn’t sound encouraging.
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