If you’re trying to book an Air India award seat using your United MileagePlus miles, you’re not going to find space…it’s all blocked.
All Air India Award Space Blocked Via United MileagePlus
This award space blocking is unrelated to the Air India 787-8 crash that occurred earlier this week, as this blocking has been ongoing for quite some time. You might recall that I recently booked an Emirates award for next year out of Mumbai, which will give me a chance to not only offer updated reviews of first class on Emirates, but also check out India again (I’m looking beyond Mumbai, if anyone has suggestions).
On the way to India, I wanted to fly Air India business class on the A350-900. This was my plan before the deadly accident and remains my plan after the deadly accident…at least at this point, I have no safety concerns flying on Air India.
Here’s an example of the Delhi – Mubai route. On March 1st, Air Canada has plenty of space on Air India:
Meanwhile, United has no space:
In fact, I cannot find a single date with a single flight with Air India award space via United.
Yes, award space is capacity-controlled, but Air India does not release different saver award space to different partners and thus it appears that United is deliberately blocking this space from its MileagePlus members.
I’ve not been successful booking this over the phone, so it’s not like there is hidden space either (like back in the day when you had to call American Airlines to book JAL or Cathay Pacific award space).
I’m sure we’ll see some comments below about United doing us a favor by blocking this space (Air India’s reputation was not great even before the latest crash), but Air India is a critical Star Alliance partner in terms of offering dots on the map and blocking all award space on Air India leaves a big hole on the Inidan Suabcontinent.
Finally, this is not the first time this has happened. We saw something similar in 2019, which United blamed on technological limitations.
CONCLUSION
I’ve sent a note to United and will update this post with an answer as to what is going on. While I understand why most of you are perfectly happy to avoid Air India, blocking this Star Alliance partner is problematic: United should not be blocking the award space of any partner. Perish the thought that MileagePlus starts becoming like Avianca LifeMiles, which routinely blocks partner award space…
> Read More: Passenger Finds HUGE Cockroach In Meal on Air India
> Read More: Bed Bugs Invade Business Class on Air India
top image: Air India A350-900 business class
In fairness, maybe they are blocking it because they don’t want their passengers to experience subpar safety and service, and potentially be subject to litigation if something goes wrong?
If they aren’t blocking any other *A carrier, that would be my bet.
This is not new, been going on for almost a year now, if not longer. I booked an AI award ticket on UA last year and the ticket got cancelled. UA agent told me that AI had been refusing to confirm space for quite a while. So the block might come from AI rather than UA.
I hope I made clear that his has been an ongoing issue and not a result of the crash.
I have flown Air India recently (admittedly it was an ex-Vistara plane and crew) and was very satisfied. They also tend to offer a fair amount of award availability so they can definitely come in handy for short notice redemptions between Europe and Asia. People should remember that this is a large airline from the country that’s got the highest population in the world, safety really isn’t an issue and the number of other incidents (the clickbaity stuff that pops up from time to time) is only to be expected considering both the size and overall circumstances of its home country (e.g. lots and lots of first-time flyers).
Darn. Just when I was going to check out their long-haul service in the Dreamliner. Was planing to book the exit row.
As you noted, it has been going on for a while. I often look for direct flights in and out of India for aging parents and United hasn’t been showing AI awards for almost 2 years now. I last ticketed my in-laws in AI through United at the end of 2022, for a flight in June 2023, which worked fine.
My guess is that this is deliberate on United’s part. They are the only real competition to AI for US-India direct flights, and they don’t want to reimburse AI for award flights that MP members will book on AI metal. In theory, this shouldn’t impact the intra-India flights but United still blocks those.
These flights should be available on Aeroplan and Avianca. Even ANA should be a good option now that it will allow one way bookings.
Udaipur is worth a visit. And everyone should see the Taj Mahal, if you haven’t already been.
Are you serious with this post?
No, not because of the recent crash, nothing to do with that. It’s because United has been wholesale blocking almost all partner award inventory since their last mega-devaluation in Spring of 2024 (or was that the 2023 gutting?) – which bloggers generally missed completely and rarely mention at all. That was by far the biggest United devaluation ever, orders-of-magnitude greater than any previous gutting.
Prior to that devaluation, inventory on lots of United partners was routinely and widely available. After that devaluation, almost all of it has been (and remains) completely gone. There are a handful of exceptions, but most United partner awards have completely disappeared from availability across the board. It’s got nothing to do with United blocking Air India. United effectively now blocks virtually almost ALL partner availability.
When was the last time you saw any inventory in a search on united dot com from ANA, EVA Air, Thai, Singapore, Air New Zealand (hah!), Asiana, Swiss, TAP, or Turkish? It’s all just gone – and has been for over a year.
I’ve seen LX, TP, SQ, LH, TK, and NH today. There’s a difference between partners being stingy and UA deliberately blocking (which I don’t think it does for other carriers).
Can visit Leh/Dharamshala/Manali. Later, two have limited flights from Delhi, but it should be an interesting one. Just don’t visit during June-September.
I enjoyed Goa, very relaxing and peaceful (which cannot be said for much of India). I also enjoyed Kathmandu and the area of Nepal just outside of it.
We spent two nights at the Taj Faluknama Hotel in Hyderabad in February. It is considered the only 7 star hotel in India. I have stayed at many luxurious hotels around the world but this was way over the top! Highly recommend!
“Nestled in Hyderabad, Taj Falaknuma Palace is celebrated by guests for its impeccable service and the staff’s remarkable attention to detail, ensuring a stay fit for royalty.”
Another amazing attraction in Hyderabad is the Salar Jung Museum.
I wonder if this has anything to do with Air India having overflight permission with Russia which United currently does not enjoy…
I saw a note somewhere about Air India using Russian airspace which is phrohibited right now in the US. The start of the block times out as well with start of hostilities. It is not due to safety or airline service. If that were the case Egyptair award flight would not be available on mileage plus.
I know you’ve flown it before but Singapore flies its new first clsss for a reasonable price to Delhi and Mumbai (I think about 58k for five and a half hours).
I see your little dig at lifemiles :). Blocking does occur but I recently booked syd to sfo to London in Polaris for less than 90k miles (I’m a subscriber). United didn’t even offer the redemption and I’m sure if they did it would have been a mountain of miles. Just saying that it’s crazy to not include them in your matrix.
Legit question; can someone explain to me why Avianca blocks partner award availability through LifeMiles?
I wish I knew. I figure because it thinks to can and this saves the program money. It’s all finance-driven.
If it’s finance driven then Air Canada would be blocking seats.
I noticed this some time ago, but it appears that award space on Egypt air has also been blocked on United.
I have travelled the NYC BOM route several times and can confirm that when I called UA to redeem miles on partner AI flights they advised that AI wouldn’t confirm their tickets hence it is more of an AI issue but UA should work with them to fix it as a Star Alliance partner
Yup. We flew some inter Egypt flying as well as CDG-CAI. Had to book via Aeroplan. Interestingly, some of the domestic Egypt routes were showing on UA as phantom availability.
Why would anyone voluntarily spend their cash or miles to fly AI. You couldn’t even pay me to step on their planes.
Air India in Business also seems to be blocked on Aeroplan, this is a very recent development over the past week or so
AI would not transfer star alliance miles two/from US/India last year. YUP around 25K full fair mikes It is not worth trying to get these two to work together and the victims are the customer.