15 May 2019 UPDATE: United has resolved this issue.
The United Airlines award search tool is currently broken when it comes to first class awards on Lufthansa. At the moment, there is not a fix for it. See below for details.
Perhaps foreshadowing what is to come in the new era of MileagePlus, it appears that Lufthansa first and business class awards have been merged into the business class column on united.com. That creates a problem because if both business and first class awards are available, only business class will show. If first class is available, but not business class, the first class award (at the higher first class pricing) will show in the business class column.
Take a look:
In this example, Lufthansa has made both business and first class award space available for redemption with partners (the screenshot is from Aeroplan, but the space also shows up with ANA and Singapore Airlines as well) from Frankfurt to Chicago.
But on United, only business is available:
“First Saver Award” shows as “not available”.
In cases where only first class is available, like Munich to Boston, the first class (O-class) award shows up in the business column:
I figured this was a united.com error and I would still be able to book the space over the phone, but telephone agents were not able to see the missing first class space above (nor long sell it in).
Thus, there is no current workaround to the problem.
United’s Response: We Are Working On it
I reached out to United for comment and received the following response:
Our team is aware of the issue you described and we are are working urgently to resolve it.
You can bet I will be keeping the pressure on United.
CONCLUSION
For now, based on United’s response, let’s call this a temporary glitch. I think if United intended to remove first class awards on Lufthansa, it simply would have done so. That said, the doubt raised over this issue and the fact that Singapore Airlines space is still not bookable underscores what a credibility problem United IT has surrounding its website.
F***! I noticed this last week and tweeted them. I’m really hoping to fly LH in first back from Europe to JFK or EWR in early July. Yesterday Avianca was actually showing award space consistent with Aeroplan.
United is ruining their program. I saw longhaul SQ flights available via Aeroplan but not on the UA website. The agents couldn’t see it either when I called. It just seems United is being cheap and doesn’t want to pay up.
After the devaluation I stopped booking UA and have drained 270K miles.
I completely agree with your thoughts and frustrations. I recently paid the fee to unwind an AA/Iberia award ticket with a less-than-ideal connection and instead burned UA miles flights on SWISS to get a perfect 1:45 connection in Zurich. UA miles used to seem like a solid travel investment (well, we know they are never an investment… but better than the competition) but no longer. AMEX and Chase Sapphire are getting my spend and I’m doing everything I can to burn through MileagePlus while I can. Due to flight schedules, etc I never flew enough on any airline in a year to get better than the lowest level of elite status. 100% free agent moving forward.
It shows for booking ANA first class. My example is Feb 4, 2020. From SFO to NRT. It shows saver awards for business at 80k miles and first class saver for 110k miles.
Interesting data point. Thanks.
I was just looking far and wide for close-in LH F space on the MileagePlus tool and couldn’t find a thing, even ex-Germany. Was wondering what was up. Thanks for the post. I find your blog to be head and shoulders above the competition these days.
I spent a lot of the weekend looking at and finding LH award space a day out. And in the first saver column. As a point of reference.
Unfort avianca showed about 20% of it 🙁