Last month I noted that United is blocking partner award space on Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways, and TAP Air Portugal. The problem has not been resolved.
United still blames technical issues on the partner side for this problem and will not commit to a timeframe for when the problem will be fixed. I reach out to United often on this and receive the following canned response:
Both United and our partners are eager to resolve this issue and we’re working to do so. This remains a priority.
Obviously, I follow up with more specific questions but those are ignored. I realize United doesn’t want to tie itself down to one date, but wish it would provide more insight on the specific nature of the problem.
Every day that this space is unavailable marks a devaluation of your United miles. When your miles can take you to fewer places, they are worth less. The sad thing is that award space on Singapore, Thai, and TAP is often much better than other partners. These are not meaningless partners, but critical ones on the redemption side.
One Workaround for Thai Airways
I’m going anecdotally from several accounts on Flyertalk, but customers have reported success booking Thai Airways award space over the phone by finding the right agent. Use the Aeroplan or Avianca LifeMiles website to check for available space, then call United and ask an agent to search for it. While hardly an ideal solution, that at least provides a way to reserve awards in SE Asia.
CONCLUSION
I’m writing about this primarily to keep the pressure on United to address this problem. It is easy to say “we’re working on it” but that does not fix the problem. For whatever it is worth, I’ll keep the pressure on United until this issue is solved.
I’m baffled at the industry’s promotion of the “partner’s award booking”. Not in that you can use United miles for Lufthansa flights, but why are certain awards available online with some airlines and not other partner airlines. This is not just a United issue, but an example of what I mean is Cathay Pacific. We all know, to search Cathay Pacific flights, we look at British Air’s website. So … the technology for online searches is there, but Alaska and American choose not to utilize or adapt their system to search Cathay’s flights. Why? And even more surprisingly, Iberia, who is British Airway’s sister airline, can’t find Cathay flights (or at least not the JFK – YVR flight I was searching for last night). That’s really surprising. So I’m pretty sure it’s not that one company doesn’t want to sell another company’s award seats (or why would BA display Cathay flights but not Iberia) … so maybe it is a technology thing? That would be surprising. Does anyone have any real answers as to why awards display on some partner airline websites, but not other partners?
Add Air Canada to the list as well. Availability disappeared within the last couple of days…
Nothing will change until TPG devalues United miles on his monthly valuations. You should pressure TPG.
Thank you for keep writing about this. So frustrated. Someone needs to fix this!!
Is anyone seeing the same issue with Austrian business class?