UA/AC Rewards Availability

[gwil257]

Hi all,

Is there any tips/tricks to searching availability via UA or AC? Looking at flight options to either LAX/SFO/YVR ex BNE/SYD, preferably in business. I can see plenty of economy rewards but every single date I look at has 0 Business Rewards available, and I've searched well into next year. Not locked into the destination - I have 6 months leave saved up I need to start burning, so open to any NA destinations honestly.

Cheers

Gav

 

[MELso]

For UA, booking class I is the business award that is usually made available to VA (just as X is for economy)…

Having said that, UA tends to only make most I awards available a couple of months out…

 

[levelnine]

You'll pretty much only find close-in availability on UA.

There's a bit in late July (25th, 26th) if you can fly then.

 

[SheikYerbouti]

I just booked SYD-LAX on UA and yes only economy was available. I'd rather lock it in and be guarnateed 4 rewards economy seats than wait till 8 weeks out in case Business becomes available, then be left with nothing.

 

[BRIS_VA_HAWK]

The easiest way to check is via United's website - check the box that says you're looking for flights with miles (not money) and then take advantage of their 30 day calendar function. Generally an Award flight for UA is available in VA as well.
J availability is VERY hit and miss...it will come up every couple of days or so, and then someone snaffles it I guess!
I'm heading over to the US next month - BNE-SFO on the outbound and then LAX-SYD on the inbound. I originally set up BNE-SFO in Y, then LAX-MEL-SYD in Y as that was all that was available. Setting them up as separate tickets has meant that when J for BNE-SYD-SFO came up I could cancel my outbound and reticket into J without affecting my return leg. Cost me 7500 points for the cancellation (VA's site says $60.00....not sure if I can be bothered with that phone call though).
Best wishes for finding what you want.

 

[cvmceg]

Sorry to bring up an old thread but I am having supreme issues finding any availability to NA with Velocity. Is it a mirage? Flexible with Departure/Arrival was looking May 2024. Any tips?!? Was thinking maybe going the call centre route and looking at via HNL ?

 

[levelnine]

Sorry to bring up an old thread but I am having supreme issues finding any availability to NA with Velocity. Is it a mirage? Flexible with Departure/Arrival was looking May 2024. Any tips?!? Was thinking maybe going the call centre route and looking at via HNL ?

United don't release award seats that far out, at least in business class.

Only close-in (ie generally within a month or two of the flight date). You can check HNL award flight availability between SYD & HNL using AA.com

 

[prelude]

I've been trying to understand options for booking UA rewards through Velocity and have found several of I-Class seats which are bookable using multiple non-UA *A FFPs that do not appear on the Velocity award seat booking portal. Would they be bookable via phone or is the website availability generally accurate?

 

[BRIS_VA_HAWK]

I've been trying to understand options for booking UA rewards through Velocity and have found several of I-Class seats which are bookable using multiple non-UA *A FFPs that do not appear on the Velocity award seat booking portal. Would they be bookable via phone or is the website availability generally accurate?

Have you got any examples there? Generally Velocity is accurate for booking availability for UA J Award flights.

 

[prelude]

Have you got any examples there? Generally Velocity is accurate for booking availability for UA J Award flights.

Ah I think I've figured it out. UA J awards are available for flights departing/arriving in Australia, but not all Saver awards (I was looking at North America to Europe).

The question is now which non-Australian UA award seats are available on the Velocity booking portal because I can't seem any logic to it. I can't find any business availability on any North America to Europe routes, in addition economy reward routings and dates don't match up with UA saver awards.

Does anyone with more experience understand how the VA site works with partners?

Just for an example, I'm not actually trying to book flights in the near future just trying to understand Velocity awards.
Business:
EWR-DUB has UA availability on 5th and 7th July, none on Velocity.

Economy:
EWR-DUB has lots of availability on non-stop UA throughout July.
On Velocity, only 7th Jul is available, on a EWR-CVG-IAD-DUB (why??!) itinerary, but this routing is not even an option on the UA website (a direct saver award is available instead).

 

[twiningb]

Is the EWR-DUB availability on UA, or actually on their partner EI, which isn't partnered with VA?

And in general: Space is available to UA members at high points rates (buckets like JN), which isn't available to partners. I think for partner space it's standard across Star: IIRC, it's I for business/Polaris, and X for economy.

 

[prelude]

Definitely UA. I got the business availability wrong in my previous post, I can see awards on Jul 5th (not 7th) which do not appear on Velocity.


The only EWR-DUB available on Velocity in the next month in any class is in economy. Maybe it's not actually an UA award even though it's on UA flights? It's all very confusing to me.


Edit: All the X and J class flights in these screenshots are also bookable on non-UA Star Alliance online portals.

 

[twiningb]

OK, no, the 777 is definitely UA metal; EI don't have anything that big.

I've noticed that sometimes Velocity don't recognise a city pair for award searches. Maybe if it's there and you can confirm on other channels, you could call them? It does look like partner (I) space.

(Also if you can get those, you almost certainly want the 777, which should have Polaris hard product, over the 757.)

 

[prelude]

I'm not looking to book these exact flights, but I would definitely try something similar in the future over the phone, especially because East Coast transatlantic J awards seem to be good value and should have more availability.

Maybe Velocity doesn't recognise certain city pairs, but it would still be interesting to know where EWR-CVG-IAD-DUB award came from. Just looks like it got pulled out of thin-air.