Update 6/26/19: Singapore Airlines bookings have now been unblocked as well. Hat tip to Point Me To The Plane
Update 2/28/19: Thai and TAP can now be booked again. Hat tip to Running With Miles.
Update 2/20/19: ANA awards are now also being blocked. Hat tip to LoyaltyLobby
United Airlines is currently blocking award space on the following three Star Alliance airlines:
- Singapore Airlines
- Thai Airways
- TAP Air Portugal
When you try to request these flights the following error message appears:
According to a statement received by VFTWÂ this is a temporary issue caused by the fact that some partner award tickets are not being confirmed properly by those three airlines currently. Rather than having to deal with these not being ticketed correctly United has decided to remove the ability to book these airlines until the issue is resolved. Fingers crossed the issue is resolved quickly.
Luckily booked BKK to HKG on Thai biz via united miles a couple weeks ago.
On United website, I cannot find Thai business or first class to and from Australia after June. Anyone else having the same problem ？. Other Star Alliance airlines still able to find Thai premium seats after June
I’m having the same issue, but I’m using EF to search. NOTHING
Has anyone tried calling United MileagePlus to book Singapore Airlines over the phone since this problem started? I’m just wondering whether that would work. I’ve never booked over the phone before. Is it only on the web site where SQ isn’t available?
I’m gonna be stuck in Singapore if United doesn’t unblock Singapore Airlines soon. This waiting game sucks so much, especially with no ETA. I am praying that they unblock SQ within the next two weeks.
Just yesterday I received an e-mail response from United customer service. They said this issue is indefinite. Time to find another airline partner.
I’m seeing ANA availability today, which is a good sign.
I just booked an ANA flight to Tokyo for June’19. I see quite a bit of availability for this time, albeit I only search for Economy.
I just checked a couple of dates, and it looks like Thai Airways is showing up too. 45k/65k one-way in business/first on an A380 from NRT-BKK isn’t a bad use of miles at all. United’s website seems to have been updated to suggest that’s there’s only currently an issue with Singapore Airlines.
I have the same route currently booked at 37500 UR points (Avios) in business with JAL.
Currently have this route booked for 37,590 UR points (Avios) in business on JAL ( but likely more out of pocket).
Today United management quietly admitted THIS IS NOT TEMPORARY – UNITED WILL NO LONGER ALLOW AWARD REDEMPTIONS ON THAI, SINGAPORE OR TAP PORTUGAL. This is the new normal. United has gutted their program, as many feared.
This should be the biggest headline on this and every blog!
Do you have a source for the admission?
Where did they admit this?
This feels like a deliberate maneuver to avoid paying out on partner awards. I wouldn’t put it past United.
I agree. The blogs and every member of United’s loyalty program should be screaming about this every hour of every day. United’s program has been decimated.
They blocked a significant number of award tickets for ANA.
I saved my UR points to redeem for a trip to Japan that is happening in December 2019/January 2020. Barely could I find any one way tickets at 35K points. Most of them require 80K—one-way economy!
> They blocked a significant number of award tickets for ANA.
That “significant number” would be 100%.
All ANA awards have been removed, they simply don’t show up on their website, and United agents don’t see them either. Look for ANA award space on another *A carrier’s system, and they show up there. It’s the same treatment that United has applied to TG, SQ and TAP: a systemwide, intentional disappearance.
Confirming AC360’s statement, ANA does show some availability, but the only options I could find are economy and only one or two dates each month.
You have some details wrong.
1. The message about TG, SQ and TAP being “temporarily unavailable” pops up on United.com if you search for ANY international award flight – not if you try and book one of these carriers.
2. ALL award flights on these airlines – and also on ANA, and perhaps others – have simply disappeared. They just do not show up on the website. At. All. United now admits they are blocking them.
3. This has been going on since sometime in December. I first noticed something strange was happening around the third week of December, but it may have started a few days before that. It was only after a couple of bloggers started making noise about it that United put up that little note about it in mid-January. So they had been secretly blocking all these airlines for several weeks before they provided any notification. It’s now been almost two months that it’s been like this. They claim “they’re working on it” but with the two month mark about to go by, they’ve made it very clear that fixing it not a priority for them. Unless this IS how they’ve “fixed” things.
4. All ANA award inventory disappeared from United.com about 24 hours ago. Their little notification does not mention ANA, but all ANA awards are being blocked, too.
5. Many other United award partners have had almost no availability for several months, too – they’re not 100% blocked, just drastically reduced from what was there before. United has made no mention of these reductions.
6. It may sound like a minor inconvenience, but the complete lack of TG and SQ awards effectively makes it all but impossible to fly to or through a large part of the world. You can’t use miles anymore to get to or through Southeast Asia, Australia, and beyond.
7. United says there are issues with the partner airlines’ IT systems which prevent those partners’ flight availability from showing up and being bookable on United.com. They say the issues are with their partner airlines. But award flights for all of these airlines can still be accessed and booked successfully by other systems (Air Canada, and others). United blames the other airlines.
8. Combined with the greatly diminished availability of awards on nearly all of their other partners that has quietly rolled out over the past few months, this represents a stealthy but huge devaluation of United’s program. United miles have now become as worthless as any other FF currency that people make jokes about.
9. United claims this is temporary, but there’s no evidence that these partner flights will EVER become available again. It’s been almost 2 months now. This might just be the new normal.
10. United breaks guitars, too. (I wanted to finish with a nice, round number). Feh.
Wow! Great detailed post. Thanks. Glad I don’t play guitar.
Very nice recap! UA is hiding something.
I have found that many of the partner flights that do show are not really available. You don’t know until you actually try to book it.