Glitch: Many Air New Zealand award flights not bookable with United miles
If you're looking for flights to, from or within New Zealand, don't plan on using your United miles (for now).
Right now, United MileagePlus members are reportedly unable to book many Air New Zealand award tickets due to a website glitch. Currently, many Air New Zealand award flights that show on the Air Canada Aeroplan website and other Star Alliance partner search engines aren't showing on the United website.
Thankfully, United told View From The Wing that this is a temporary error and that Air New Zealand awards should return soon. TPG has reached out to United to ask for a more specific timeline.
TPG verified this with a handful of test searches on short- and mid-haul award flights and found many inconsistencies. For example, Air Canada Aeroplan shows many nonstop award flights from Auckland to Christchurch on Air New Zealand.
Meanwhile, United's website only shows connecting award tickets on this date.
Likewise, this February flight from Wellington to Sydney has nonstop award space on the Air Canada website, but not the United website.
This isn't the first time we've seen United unable to access partner award space. Last summer, for example, United frequent flyers couldn't book many Lufthansa award tickets. Thankfully, this issue was quickly resolved.
We hope that United MileagePlus members will be able to book Air New Zealand awards again soon. Award space on their long-haul routes to the U.S. has almost always been limited, but its short- and mid-haul route networks often have award space and can be useful for exploring a recently-reopened New Zealand.
As always, we'll update this post when we have more information.
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