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For a number of weeks United MileagePlus members desiring to use their miles on Star Alliance partners TAP and Thai Airways were unable to do so. United pulled the award availability for both of these partners, and it has been a full six weeks or so that members have been unable to book these awards.
Well, the good news is that both Thai and TAP have been restored to the system. You can now once again use your MileagePlus miles to book these awards. I spent a few minutes looking for some departures, and had no trouble at all finding award space on Thai nonstop between Bangkok and London.
While not a good of a deal as it used to be, flying Thai First class between Australia/NZ and Japan is still one of the best options if you want to experience this cabin. Awards between these regions cost 65,000 miles in first class.
Singapore still not showing, but I don’t care
Considering that Singapore doesn’t make the best of its long-haul space available to any of its partners, this really isn’t a big loss. If you’re looking to book a Singapore award from LAX to SIN, or maybe the fifth freedom route from SFO to HKG (SEE: 5 fifth freedom flights I’m highly interested in flying), or even the longest flight in the world between EWR and SIN, you’ll have to do this directly through Singapore with their own miles in every case.
Singapore makes some long(ish) segments available to United, such as Singapore to Perth, Australia, but the routes available are almost always on their A330 with angled-flat seats. Not exactly the crème de la crème redemption you might be looking for. Still, it could be useful if it gets you somewhere you want to go and you can mix the award with another StarAlliance carrier.
Image courtesy of Masakatsu Ukon via Flickr under CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
unfortunately still unable to book TAP awards as of this morning, won’t book for available business class seats.
Interesting. I saw this space available as well, but I only checked economy.
United continues to block StarAlliance upgrade awards for TAP. Specifically, booked TAP on United.com in a B fare and requesting a MUA. United’s page links to the *A submission page only to continue to refuse to process them.
Going on several weeks with CustomerCare; WebSupport and MP Service requesting resolution on this.
Interesting. And this worked 7-8 weeks ago just fine?
No. After booking ticket several weeks ago, been unable to apply *A upgrade. Web Support confirms it’s a “known issue” despite United still listing a link to the page.
I’ve been asking for an accommodation per the Core4 program.
Deceptive practice by United.
FYI – The current contract between TAP & United does allow for seat selection and 1 checked bag (check with United to make sure this is still in force before booking). Since tickets are cut immediately upon booking with United, call TAP with the ticket number to book your seats.