I've seen people say they have booked star alliance flights with us miles. The few times I've searched us miles it's been outrageous. Like 250k to Europe in business vs like 80k on united or Swiss. Why is that and does it matter or can I just call and say, Hi United shows that are tickets available on Swiss I'd like to book them?
Not quite sure where you are thinking 250k for a partner award to Europe. USAir's partner table is here: http://www.usairways.com/en-US/Resources/_downloads/dividendmiles/partnerawardtravel.pdf It is pretty straightforward.
That's more in theory though because in a given month on US from what I see like 90% of the days to the middle east out of Chicago are either 90k each way or 120k each way...as opposed to United with the same dates, there's MUCH better saver i.e 60k mile trips. So can I call up US and say, Hi I would like to book United flight number xxx on September 3rd?
I don't know how you get to 250k by your math. In general, if low-miles awards are available on UA, you should be able to book them by calling US. I'm not a USAir guy, but I think there is little/no starnet blocking between UA and US...meaning if you see low miles awards on UA, a call to US should make them bookable. It's worth making the call. PLEASE let us know how you end up.
Partner awards are neither viewable nor bookable on the USAir website so what you are seeing is US Air availability and award level. You have to do searches on partners on your own and when you find saver awards, then call US Air to get booked and ticketed. While they can block partner First Class awards, the rest are pretty straight-forward. All of us had or first experience booking partner awards and it did seem daunting. It's actually very easy. Good luck.
The partner award travel chart is fixed...so for the Middle East (like your example), it's 80,000/120,000/180,000 miles (coach/business/first) to use US Airways miles from anywhere in North America for any Star Alliance partner who has availability. Take a look at the first couple posts on this thread (http://milepoint.com/forums/threads...idend-miles-to-book-star-alliance-awards.537/) for an introduction to using US Airways dividend miles to book partner awards, and then come back with questions!
I use the united site to search Star partners and US only for US awards which out of Philly are rarely low although quite funny when Europe is cheaper than Vegas! easy chart w/partners but US agents another story-definitely do the work for them and just feed them the flights, it's a more pleasant experience. if you have a complicated itinerary you may need to call a few times to get someone good. like that they can hold the award ticket a few days too.
