One of the biggest complaints about using United miles is the filtering United does of their award inventory, more commonly known as StarNet blocking. The filtering even got its first bit of real media attention a few weeks ago, which was good to see.

Well, for those that have been frustrated as heck, now might be the time to book, at least for those Lufthansa awards. It seems like UA has unblocked quite a few LH routes, both transatlantic and intra-Europe, which were the most frequently blocked. I even changed an award booking yesterday from GVA-VIE-FRA on Austrian to the nonstop on Lufthansa, which wasn’t originally available. I didn’t think twice about it, until I saw the thread on FlyerTalk about the increased availability.

So what’s going on? Well, I have no effin’ idea! Either UA has reset their “quota” and is unblocking some inventory for now, or maybe this is an actual change UA is making for the better, although for some reason I doubt it, since I don’t think they’ve been pressured enough yet.

So the only thing to take away from this is that NOW is the time to book those transatlantic awards! While not everything is unblocked, a good chunk of flights are now available, at least more than we’ve seen in a long time.