Earlier in the week United announced that they would be launching nonstop 787-9 service between Los Angeles and Melbourne. The 787-9 is the “stretched out” Dreamliner, and United is one of the launch customers for the aircraft.
The new service will commence as of October 26, 2014, for the westbound flight, and as of October 28 for the eastbound flight.
The flight will operate with the following schedule:
UA98 Los Angeles to Melbourne departing 10:30PM arriving 8:15AM (+2 days)
UA99 Melbourne to Los Angeles departing 10:15AM arriving 6:50AM
Anyway, what’s worth noting about this new flight is that United is releasing a ton of saver award space on it, in both economy and BusinessFirst. Getting to Australia in December and January is typically one of the toughest award tickets out there, though right now United has released a ton of award seats on the new route, even for groups of four to six passengers. I don’t expect this will last, so if it interests you jump on this ASAP.
For example, here’s the calendar for award space between Los Angeles and Melbourne when searching for four award seats in December and January:
As you can see, in December and early January about 16 flights have at least four BusinessFirst award seats (the dates marked in green). There’s even more award space in economy class (both the dates marked in green and the dates marked in yellow have economy class award space).
And just to make sure it’s not some crazy glitch, Aeroplan’s website shows the award space as well:
For what it’s worth, United’s 787-9s will have 48 fully flat BusinessFirst seats, spread across eight rows in a 2-2-2 configuration. Here’s the seatmap:
So if you’re looking to redeem miles to Australia over Christmas or New Years, it doesn’t get better than this. Here are the best options for redeeming miles on the new flight:
- 80,000 miles for the roundtrip in economy
- 140,000 miles for the roundtrip in business class (160,000 if using partners)
- one-way trips can be booked for half the roundtrip price
- 80,000 miles for the roundtrip in economy
- 110,000 miles for the roundtrip in business class
- 80,000 miles for the roundtrip in economy
- 160,000 miles for the roundtrip in business class
- one-way trips can be booked for half the roundtrip price
- 80,000 miles for the roundtrip in economy
- 135,000 miles for the roundtrip in business class
- one-way trips can be booked for half the roundtrip price
Ultimately I’d say the single best value would be redeeming 110,000 US Airways miles for a roundtrip ticket on the new flight, as it’s the lowest redemption cost and they exit the Star Alliance as of March 30, 2014. Furthermore, US Airways allows 72 hour no-obligation courtesy holds, so you can easily hold the flights now if you need a bit of time to finalize.
Melbourne is a great city and very “livable,” in my opinion, though this is a great option even if you want to go elsewhere in Australia. British Airways Avios can efficiently be used for travel on Qantas to just about anywhere in Australia.
Park Hyatt Melbourne
(Tip of the hat to @pvtejasvi)
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