As I blogged about last week, United was in the process of rolling out one-way awards for travel on Star Alliance airlines. While they’ve allowed one-way awards on their own flights for about eight months now, the ability to book them on Star Alliance awards is a new development.
Apparently the official start date is November 1, but most people are already able to book one-way awards via reservations. While this does allow you to mix cabins of service, which is nice, my fear has become a reality — no more stopovers.
I realize many people don’t take advantage of them, but I always did. On United awards alone, I’ve visited Seoul while on my way to Bangkok, New Zealand while on my way to Sydney, Hong Kong while on my way to Ho Chi Minh City, etc. The stopover was invaluable to me.
Anyway, I realize 90% of people think of this as a positive change, so I won’t whine too much, and will respect those that want to celebrate this change. But I do have to ask, does anyone feel like I do? I know in an ideal world we’d be allowed stopovers and one-way awards, but if you had to choose one or the other, would anyone else choose stopovers?
well though it will cost more miles you can still create stopovers and open jaws (limitless) using one-way awards. For example - do a one way US-Europe then a Europe to Euope and you've just created a stopover one way (that cost an extra 22,500 miles for C). So I wouldn't say we CAN'T do them - just that it got more expensive. But what do we get for that increase in price? The ability...
well though it will cost more miles you can still create stopovers and open jaws (limitless) using one-way awards. For example - do a one way US-Europe then a Europe to Euope and you've just created a stopover one way (that cost an extra 22,500 miles for C). So I wouldn't say we CAN'T do them - just that it got more expensive. But what do we get for that increase in price? The ability to piece together an itinerary with limitless stopovers and open jaws - so more flexibility
Ben: Did you get inside info from UA that stopovers on r/t will be phased out? I just called to book one today and was told they are still permitted. Plus, .bomb still says they are available for booking:
http://www.united.com/page/article/0,8566,1141,00.html?navSource=Redeem+Miles&linkTitle=Saver+Star+Alliance+Awards
It only applies to using United Miles to book on the Star Alliance.
New to Star Alliance here, but does this mean I can use my USAirways Miles to book one-way United tickets? or does this only apply to United Miles to book one-way awards on other Star Alliance?
Well, let's hope we keep them. Not sure where Lucky got that from, but I noticed everybody else, including Gary said we still had them on R/T awards. So far it's all good.
I had dinner a 1KVoice agent yesterday who said that stopovers remained on RT awards but not on one-ways...
Let this be the first time in his life that Ben is WRONG! Please.
I really don't give a sh*t about one-way Star Awards. Much better to have a stopover.
Stopovers are still allowed today. The website may change, but as of right now they are still allowed.
http://www.united.com/page/article/0,8566,1141,00.html?navSource=Redeem+Miles&linkTitle=Saver+Star+Alliance+Awards
The flyertalk thread has someone who called reservations and asked. The official response (as well as the website) allow stopovers on round trip awards, just not on one-way
So far, Lucky is the only one claiming that we're losing stopovers on r/t awards.
We haven't actually lost anything at all as far as I can see. Can still do RT awards with a stopover. Yes it's shame stopovers are not allowed on one way awards but I don't anticipate this will be a problem for me. What would be a problem is losing stopovers on RT awards!
Do we have confirmation of no more stopovers on roundtrip awards (or that all awards are now one-way)?
I've only seen it written that stopovers were not permitted ON ONE-WAY AWARDS.
Which is how it's been with United one-ways to date.
@Seth, that is the real question. Has anyone here/on FT asked agents about this?
Stopovers are worth way more to me. Continental has a great balance in that you can stopover and you can mix/match classes in different directions. Did UA kill stopovers completely or only on the one-way awards? In other words, do the old r/t awards still exist also or are all partner awards now only one-way? The latter would be a HUGE loss IMO.
I like the idea of mixing & matching one way awards across Star and One World, though ideally another *A carrier would have implemented this and left me to tool with stopovers with 1k fee waivers.
As a temporary reprieve, you could always try to transfer to OnePass and book stopovers with them once mileage transfers are allowed...
American went through this change a year ago, it is a bummer, I really enjoyed my stop over when I redeemed AAdvantage Miles. It seems that United is matching AA redemption options, not a surprise.
I vote for stopovers 100 % of the time. I can't see why 90 % would vote for one way awards. If I'm redeeming miles for premium cabins it's obvious that the better value every time is a stopover. Why limit yourself to SIN when you can also do HKG or BKK as well? I guess not anymore. For me this seriously diminishes the value of my UA miles. So a query, which *A partners allow stopovers? Might be time to switch ...
I love this one way awards on Star now.
Losing stopovers is a real bummer, I made great use of them over the years, even just stopping in DC to see my parents on the way to Europe and S. America. Just went thru this with AA... got 2 F tix SFO-EZE, but will need to book Chile segments separately. At least BA still lets you stop in LHR!