One Mile at a Time Forum - Recent Posts

Daily Discussion — Saturday, August 8, 2026

Ben Schlappig — Sat, 08 Aug 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Good morning, and welcome to today's community discussion thread! Today's posts will appear here throughout the day, but this thread is for going off-topic. Did you love/hate something about today's coverage? Are you tracking other news I missed? Or, do you just have a general question about rewards travel? This is the place for your wandering thoughts.

Daily threads stay open for a week, so it's never too late to jump into a recent conversation.

RE: Business Class to New Zealand

PJS678 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 21:11:54 +0000

We went in March. We found AA DFW-AKL for 83k pp on the new 787-9P (grabbed the first row suites as well). Could not find anything for the way back but was lucky enough to see AKL-LAX on Delta One for $2400pp so I bought those tix, helping us with DL status renewal as well.

RE: Extra Legroom Benefit for Alliance Partners

view — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 21:05:27 +0000

This is sadly not a Star gold benefit and they are not open to booking for free for non AC elites. The only thing I would recommend is do online checkin when it opens and try your luck.

The alliance benefits are slowly being hollowed out and the focus on own elites and in some cases partners is clearly the focus. This will likely only get worse, as we are seeing with seat assignments but also things like fees for decent seats in business class (hey Lufthansa).

RE: Extra Legroom Benefit for Alliance Partners

HNL — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:45:09 +0000

There is an actual airline in Australia by the name of Alliance Airlines and they are not aligned with Star, oneworld, or Sky Team. So I am guessing you’re not getting seats assigned there.

It seems you are flying Air Canada and want to use your UAMP/*Gold status to get preferred seats assigned for free. It seems Air Canada is not recognizing your UA Number. Call the airline/agency that you booked the ticket with, and ask them to assign you as seat. If you are prompted for payment, ask the agent to remove and add back your UA number to the booking. That will usually clear the cobwebs.

RE: Business Class to New Zealand

Wildcats-LEX — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 16:17:15 +0000

@jimmys-travel-report-2 Unfortunately, over the last year United has started offering essentially no business awards to partners like Avianca. Your best bet now is to book this kind of award directly with United as a card holder. Interesting related note, if you have trouble getting approved or do not want to use a 5-24 slot for a United Chase card, they now offer a debit card which gives the same discounted saver award pricing after $10,000 in spend per year. This would be easy to hit by throwing 10k at federal taxes with the low $2.50 fee for using a debit card.

RE: Extra Legroom Benefit for Alliance Partners

Tennen — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 16:16:01 +0000

*A doesn't have an alliance-wide seating benefit for elites. So, you'll have to pay for seat assignments (extra legroom, bulkhead, exit, "preferred," regular, etc.), regardless of status.

There are a few exceptions. UA GS and M&M HON have a few expanded perks on UA/LH Group, including preferred seats. Also, UA *S and AC *S have a few extra perks when traveling on UA/AC, but those are limited to 1 free bag and priority check-in.

Extra Legroom Benefit for Alliance Partners

Icemenace — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 16:01:06 +0000

Does anyone have advice for securing extra legroom economy seats for alliance airlines that is not the airline in which you earned alliance status? I'm Star Gold by virtue of United but cannot assign extra legroom economy seats on Air Canada, etc. without paying fee.

RE: Business Class to New Zealand

HNL — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:56:16 +0000

@gp_7676 I was going to suggest the same, but via HNL. HA and NZ operate the service. Getting to Hawaii from Seattle is the easy part.

RE: Daily Discussion — Friday, August 7, 2026

Ben Schlappig — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 14:22:30 +0000

@jjspring It's a great question, especially as the major hotel groups become increasingly less compelling (in terms of execution of elite perks, award redemption values, etc.). The truth is that there are so many programs nowadays offering elite-like perks for stays at luxury properties, like Virtuoso.

I have written a post about my favorite luxury hotel brands, both big and small, and you can find that here:
https://onemileatatime.com/guides/best-luxury-hotel-brands/

For more mid-range properties, I'm curious if anyone has any brands they really like? I increasingly choose hotels based on my research about an individual property, rather than simply because of the brand they belong to, given how inconsistent brand standards are nowadays. And across the "big four" hotel groups, you do have 100+ brands, not that all of the properties are great...

RE: Daily Discussion — Friday, August 7, 2026

jjspring — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:14:58 +0000

Ben- So many hotel posts (across the blogosphere) are focused on the top 4 chains. What are some of your favorite smaller chains that offer elite-like benefits when booked correctly?