Now Is A Great Time To Redeem Your United Miles!

Hi, Tiffany. Thanks for this post. I know that one can book US to Asia via Europe at the moment...is there any way to book the reverse - Asia to US via Europe as one award? Thanks.

Totally agree with you. I've been EXCEPTIONALLY happy with my ability to redeem UA miles all year this year. This summer I was able to do some GREAT redemptions pretty last minute to Europe and from the middle east on a combination of UA and their partners, all in premium at saver levels. NO problem - and significantly easier than on AA and partners. In February I'm going to Bangkok and Myanmar with some friends. Amazingly, I got CX J on the way there through Chicago (hoping they open up F closer in!) and besides that AA had zero availability. I'm using UA miles on the return and they have TONS of options in J. And even in F at reasonable redemption rates! I've decided that I'll use ANA for J from BKK to IAD via NRT - all products I've been wanting to try. Bottom line - UA in general has the best availability and the easiest access (no needing to continually call various AA phone lines around the world - just click on the UA web site and boom - your options are there!) , and it's a reason I continue to fly UA and the Chase family of cards.

@ airgypsy -- That would be fine, you can have the stopover in either direction.

Hi Tiffany. Thanks for the post. Are you seeing any LH availability at the moment? They are my preferred carrier heading over to Europe.

Wow, it looks like there are some crazy saver awards too? I found JFK-BRU on SN for 15k one way?!

Tiffany -- have you or Ben heard anything more about the proposed route between LAX and VIE on OS that Ben posted about a couple of months ago? It would be great if that route were to open for booking while OS is feeling so generous about making business awards available.

I see virtually nothing to Europe next summer. Zero on UA metal.

The BR space is phantom and cannot be booked.

@ Maggie -- In business? Yep! Lufthansa is consistently decent at releasing award space.

Can you have a stopover on one way bookings?

@ Larry -- I haven't 🙁

@ Kacee -- Ummm....what part of "summer" are you looking in? Because I see space in June, July, and the parts of August that are open for booking.

And we've had no issue ticketing the EVA flights through a variety of programs, so not sure why you think it's phantom/not bookable?

@ Luis -- Only on round-trips.

Awesome! Great timing! I don't have to wait til November to book my EVA flight from LAX to BKK.

quick question:

Which is preferred: booking round trip in a single itinerary or separately in one-ways?

are there any benefits from one to the other?

Thanks in advance...

@ Thomas -- If you're using United miles, I would book a round-trip. That would make you eligible for a stopover (or a "free" one-way from LAX later on), and would equate to lower change fees if you needed to modify your trip later on.

people this is good for people that need to use miles. I'm more impressed with the SQ promos out of the US they are CRAZY around 650 USD in Y and 1150 in P to Europe/ Asia !!!! return !!!! that's insane !!! we never get these sort of deals out of Asia you are paying a good 1500 usd less than what we pay here. I've never seen fares this I suggest you biz class lovers to get on the SQ p class for the money and comfort it's not SQ biz but it's comfy and worthwhile I slept like a snoring baby.

How did you get 160k miles total in your example from ORD-BRU-TPE-ORD? Does United calculate the total price based on your last leg (TPE-ORD 80k times 2?)
I'm trying to book something similar flying out of SFO through Europe, then TPE and finally SFO, but this is a little complicated since their system wouldn't work, just like you described, freezing up when I'm 2/3 way through.
Is booking the 2 over the water leg trip online and then calling for BRU-TPE tix reliable? What can I expect if they tell me no dice or tag some hefty fee on the BRU-TPE leg? I've never done this before so thank you for your explanation!

@ Annie -- That's the price for a round-trip partner award to Asia: https://www.united.com/web/format/pdf/United-Award-Chart-02-01-14.pdf

"Reliable" is a tough thing in this game. It should price, I've done it thousands of times, but there's always a chance something will go awry. You could get an unhelpful agent, in which case you just say thank you, then hang up and call again. If you were to try several times and it just never priced, you could always cancel and get the miles refunded within 24 hours.

Gotcha! Thanks again for writing this article, the examples are relevant and I think I'm finally understanding how this all works.

@Tiffany - much appreciate your response and all your contributions actually!

I do plan on using United miles and if I book round trip from LAX to BKK, what region qualifies as a stopover? For instance, can my free one-way in the future be from LAX to somewhere else in Asia, like HK, or LAX to Europe, or LAX to domestic US?

@ Thomas -- In that case it would need to be domestic US.

@Tiffany - Thanks for the clarification!

Hi Tiffany,

I'm flying to Morocco and back from Spain (most) likely BCN next June or July. I am having a hard time figuring out getting to Morocco, using miles. I usually fly UA, since I live in San Francisco, but have a ton of UR points I can use. Most likely CMN, but could do RAK. looks like might be best to fly to Europe and then use one of the low-cost carriers to get to Morocco. Any thoughts? Thank you.

@ Petra -- Sounds fun! If you want to use your United miles, look for connections to Morocco through Frankfurt, Lisbon, or Istanbul. I would probably not bother with that, to be honest, as you'd have to connect twice from Spain, so would just use United miles for the main trip to Europe and organize the others separately. Transferring miles to British Airways and then to Iberia is probably the best option if you don't see reasonably cheap flights.

The problem with using United miles as opposed to AA is that AA allows free changes to dates but United charges hefty fees (~$100+) per ticket which can be huge for a family.

Doesn't United require stopovers to be in the same region as the departing or arriving region?

How does Brussels qualify as a stopover for this?

@ Gagan -- No, they don't.

Thanks, Tiffany! I appreciate your response.