flyer.bayarea

Hello Community,

I fly to Asia a lot and wondering if United Points is still the best to book business-class tickets. The current mileage requirement seems to have gone up significantly - its costing ~300k miles to get a business-class ticket. What are the alternatives to this?

goodeats21

Welcome to FlyerTalk, flyer.bayarea .

Yes, United just devalued its points by a lot. Not sure where your flying to Asia exactly, and where you are flying from (SFO?), to better advise on any other good options. If you provide a bit more detail, the FlyerTalk brain trust can weigh in with some thoughts.

Number of trips a year? Home airport? Usual destination in Asia? Other destinations you may occasionally fly to? Status held with any of the alliances? Etc

flyer.bayarea

Apologies for missing the key details. This is my first post here
I fly from SFO and generally go to India (DEL, BLR, BOM) at least twice a year. I plan to go to Bali, Singapore, and Thailand this year, so looking into ways to get a lie-flat seat as these are ~20-hour long-haul flights. I had previously booked a business class ticket using United Miles at 88k miles, however, it's like 3-4x now.

angetenar

The cheapest trans-Pacific pricing will be 100k miles one way on UA metal and 110k on partners. UA business saver availability will be more plentiful if you are plat/1k/GS. You may have luck with availability opening up close in and on less popular travel days, usually Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday.

flyer.bayarea

Are there better mileage programs than UA for my use-case?

Kmxu

Flying to TPE with saver business ticket and a separate short hop to OP�s final destination. It is also easy to upgrade SFO-TPE if OP wants to pay by cash.

flyer.bayarea

This doesn't work for me as this requires you to go through immigration, collect bags, and then board another plane. I will need to request a visa each time I travel.

jsloan

There's no need to go through immigration and collect bags if your onward flight is on Star Alliance. You can request that your bags be checked through to the final destination. However, I would generally be cautious about traveling to a location where I needed, and didn't have, a visa to enter the country, as otherwise a cancellation or other flight disruption could lead to a very long stay in the airport.

Kmxu

Flying to TPE with saver business ticket and a separate short hop to OP�s final destination. It is also easy to upgrade SFO-TPE if OP wants to pay by cash.

Kmxu

If you book Eva or other star alliance airlines from TPE to your final destination, you can check your bags to the final destination provided that the layover time at TPE is not extremely long.

goodeats21

No worries. We are a (mostly ) friendly bunch here. Glad you joined us. Thanks for the additional details. Do you have status with any airline? Do you do any domestic USA travel?
Do you have significant credit card spend, that allows you to accumulate points? Do you typically purchase business class fares on occasion, or always book with miles?

As mentioned upthread, it is still possible to find rare cases of 100,000 to 110,000 mileage options using United miles, but it takes a lot of searching, and some luck, to find them. If you are not very flexible with dates of travel, it can be very difficult.

Unfortunately, I am not an expert in comparing the different mileage programs, but hopefully someone more knowledgeable will stop by and share some thoughts.
If your common destinations are India, I don't think you are getting non-stops on United, which is a common reason people in SFO stick with United. They do fly direct to Singapore, but not sure that should be your biggest driver on choice of programs.

flyer.bayarea

Just looked up my status - the premium sliver - seems like the most basic one. My domestic US travels are generally Hawaii and NYC and I don't use miles for those. My CC spends are ~10k/month for the whole family, and I try to sign up for United and Chase cards every 6 months or so. Last year, I got lucky to get a UA Business class ticket to Christchurch for 100k miles each and assumed that 100k miles are enough for long haul business class tickets (rookie mistake). So, I bought a bunch of United Miles (200k for me and my wife) when they were on sale. It sounds like I made a bad decision as award tickets are so expensive now.

Question - do people with status get a better deal on booking award tickets? If so, some of my colleagues who travel for work have status, I wonder if they can book for me?

m.y

You could look into Air Canada Aeroplan, SFO-DEL one way in J is 110k. Aeroplan also has access to SQ long haul J, but currently NH is not available (unless you call in? It's murky). They are a transfer for both Chase UR and Amex MR. Of course they might devalue too, but I suspect it won't be as drastic as UA as they are eager to attract US customers.

jmw

I probably wouldn't do that anymore for MileageMinus cards. I would switch to 2% cashback. You have a 200k backlog you need to burn. But if you find a use case that far exceeds 2% with actual seat availability in business and you can redeem immediately, then go for the new airline's signup bonus. AA miles are ripe for a major devaluation so be careful with holding onto them. It's not earn and earn. It's earn and burn.

United747

100% agree - TPE is a pretty easy transit too.

OP could also look to get SFO-TPE-XXX all on one award ticket (I�ve recent seen the opposite available, though timing didn�t really work well for me with early departures from TPE).