It's best to book your award flights online instead of calling, if you are able to do so, since there is a fee for booking on the phone. At least in most cases, you should be able to do so using UA miles. With AA miles, you can book some partner award flights online, but not IB award flights.
Getting four award seats on the same flights will be difficult, especially at a busy time of year, but there is no way to know until you try. Availability is subject to change (increasing or decreasing) at any time. You may need to split up, perhaps with one parent and one child on each flight.
Originally Posted by
Cugel
Thanks to everyone for all the advice and input to the total noob!
So I joined up with the United mileage program. I have lined up 3 credit cards to sign up for and use to get ~120,000 miles; I'll then get another 3 in December for another 120,000 miles or so.
I guess one of my questions is if I sign up for all of these cards with my wife; can United see all of our miles when I call to book the flights? I worry that we'll have miles galore in separate silos.
The below question was actually answered by the above post from pinniped who posted as I was composing.
Getting greedy here - is there any chance we can get all 4 tickets on the same flights using free using miles? The United search tool only allows me to search for 2 seats. Like I said earlier I'd be happy with 2 free flights to MAD.
Thanks again!