United MileagePlus (Consolidated) - Booking a reward R/T flight - one segment at a time. Risky?

In a few weeks I will want to book reward travel (United miles but on Lufthansa - from SEA to FRA round trip) for June/July 2012. To get the two seats I need I'm thinking of booking the SEA-FRA segment as soon as possible (331 days in advance).

For the return flight, which will be about 10 days later, I'll therefore have to wait another 10 days to book that segment. I know that YMMV, but am wondering if this would be risky (i.e., even after booking the SEA-FRA segment I may not be able to get a reward seats for the FRA-SEA return flight). In fact if I end up having to cancel the SEA-FRA reward flight due to not being able to book a return FRA-SEA, how much would the cancellation fee be (I'm not sure if it would be UA or Lufthansa who would assess it)?

I could simply book this as a R/T (booking the whole trip on the same day) but wonder if seats may well not be available for the first segment (since at that point it will be something like only 321 days in advance). Again, I realize that it's hard to say with certainty what might happen, but wonder what strategy others usually take in such a case.

Wait. Seats dont magically all open simply because the flight is now 330 days away.

Hi all,

I'm planning a family vacation next summer and the outbound part of our trip just got released. So - I'm thinking of booking them as one-way rewards and then do the same for the return when they are released.

Will that give me any issues? (Its Lufthansa and SAS BTW).

Thanks!

Hi all,

I'm planning a family vacation next summer and the outbound part of our trip just got released. So - I'm thinking of booking them as one-way rewards and then do the same for the return when they are released.

Will that give me any issues? (Its Lufthansa and SAS BTW).

Thanks!Assuming you're not a UA1K or COPlat... the only issue with booking separate one way tickets is later on if you have to cancel/change the trip you will pay multiple cancellation/redeposit/change fees. If you're 1K or Plat the fees are waived making it a non-issue.

You also will miss out on getting a free stopover if you book as 2 one-ways.

whats the cost of the 1 way returns if no awards show up?....

whats the cost of the 1 way returns if no awards show up?....

International one-ways on most legacy carriers are normally only available as full fare. So booking a one-way is are normally quite a bit more expensive than your average round-trip fare.

I have a bucket of leftover CO miles begging to be used to go to Scandinavia next summer [enough for Y/C]. A stopover won't figure into my plans, but an open jaw will. Outbound is AUS/DFW-OSL; inbound is HEL-AUS/DFW.

There's availability on LH for my desired outbound date at 50k OW. My desired inbound date won't open up for several more days.

From checking OP rules & wikis, my understanding is that there's no charge to change dates only 21+ days out -- but for non-elites a change fee applies inside 21 days and/or if the origin or destination changes. Am I correct?

So ... am I wrong in thinking there's no disadvantage to going ahead and booking the outbound as a OW and worrying about the inbound as a OW after that date is opened up? The OW is showing up as exactly half of a dummy RT I ran with an earlier return date than what I'll use. I'm not overly worried that the return availability won't be there. I don't want to beat myself up if the outbound disappears while I'm waiting.

Thanks for any further thoughts.