United MileagePlus (Consolidated) - Using Miles to Book One Leg of a Trip

I'm looking at a UA flight to Europe and back next Spring, so still many months out. On the web, economy both ways is showing a cost of $1.3k. I have enough miles to instead get a full First award for one leg (which I prefer to do on the outbound overnight flight). The cost of just the return economy flight if I do that, though, is showing up as $2.4k - in other words, if I use miles for one leg, the return flight costs $1.1k more than if I bought the whole RT in economy. (Upgrade availability, of course, is not showing up yet.)

What are my options? I haven't called yet to see if it is something with the online booking that treats the return as OW, so different pricing that I might get on the phone. But I also checked, and if I bought a reversed RT economy ticket (EU to US, then return to EU), that is also $1.3k, si I could use miles to go over First, use the first leg of the economy RT from Europe to get back to the US, and then just not fly back on the other leg of the economy RT ticket -but save $1.1k. That sounds like hidden city, though I don't know what happens if I just call after I'm back in the US and say I can't make the return flight, and never reschedule.

Or should I wait a few more months and see if price or availability changes? Maybe I should buy the original economy RT to lock it in and just wait for UA upgrade availablity - when is that showing up these days?

Yeah, its a problem - once you book one leg as an award, you're sort of stuck.

One option is maybe book the other leg via another source of miles. Maybe you have AMEX miles you can xfer somewhere, etc. There are other mileage programs that also allow one-way bookings.

If the routing you're looking at is LH, they have a pattern of late-released inventory, so there's a risk but waiting probably would yield a saver ticket on most of their routes.

The thing about full awards is there's really never any urgency to book. Its not like the inventory of full-fare C seats is going to disappear between now and the Spring.

Likewise when you book this far out, you're not going to see anything other than insane fares for paid flights because its too far out for the yield management folks to start gaming it.

You're just getting punished for planning too far ahead!

It's doubtful that the one-way price will drop. That's not UA's pricing model on TATL tickets.

No problem to use just the first portion of a round-trip, then call and cancel (to be rescheduled some time in the future) the second portion. Just don't make a habit of it.

I'm looking at a UA flight to Europe and back next Spring, so still many months out. On the web, economy both ways is showing a cost of $1.3k. I have enough miles to instead get a full First award for one leg (which I prefer to do on the outbound overnight flight). The cost of just the return economy flight if I do that, though, is showing up as $2.4k - in other words, if I use miles for one leg, the return flight costs $1.1k more than if I bought the whole RT in economy. (Upgrade availability, of course, is not showing up yet.)

What are my options? I haven't called yet to see if it is something with the online booking that treats the return as OW, so different pricing that I might get on the phone. But I also checked, and if I bought a reversed RT economy ticket (EU to US, then return to EU), that is also $1.3k, si I could use miles to go over First, use the first leg of the economy RT from Europe to get back to the US, and then just not fly back on the other leg of the economy RT ticket -but save $1.1k. That sounds like hidden city, though I don't know what happens if I just call after I'm back in the US and say I can't make the return flight, and never reschedule.

Or should I wait a few more months and see if price or availability changes? Maybe I should buy the original economy RT to lock it in and just wait for UA upgrade availablity - when is that showing up these days?

Would you be in a position to use UA miles for award travel in one direction, and AA miles for award travel in the other? This won't work with Delta award travel, but it would with AA if you have the miles and the flights you want are available.

Here is another thought. What if I booked BOTH the First Class leg to Europe one way with miles AND bought the RT for $1.3K cash? Would having two tickets over (one in First, one in economy, one with miles, the other with cash) endanger my ability to use the economy RT ticket back?