flightexpert

Aug. 31 - Nov. 9
Limited dates available Sept. 1 - Oct. 29
Routing: PHX-SFO-NRT-KUL-NRT-SFO-PHX, also via LAX
Miles: 18,260
Cost per mile: 4.2 cents

Find flights marketed by ANA (ANA flight numbers) rather than by United to earn the most MileagePlus miles (4,565 vs. about 3,500).

buhuffer

sorry for my ignorance, but what do you mean by "Find flights marketed by ANA (ANA flight numbers) " ?

buy the ticket from ana website?

flightexpert

Flights with ANA flight numbers and tickets issued on ANA stock. You can find these on the ANA website but also on OTA's like Expedia, Orbitz, etc.

Freebird

here's a concrete example via OTA + ANA flight#'s - how many miles would I get for this under my UA #:


Jan 27 '16: SAN 3:30pm - > SFO 5:01pm 436 mi Economy/Coach (K)

SFO 6:10pm -> HND 10:35pm + 1 day 5,130 mi All Nippon Airways 7011 Operated by United Economy/Coach (K) Seat Preview

Jan 31, 2016 - Flight 2 NRT 5:15pm - > KUL 11:55pm 3,338 mi All Nippon Airways 815
Economy/Coach (K)

Feb 11, 2016 - Flight 3 KUL 8:10am -> NRT 3:50pm 3,338 mi All Nippon Airways 816
Economy/Coach (K)

NRT 6:10pm -> LAX 11:00am 5,458 mi All Nippon Airways 7018 Operated by United
Economy/Coach (K)


Thanks.

buhuffer

maybe you can have a try then come back and tell us ?

Freebird

It's something negligible over 4K miles, I reckon. All these distances multiplied by 25%

KUL would serve me better than SIN or any of the other choices (my final destination is PNH and my mission - which I chose to accept - is to try to get there, without collecting a stop-over stamp from any of the neighboring SE Asian countries, which is a bit of a challenge).

I suspect the UA 777 to Haneda is more sparsely filled than either of the mid-day SFO-Narita bound flights - plus I won't have to leave for the airport at 6 AM.


UA forces me into doing this weird math these days. The same itinerary sells for $700 more on .bomb. Would then give me about 8 x 1,200 miles - yes, that would make a lot of sense financially (not), as I am not looking to upgrade.

There might be a special into CGK/SIN 6 months for now yielding perhaps 5,600 miles for $100 more but would drive up my connecting flight costs.

I know they would love for me to shell out $7K to sit four across like 'potty time in kindergarden' (the seat is good though, I can sleep well in it, unless I'm on a 767 in row 2 and up, where normal sized feet just don't have any room) but I am sorry UA, that's not going to happen. Would yield 48K miles though