gogiantsfan11

I am confused and hope someone can help. I have 80,000 miles on United that I would like to use for TWO first class one way tickets HNL to EWR. As their saver tickets are 40,000 miles. I will be booking for October 2013. I know the dates are not open yet, but I have been watching everyday for September 2013. When I put one person in ..I usually can find the 40,000 nonstop flight .. but if I put two people in its never there. My question is .
1. Do they only allow FF points to be used for one seat in first class usually?
2. Does anyone know what time the seats come open 11 months out.. is it at midnight?
3. What are the size of the E+ seats if I have to use my miles for coach and try buy E+ seats?
4. Is there anything I can do to try and get 2 first class seats?

Thanks for the help.

DirtyDan

1 - I've booked multiple F seats... It depends on availability.
2 - Someone to confirm, but I've read it's best to call at midnight and then continually check for award avaiablity until something opens.
3 - www.seatguru.com
4 - Be open to alternative routes. Check the star alliance website for the alternates and confirm award availability with ANA's website or an online tracking tool.

jg3rd

I've had success booking business first and global first recently for Austin to Sydney. I grabbed 4 seats. As I watched it, it seemed like saver availability was lame when the dates initially opened, but got better 3-5 days after it opened. Take a look at your routes and see if they behave the same way. I booked in August. Good luck.

Sykes

If there is saver economy is available, consider purchasing a saver economy ticket and waitlisting for saver first. Theoretically that will allow you to automatically confirm into saver first if/when it becomes available (although UA's system for processing waitlists is notoriously buggy).

You'll have to call in order to put yourself on the waitlist, and must have a confirmed seat in saver economy in order to do so.

FlyerChrisK

Seats are not necessarily released at 11 months out. Revenue management continually estimates which seats it will not sell and lets those be used for awards.

They're normal coach seats with a few more inches of seat pitch.

Be willing to connect? p.s. business class (SFO/LAX-JFK) is a reasonably nice product.

gogiantsfan11

Thank for all the great feedback. I have one more question. When I put in HNL to EWR it only brings me up about 6 different flights all via SFO and LAX I can take when i click on award travel. But, if I don't have award travel it brings up flights via ORD, IAH and IAD. But, those flights again are not listed to even choose if I am looking at award travel. When I got back in and put award travel for example HNL to IAD it shows the saver award open.. but how do I get to EWR.. without paying for two awards? is that even possible?
Thanks again. sorry, i sound like such a newbie.

santarosaflyer

That's the joy of UA.bomb. You can put in the same information 30 minutes later and get a whole different set of routings. On more than one occasion I have put the information in for award routing, liked it but did not book. A few hours later that routing was gone but reappears a short time later.

My guess is that there can be so many routings that it just shows a few, Thid id treu fpor both award and non-award tickets.

I often call the 1K line (usually after midnight, weekend days etc) and discover a variety of routings. I also know for TATL, the site tends to lean heavier to certain airlines. For examples I recently booked SFO-IST-SFO. On the non-award site, it did not give me Turkish Airlines as a connecting option. However, on the award site Turkish was a connecting option.

One day, I there were options of going through LHR but those vanished. In speaking with an agent, that was still an option.

There is no consistency as to which routings you will be offered.

You don't indicate you have status but it may be worth the fee to call UA.

gogiantsfan11

Thanks, I don't have any status. I can't believe the routing is there and they show it sometimes. I hope when I book I just have luck calling united and ask for certain flight number and they can do it... Thanks again.

drewguy

It shouldn't be confusing - there is enough demand for mileage trips to Hawaii that UA doesn't need to offer many, if any, saver fares. They know that they can fill the F seats with paid travellers and people willing to pay the full mileage price, so they don't load saver FF tickets in any great numbers.

gogiantsfan11

Hi,
I understand that, what I don't understand is there are routes that don't show up as a choice even using full mileage.. take out the mileage and now I can connect through IAH, IAD or ORD.. otherwise I could only connect thru SFO or LAX. Or I have to use 2 awards.
Example : Oct 1 2013 when I put in HNL to EWR.. I dont get the connection via IAH that is listed when I take the mileage out.
it does allow me to book the saver rate if I seperate it HNL to IAH 40,000 Business or 50,000 first and the another 25,000 miles IAH to EWR. Trying to figure out why I have to use two awards when its a true connection flight? Does that make any sense.

mauiUAflyer

IIRC, there is a pull-down box to show more flight options ("default", 25, and 50). Make sure you are selecting 50.

FlyerChrisK

United.com is bad at showing you all of your options. If you can find availability along an entire route that multicity will not book for you, call to book.