I’m new here and new to using points/miles to fly. I've been reading many posts, but getting lost in acronyms and such, so I took the plunge and decided to post my questions. We have 3 families racking up united points using the various credit card bonus offers for our June 2013 to Hawaii. What I’m trying to determine now is the best way to book this flight once it becomes available to book awards for Jun 2013.
We will be flying from Cincinnati to Honolulu to Maui (week later) then back to Cincinnati (week later). (CVG->HNL->OGG->CVG )
Questions are:
1) We need to try to get the Saver Award rate. So I’m worried if I wait 2 weeks for the return flight to be available, it will not be offered ( or at least not on the most convenient times) . So do we
a. Book one-ways when they become available for each of the 3 legs?
b. Call up and ‘hold’ the departure flight; wait 2 weeks then book it (not sure from reading if a ‘hold’ is possible)?
c. Wait 2 days after bookings come available, book a round trip – then 2 weeks later change the return to proper dates? I’ve read a ‘stop over’ can be used for round trip; so that should save us some points, correct? But would require the $25 charge to book over the phone?
2) Is there a way to book the stop over using the online site? When I attempted it, it showed total miles was 45,000 which seem to include 5,000 for the inter-island flight.
3) Is there a way to determine the number of award tickets on each flight? Since we have 3 families trying to get this same award travel , I was wondering if we best book ourselves on different flights.
4) My husband and I will each have to use our points for ourselves and 2 children. If we call up and pay the $25 fee per flight – will that enable us to book as a unit to be sure we’re all on same flights?
5) I’ve seen posts that say award trips open up 330ish days out; other say that is not exactly true. I’ve been looking the last few weeks, and seems to true – i.e. each time I loop the dates with the awards are opening up about 11 months ahead of current date. So my plan is to figure out our exact travel plans for our June2013 trip by July 2012 so we can book our award flights as soon as they open. Does this make sense?
Thanks!