Originally Posted by
channa
This is all well and good, but IME out of SFO, using UA miles TATL (or TPAC for that matter) can be a challenge. You'll be lucky to find even a few of these options in J if you have preferred dates in mind.
I literally just redeposited a UA GF award with a suboptimal routing and schedule to pick up a VS J award (DL miles) that worked better and cost fewer miles.
And last week, I dumped a UA Asia Y award (wanted business, set dates) and picked up an AA J award at the lower rates pre-devaluation.
And a few weeks ago, I was fortunate to change a CAI-YYZ-YVR-SJC J award on a suboptimal date to suboptimal airport to CAI-IST-YUL-SFO J award on my desired date. Still one connection more than optimal, but I'm happy to be going on the preferred date to the preferred airport. That's about as good as it gets with UA miles these days.
While it's fun to theorize about which flight would be the best, the reality is, it's slim pickings with UA miles these days, you're going to get what you get, and hope to refine it over time.
In my experience it is a serious challenge having booked a J itinerary out of SFO to Europe last summer. That is why I am desperately checking these 10 routes, not to mention a handful of others, in hopes of changing to an all J itinerary that doesn't require more than three flights from Prague (PRG-European Star Alliance Gateway-US Star Alliance Gateway west of ORD).
As a UA 2mm-er, I imagine you aren't paying much in the way of change fees. For me, in order to continually refine, I'd also have to continually pay change fees on two tickets. That is why I am looking for a one and done solution, which, admittedly is proving to be very difficult. If I had miles in other currencies to find a different way of getting home, I would, but I don't so this is what I'm stuck with!