Originally Posted by
beachmouse
If you're in United Express territory and don't have status and such, it's frequently really slim pickings for saver award seats on the Barbie jets. I'd redeem for standard in an 'in case of emergency, break glass' scenario, but for anything other than continental USA travel, it makes more sense to do a paid flight into Houston and begin award travel there, rather than having something the crosses oceans reprice to standard because of the United Express leg.
If they're anything like other regional jet operations, I would expect United Express to not have the most reliable on-time schedule. So thus be very careful about how much extra time you allow for connecting between the separate-paid-in-cash United Express flight and the award travel flight you're connecting to. You don't get "protected" on an award flight booked separately if your connecting cash flight was late.
So another thing you may to consider is whether straight-through awards are available from another airport within reasonable driving distance. I and several people I know think nothing of flying to/from Nashville and driving 2ish hours to/from Huntsville rather than connecting on Barbie jets to Huntsville (even if awards aren't involved, if a nonstop is available to/from Nashville airport but less-reliable connections are required to/from Huntsville airport). Obviously, though, not every place in the country has a bigger airport just 2 or 3 hours away by car.