Originally Posted by
jsloan
Not really. This only works if the travel dates are between the outbound and the return. So, unless OP is planning to go back to Australia / New Zealand within the next 12 months, and can therefore nest the awards, there's no way to get a free one-way flight on this itinerary.
Huh. According to the
published rules, a SFO-MEL // MEL-SFO // FRA-MRS itinerary should qualify for the FRA-MRS trip to be free. However, it looks like the booking logic on the united.com award booking search only give it for free if it's between the two paid legs. (Interestingly the week-long "calendar" at the top of the page shows the cheapest option for each day as 0 miles, but all the options for FRA-MRS cost at least 8k miles.)