there don't appear to be any *A carriers that fly DXB-DOH and staralliance.com shows no valid routings

I will be flying in August, when United fly the route (starting May). Currently got 1 night in Frankfurt and 2 in Dubai. If anyone can think of way to get whole trip on one redemption that would be ideal, or if i could split so that lhr-fra was one ticket and then a single onward ticket

Thanks
I did play around on BMI and ANA
For some reason BMI is not showing Man-Jed flights
ANA suggests Man-Jed via Munich is 38000 points
Taxes seem to make up most of the cost (over £300 of the £500 cost)

What do I do next call DC and see if they have availability for the flights (I think they are with Lufthansa although BMI operate the Man-Mun leg)?

The miles quoted by ANA are those required if you are redeeming from ANA Mileage Club, so are not relevant when redeeming Diamond Club miles. Use ANA only to check availability, and use the DC burn table for the miles.

MAN to JED is Z1-Z5, so a return in economy, which includes the connecting flight via LHR or FRA or IST etc, is 40000 miles, or (20000 miles + £140).
Multiply by 1.5 for business.

Would this work as an Z7-Z7 award?

SGN-ICN-MNL

No Stop in ICN.

Thanks
Chris

I've already booked an award one-way LAX-NRT. For the 20 GBP change fee, would I be able to later add NRT-SIN, making NRT a 5-day stopover and SIN the destination?

Unfortunately you can't just add on a flight as it's in different zones. So this means a cancel and reissue which also means that there are no guarantees that your LAX-NRT flight will go back into the reward bucket.

Easiest thing would be to book a second award from NRT-SIN but then this costs you a lot more.

What I would suggest is to find a different day that your LAX-NRT flight is available as a back up in case your original flight does not fall back into the reward bucket.

as NRT is in zone 8 and SIN in zone 7 (more expensive), I don't think you can do the change fee part as you are changing zones so it would be a cancel and rebook, or a separate 8 to 7 ticket

Does anyone have any experience with UA F availability?

I can get 2 seats now but will they release a 3rd once I have taken the 2? Its for a June flight.

ummm shurely sometime around when United start flying the route, award inventory might appear on Star Alliance for this new flight? then a simple change fee and add the extra flight.... DOH and DXB same zone so this should work?

Is it possible to reverse the order of the trip, and land in NRT after SIN, mAking SIN a stopover?

the problem you will then have is backtracking and distance. All travel should continue in the same direction.
LAX - NRT is 5451 miles and LAX - SIN - NRT is 12094 (so it is not really a stopover en-route)
LAX - NRT - SIN (your original plan) should be ok but it is a zone 3 to zone 7

Award availability does show, but I was told it was an invalid routing. I tried 2 agents but posted here to find out whether to persevere. I was told that I could add the flight but would have to pay as a new flight i.e. some stupid amount of miles for a 1h flight. In the end I just payed the £29pp and booked economy, although if it was possible to add the flight on in F I would just accept the 29 as a fee.

It may not be valid as there is a direct ZRH-DOH flight?

What you could have done is book LAX-NRT-SIN with the NRT-SIN on any day with availability. You would have paid a Z3-Z7 award and could then monitor the flight availability on NRT-SIN.

Btw, if you are stopping in Tokyo also consider leaving from HND to SIN which has additional flights and is closer to downtown. SQ does open seats on the A333 or 73A with regional C out of HND. Plus NRT-BKK-SIN or NRT-ICN-SIN can be viable (& allowable) options with better C availability. I flew KIX-ICN-SIN on OZ a few months ago as nothing was available on KIX-SIN or NRT/HND-SIN.

Think this will be allowed but slightly concerned about the backtracking. Wanting to go from POS to GIG and the only way to get to S.America is via USA so the shortest possible route is POS-IAH-GIG. Should be a Z4 - Z4.