If you want premium cabin, transfer 70k UR to United, book a TK J flight from BCN to US (I think through IST). Otherwise as someone else said, 30k UR to United.

Intercontinental one-way revenue tickets often cost more than round-trip tickets, but many frequent flyer programs charge only half the amount of miles for a one-way flight as for a round-trip. If I understand correctly, you need a round-trip with an open jaw:

USA-AMS
BCN-USA

Where is your home airport?

I think I'm a bit confused on all this open Jaw flight talk with United....also I'd be flying from/back to San Francisco.

Will have to dig into the United flight... but can somebody simplify this for me? I'm assuming once transfered to a united frequent flyer account it THEN presents it self as an option and a cheap one at that? Is that correct?

An "open jaw" simply means that you are returning from a different airport.

EXAMPLE:

If you create a United MileagePlus account you will be able to see the availability of award flights. These will be priced in miles, rather than dollars, although there will be some fees to pay in addition to the miles.

DO NOT TRANSFER points from Chase to United (or anywhere else) until you have confirmed the availability of award seats for your specific dates. Airlines make a limited number of seats available for award redemptions. Just because there are seats available for sale (with money) does not mean there are award seats available.

Ah right. Ok. Pro tip! - Mia thanks so much you're incredible~

So essentially it's booked as a "round trip" hinged to the first destination airport, but open jaw leaves the optionality to depart from a different airport? Is that correct?

I actually have a MP Account as I travel United a fair bit for work so I have a couple points there, like 5,400 or something.. nothing crazy but there's a few.

Any clue as to the points transfer ratio from Chase Sapphire to United? I'm sure I can find it out but you've been so on point this far!! hah

The transfer ratio from Ultimate Rewards to all partners is 1000:1000.

I am not a United flyer, but I would probably book two award tickets. One from SFO to AMS, and another BCN-SFO. Someone more knowledgeable than I will chime in if there is some important benefit to booking this as a single reservation.

(Flyertalk forums can be slow on weekends, don't become discouraged if there aren't many replies now. Give it a few days.)

Looks like there's "Saver Award" availability from United for both my departure and return dates. 30K each. That's pretty nice!

The key is transferring the points to a partner, not using the points to book with chase. Most often, this is the best method.

United transfers from Chase UR 1:1 in 1,000 point increments.

You can search award availability before transferring the points to ensure you don't waste the points.

Do some searching and play on the united site. You can often get more open jaws and stop overs than one might think without any additional points.

If you have found something you are happy with, go for it. There is no guarantee that those flights will still be available tomorrow or next week. Since you already have 5000 UA miles, you'll only need to transfer 55000 to United, then you can book your flights.

There have been two recommendations (by mia and JerLon) to check for availability before transferring Ultimate Rewards points to United (and I assume any travel partner). Is there any way to mitigate the risk of finding a good deal, transferring the points, and then finding the good deal has vanished? Should I (or anyone in riggyk's position) just act quickly and hope it is quickly enough?

The points transfer instantly. So, if you have two windows open and have availability at United, just hit transfer and you should be fine.

You could also use ExpertFlyer to see how many open seats there are in case you're very nervous.

Thanks, JerLon. I'm always nervous. I'll plan to use the two window (actually, for me, probably two tabs) trick.

To pick a nit, you'll have to log out of United and back in to see the miles present, so there's no need to try to be ready to transfer points and click Book on united's website simultaneously. The odds of the seats you want being taken in the 1 min between transferring and logging out of / into united.com is very low.

Also - no one mentioned, but if you book a United award as a round trip or open jaw, you can get a free "stopover" in the destination region (they recently changed the rules, but I think the way I wrote it here is pretty accurate as to the new rules). In other words, if you're going from SFO and want to visit Barcelona and Amsterdam, you can do as recommended and book SFO-AMS then BCN-SFO for 60k round trip. But for no additional cost* you can book SFO-AMS, AMS-BCN, and BCN-SFO for 60k round trip. For this specific routing, you'd likely have a connection between AMS and BCN, but that's fine (i.e., AMS-ZRH-BCN). This can also be booked on united.com. First search each piece as one way award and confirm everything you need is available, then use the multi city search, just as you would for open jaw, and plug in each 3 legs with their respective dates. Ignore the prices per leg as they can be wonky, but when you get to the end it will price at 60k, else you did something wrong routing-wise. You could even get more advanced and book something like SFO-AMS / AMS-FCO / BCN-SFO, and just pay for your own way from Rome (or wherever you choose) to Barcelona. That's 3 cities for 60k + taxes + a cheap flight.

*There is slight additional cost in the form of taxes for the AMS-BCN flight(s), but almost assuredly less than you'd pay otherwise to complete that travel. It would vary by where you connect, but likely be ~$50. For example, AMS-ZRH-BCN has $43 in taxes while AMS-VIE-BCN has $56.

Create an account on Air France KLM Flying blue, and check for awards there for your SFO-AMS.

Just a few days ago, I was able to book a one way SFO-CDG for 18,750 + $79.56 as a promo award, in November. I think a regular award is 25,000 miles.

Indeed, you cannot book 1-way cash fares between US and Europe - or rather, they cost 4x the price of a 1-way, so it never makes sense. The 1-way flight I booked would have been $2687 cash fare. Or $726 round-trip.

This is where having the Chase UR points, and the ability to transfer, helps the most, IMO. The 1-ways can be booked at prices that make sense as award flights. Not as cash fares.

You don't have to choose the same airline for your return - you could transfer some UR points to one airline, and some UR points to another, as long as they are Chase UR partners.

Now that United has replaced stopovers with the Excursionist Perk, is there another Chase UR partner that allows for free stopovers? I was looking to get a flight like:

LAX -> EWR (stopover for multiple days) -> IEV / ODS (multiple days in Ukraine or the area) -> LAX

in business class for the price of a RT. Any ideas? Or is the best option still to book a Saver award via UA, for a total of 140k + 25k = 165k miles?