Stgermainparis

I'm curious what most of you all do now that most award programs use one-way tickets. I have a choice of either 2 one-ways on UA or 1 on UA and the other on AA. No advantage to either though AA fees are $175 more total for our 5 pax (and actually that's not nothing). Most of my points are in Chase UR and Amex MR. My gut is telling me to split them up b/c next time around I'll have more options for outbound and inbound. I'm not saving up for a particular trip but those AA points are harder for me to get than UR/UA. On the other hand UR points are more valuable to me bc of their flexibility.

What do you all do? Split things up or go all in with one?

Yoshi212

I've had 3 big trips this year (May 2018-April 2019) and all 3 were splits. First was B6 (positioning to West Coast), AA (West Coast to Europe in J), BA intraEurope & VS PE back to JFK. Second was AS (JFK-PDX & NH (PDX-SFO-TPE, TPE-PVG, HKG-HND, NRT-ICN, ICN-JFK) and the third will be UA (to West Coast, Excursionist perk flight in EU, Additional miles flight in EU & EU-JFK), AA (West Coast to Europe in J), BA (intraEurope).

The second trip to Asia was mostly via NH and the greatest return on my points in value but having some points in different programs increases flexibility and routing opportunities.

If it's between 2 1-ways on UA or a split between UA & AA it's about best schedule and reduced potential fees for changes and/or preferred seating. In your case, it's a balance between not having to potentially pay that $175 in additional fees or having miles in a different program that could be used for positioning or a different 1-way for a future award trip with restricted space. From what you've said..burn the AA miles.

Stgermainparis

JPG3392

I've done it both ways at various times, depending on saver award availability, cost in miles and fees, and how many miles I have in each program at a particular time. There are, however, some additional points you may wish to bear in mind.

1) Unlike AA and DL, UA offers a free stopover (under certain conditions) on RT award travel (only RT). Two years ago, I used UA miles to fly IAD-VIE-INN/SZG-VIE-IAD RT on Austrian with a stopover of 5-6 nights in Vienna. That arrangement wouldn't have been possible if two airlines' programs had been involved.

2) You don't mention DL and don't indicate the routes you're interested in, but it may be worth noting significant surcharges on award tickets originating in Europe. As far as transatlantic flights are concerned, DL is best used RT or for the flight to Europe, not for the return.

3) Are the sure that the difference in fees between UA and AA that you mention above is due to differences in the policies of the two airlines (or their various partners)? If the flights are between the USA and Europe, for example, the fees are typically higher on the return portion of the trip because of government and airport fees. If you wish to compare UA and AA on this issue, you need to compare two flights headed in the same direction; comparing a flight to Europe on one airline with a flight from Europe on another airline will yield a distorted result.

sdsearch

If you're doing award redemptions, then you might often need to do it as two one-ways anyway, even if on the same airline, because you may not be able to find availability in both directions at the same time. That happens to me all the time on longhaul international awards (I don't tend to do domestic awards).

But if you can only find availability in one direction as an award, be aware: Within the US (and maybe some other routes), round trips are priced about that same as two one-ways. But to some overseas destinations, a one way is sometimes much more expensive than the round trip. So be aware of what the one-way vs round-trip cash costs are before you book a one-way award ticket in case you'll never find the one-way award ticket in the other direction. You don't want to get stuck paying more for a one-way paid fare than you would have paid if you had gotten the whole round trip as a paid fare.

And be aware that just because you see availability now when you're asking a question, that doesn't mean that availability will be there by the time you're actually booking. Award availability is all too often fleeting.

Stgermainparis

These are all interesting points. And I've considered them in my planning over the years, esp the UA Excursionist perk for RT international (and of course NF only allows RT awards on partners anyway). Mainly I am curious how others perceive flexibility or quantity/bulk, if that makes sense. My point hoarder impulse to have high balances in one place as opposed to slightly lower ones all around was challenged on this last trip planning. I'd just never really thought about it before.

For my upcoming trip, the fees were higher with UA b/c of the fees imposed by their partner airlines that I'd need to travel on. But I do know that sometimes RT can significantly lower fees (which is of course true even on revenue tix). DL /Skyteam didn't seem to have availability (admittedly I am doing this late in the year for July 2019). All in, I'm at ~$45/ticket for a Europe trip this summer (60k points each)

Psychologically, it was hard for me to use 300k UR points for some reason! Not sure why it was easier for me to split the cost/points between two programs but for some reason it was. I suppose each award/trip must be considered independently, but then one trip taken/points used may affect one's point options for next trip.