UA: Why so few nice deals out of DEN??
 

I'm based in DEN, and I'm gonna need 6k by the end of the year according to unnited.com. I have all my travel planned through the year, so I think a mileage run might be good.

i'm based in DEN, which is a pretty good hub for UA - but I've been watching for a while and have found zero good deals! Flying to another city to catch a ML flight seems to ruin it :) Am I missing something? Any tips?

... it is a fortress after all, and its biggest competitors are F9 and SW.
If you can start in MSP or SLC you could get some attack or matching fares. You can try adding extra legs via hubs (IAH, ORD, LAX) for domestic. The usual fare wars in Asia and Europe if you want it in one go.

Consider setting some alerts for deals after the summer travel is over. Sags in October, plus early November and early December are always possible.

search for DEN- AA or DL hubs.. or BOS. I could find one ways PHL-DEN all day for around $100 and return for $150 or so.

Good luck.

Those a helpful suggestions, thanks. I am finding a few things here and there but nothing I'd call a decent mileage run. I'm gonna start looking at some long-hauls, maybe that's the trick. I could go over to LAX and start there, but I'm apprehensive to do it. Meanwhile, UA just offered me 7500k PQM for $1050.

You could do the UA China mileage run from LAX for about $383 or $450 from DEN (some have found it from DEN). You'll get way more miles than you need, but it's a good price.

About the cheapest I've seen to anywhere in China is about $515 to Shanghai. Not bad, but I don't know if I can stomach another trip to China this year!

I'll be in this same situation... I'll need about 9k miles, and being in KC now, WN is almost better for me. Might be hard to stay UA full time next year...

I booked a LAX-HKG-PEK-GUM-HNL-LAX (well it ends in YYZ, but I'm getting off at LAX) for $378 last week.

Summer is a generally a bad time for mile runs. Travel demand drops off in late August when you will find much better deals. DEN-FLL available from $180 roundtrip in the fall (midweek flights). Up to 5300 EQM's depending on routing.

yea I see those, and I can force it through Dulles without breaking that fare. not bad!

DEN is always tough to find good MR deals. Typically I look to either EWR or SFO to find decent MR opportunities and either use one-way mileage awards or buy cheap F9 or WN positioning flights. Look for multi-city trips that go thru DEN on the last leg such as SFO-DEN-EWR. Another good city to look at as a jumping off point is PHX. Also check out EWR-SJU - that's always good for lots of miles with an immediate turn that's basically still a domestic flight.

I avoid pure domestic MRs now and only look for long hauls where the CPM makes sense factoring in the positioning flight and maybe an overnight hotel stay. Using points helps to keep costs down. Traveling mid-week is usually cheaper and easier to find upgrade space. My favorite MR was always DEN-EWR the night before, then EWR-HKG-SIN-SFO-DEN-EWR - back when UA had the HKG-SIN flights. I also like EWR-NRT-DEN timing wise but it's been hard finding good deals to Japan lately.