I am looking to travel during the second week of March (exactly one year from now) from Cedar Rapids, IA to Quito, Ecuador.

I need some advice.

I have ~58,000 United Miles
I have ~71,000 US DMs

I also have 80,000 Priority Club Points that should be making their way to my account from Chase soon.

During March, supposedly, its only 35,000 miles RT on US to fly from US to S. America, but United has a lot of availability online and is part of Star Alliance.

Here are my thoughts, please give me some advice:
-Converting my 80k PC points to 40k DM by April 15th via the hotel points conversion deal. (my conversion rate is based off of a post on Mommy Points)
-Buy some miles with the 100% bonus rate
-Try to buy one ticket (buying 2 RT tickets) via US and one via United, aiming to have both on an United flight.

This will only be my 4th award flight booking so any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Only UA miles allow for one-way awards. US does not do one-way for half-price of an RT. You will pay the RT price even if you book one-way with US miles.

Also, to qualify for the off-peak awards with US, you must fly US metal. US does not fly to CID or UIO, so you cannot use the 35,000 rate for that.

I also wouldn't waste hotels -> airline points, especially since you have time to accumulate points easier. Can you apply for cards in the near future? Do you have a US Airways MC from Barclay's or the UA Explorer Visa from Chase? Both have bonuses after first purchase (40K US, 50K UA).

What class of service are you looking at? And what other airports can you fly out of besides CID?

I could fly out of Moline, Des Moines, ORD/Midway. What's funny is that US doesn't have any "red dots" on S. America on their route map, but if its true you can only get the 35,000 on US Metal-- well then that seems silly...

I'll fly economy.

Also, I have the UA from Chase and the US card as well. I'm pretty bogged down with cards...

Go to united.com, search for an itinerary CID-UIO. I just searched for one the second week of Feb. Do this now, so that 330 days in advance, you are ready to go. You want to already know what the award will look like, so you can book immediately.

You can use 40k UA miles to book coach each way, 70k to book business each way, and 55k for one way in each. You can do one or two stop itineraries and there is availability every day.

If you want to use US miles, you can book the exact same flights, but you'd have to call them. The r/t award would cost 60k in coach, 100k in business.

US miles are worth less than UA miles, but at these rates, the UA redemption is the way to go.

Nice post thanks for sharing.

In that case, you also might not want to rule out Waterloo, Bloomington/Normal, Dubuque, Rockford, Peoria, STL, Omaha, and MSP when reviewing various options...maybe not for this trip, but in general. I think that, given the locations you have thrown out, you may find driving to Chicago vs. Saint Louis, Omaha, and Minneapolis/St. Paul to be pretty much a wash. Everything else which I mentioned should be closer. We Eastern Iowans have to be an adaptive lot to get the best deal.