I understand but the value i get from my trips is the joy of sharing the experience with my family. Especially when traveling with my 4 year old it sometimes makes sence for me to pay a little more so that the travel is not as disruptive to his schedule, this allows our trip to be more enjoyable. to paraphrase the great warren miller, if you put off the trip this year you and your family will be another year older before you get there.

Oh, I am not saying I think it's silly - everyone values different things. To us, value and efficiency is important. But they don't have to go July 4 week as they have all summer to go so I won't need to resort to paying double for a ticket when everyone is so flexible; at that point, I'd rather just pay for the last ticket. But this is why I am planning so far ahead! :)

I think we are probably more thinking the same than differently, infact I just this week finalized my bookings for 2013 extended spring break 8 nights london 6 nights dublin, and was all on saver tickets.

I would say the answer is probably.

With any airline, they may make more seats available at low level to their own members than to partner bookings. I book HA flights all the time using miles from various partners. If I want 3-4 award tickets, usually the HA website will have to show at least 5-6 seats available at the low level for me to have success using partner miles.

That said, you can do some test bookings on the ANA website to gauge the availability of UA seats to partner airlines. From my experience, UA makes much if not all of their low-level award space available for partners and this will work in your favor.

I'd question the "way more convenient" here. The train is indeed a great way to get from London to Paris, but is definitely not to be recommended as a way of connecting from a flight arriving at LHR to a flight departing from CDG.

Oh, no, London and Paris are actual destinations on the trip. I.e., two nights in London, train, 4 nights in Paris :)

In which case Eurostar makes perfect sense. :)

To answer this question, technically the rules are a stopover or an open jaw, but not both on US. Accumulating miles using Chase though would yield UA miles and I know their rules are different. I think the above is possible but you need to look around that forum. Of course you could buy the ticket from CDG-VIE or take the train if all else fails and just have the open jaw between LHR/VIE.

Cheers.