Hiya all,

I think I'm posting this in the right forum considering it's a *A award.

I'm planning on using my miles for C for my mother to go from US to Indonesia. However, reading UA's *A award chart it looks like US to SE Asia and US to Australia is at the same level, and with the 1 stopover allowance, it looks like I might be able to get her to visit me all the way in SYD while still doing her family business in Indonesia?

I'm thinking something along the lines of:

1. US-SIN (e.g., EWR-SIN, LAX-SIN, SFO-HKG-SIN) - award ticket
2. SIN-SOC-SIN (paid as SilkAir doesn't qualify for *A award)
3. SIN-SYD - award ticket
4. SYD-SIN-US - award ticket

Assuming that is allowable, the return on #4 doesn't have to be SQ. So .. to get "creative", what are the nice routes to look for on the way back? I'm guessing it's just going to be a toss-up between SQ and NH?

Does UA/MP really allow routing an USA-Australia *A award via SIN (for the same amount of miles)? If yes, you should be ok, as a stopover is certainly possible. Personally, I doubt it.

You should ask this question in the MP forum, as this is an UA/MP issue. There are ten times more qualified people there than here who may be able to offer practical advice. I guess the thread should be moved.

Where in Indonesia? I've had a couple of interesting interactions with this...

Things to watch: 1. What is the allowable maximum mileage (MPM)? You MUST meet that.
2. What is the allowable routing within the MPM? You can only make a stop on a city on the standard routing... otherwise not OK. So, looking from LAX, SYD is on the routing to JKT and DPS, but the StarALliance timetable does not show SYD on the route from NYC to DPS/JKT...

So, all the best, and you might just manage to make it work... My suspicion is that the MPM may be what kills you...

Please Post what they eventually allow you to do, I was kicking around the same SFO-SYD-SIN-SFO possibility. However, I concluded that's not considered a " Most direct routing?"

****

En route stopovers: No stopovers are permitted on awards wholly within a geographic region. Awards
between regions allow one stopover. �Round- The- World awards allow a maximum
of five stopovers.
Open jaw: Legal open jaws (open jaw length shorter than flown flight segment length) are
permitted. No stopovers are permitted.
Blackout periods: As defined by individual carriers.
Routings: Awards are for roundtrip travel. One- way travel is not permitted. Backhauls
(backtracking routings) are not permitted, except as required by routing restrictions.
Side trips are not permitted on a single award. �Round- The- World routing is defined
as one Pacific and one Atlantic crossing; you must use legal routings as defined in
pricing rules and continue travel in the same direction. Involuntary re- routing
permitted on Star Alliance carriers only. If award travel crosses a geographic area to
reach another region, member is subject to the higher of the two award levels. Most
direct routing applies.

From my experience you can not get a *A award using UA miles for US-SIN-SYD-US. It's a circle pacific, and way over the MPM. You have to redeem two awards: one US to SE Asia, and one SE Asia to Sydney. Or, one US to SYD, and one SYD to SE Asia.
An award SFO-SYD-SFO or LAX-SYD-LAX on UA C is pretty hard to get.
So now you have to think as well whether your mom can handle the long travel back from SYD-SIN-SFO for example. Otherwise, may be she wanted to visit Indonesia twice, or stop in Singapore before heading back to the US?

To clarify a bit.

ORD-LHR-CAIro-LHR-ORD allows a stopover in LHR, if one uses miles to Cairo, because London is in a different Geographic region from Cairo, LHR was 'enroute", and there's not much more of a direct route available.

SFO-SIN-SYD-SFO doesn't qualify for an 'enroute stopover', although you can *maybe* talk the CSR into an "open jaw" if you paid for the flight from SIN-SYD.

Please note that I've seen them relax the "backhaul" requirement if there are special circumstances. For example, if you are travelling 1st class using miles, but there are no 1st class *or* business seats on a direct routing. (PEK-ORD-SEA added 3 hours to the flight time to backtrack, but it was a "sleeper" route. Thanks CSR! )

Well, I guess it looks like US-SYD via SE Asia won't be possible for now. In that case, I guess it's really just a matter of finding an empty award C seat on SQ now. Which means getting a paid ticket from either BHM or HSV to EWR, use the award for EWR-SIN (EWR being closer to southeast US than the west coast) and again another paid ticket SIN-SOC.

(MNLGuy, my mom's looking to visit SOC/Solo, and possibly West Timor; but I'll let my father handle all the domestic flights. )

I wasn't aware of the MPM issue; I'm looking at UA's *A award PDF and it mentioned nothing about it.

Ah well, thanks all. I guess it's time to ask in the UA forum now.

Why do you have to do a paid tix from BHM or HSV to EWR? It should be included in the StarA awards right? Remember though, using UA miles for StarA award means that you can not change the return dates once travel commences.

I was thinking of the "most direct routing applies" rule and assumed (mistakenly?) that perhaps they won't allow HSV-<wherever>-EWR-SIN.

You could only do this with TWO awards - USA-south east asia, and SE asia-Australia. UA won't allow you to go to Australia via Asia no way no how. Sorry.