Hi All,

I am a newbee so please be easy.....I have earned 60,000 freq. miles through united. I want to use them this year when I am traveling back to Asia. I am thinking of getting a free ticket upto London and then pay for the rest of the ticket. Is this is the best way to best use my miles. Is there a way I could utilize these miles to earn more from partnership airlines? As an example......I read following.....

"When redeeming frequent flyer miles, you can request rewards on partner airlines, and the value is often better than on the domestic carrier. I�ve used partner rewards to go to Mongolia (Korean Airlines, booked with Delta SkyMiles), Kuwait (Qatar Airways, booked with American Express points), and dozens of other places."

Source: http://www.geoffreyhale.com/blog/?p=1001

I appreciate your help.

Thanks....

Where are you based and which part of Asia are you trying to go to? If based in the US, a saver round trip to most part of Asia costs about 65k miles. You should be able to get another 5k miles or so by flying, renting a car, staying at a hotel or charging a UA credit card.

It probably will not save you much to just get a free ticket to London and buy the London-Asia ticket.

One-way award is another option to consider if miles are not enough.

Redeeming for an economy class trip isn't the wisest use of miles, especially on UA's award chart where the premium cabins aren't must higher in terms of mileage cost.

Welcome to FT.
UA miles can be flexible to book award to Asia using *A network of many partners. 65k RT saver coach award to most places in Asia from USA, with a free stopover. Flights to/from London will incur much higher tax surcharge fee (even award tickets), so you should avoid it unless want to stop by London.