ebabysmom

So, is it actually possible to get from ORD to SYD on a United Saver Business Class award...at Christmas? I'm looking at availability 330 days from now just to get an idea of what might be available and there are no Saver awards. Do they just not actually offer them to Sydney?

Currently have 500,000 miles (well, actually 400,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards and 100,000 UA miles) and expect to have 550,000+ by the time I would need to book this in January. Our goal is 4 business class tickets from ORD-SYD to depart on/around 12/20/16 and return on/around 1/3/17. We are willing to connect through Asia, Canada or any other place that would get us there and we don't care what airline as long as we can use UA miles/Chase Ultimate Rewards.

I do have about 25,000 SPG points I could transfer, if necessary. I know the conversion rate stinks, but it's an option if we are desperate for a few more miles.

Since I have a few months, what can I do now to make this happen?

mduell

They may choose to offer them at any time, there's nothing special about 330 days out. If and when depends on how they think the flight is going to sell. With all the AU routes shrinking to 787 I'd say it doesn't look good unless passengers are fleeing UA faster than they're cutting capacity.

restlessinRNO

Four business class saver award tickets to Australia at Christmas!

If available that would be 140,000 x 4 = 560,000 miles on UA, and 160,000 x 4 = 640,000 miles on Star Alliance carrier.

izzik

You want to travel during the absolute peak times for the New Years holiday season.
I'm sure you realize that this is a difficult proposition for 2 or more tickets on the same itinerary. Everyone and their mother is wanting to travel the first week of January after New Year's.. as well as the week of travel prior to Xmas.

That said, you will need flexibility and creativity to make it happen.
1) Do all 4 people NEED to travel on the same flights? Your best bet is splitting up .. maybe pairs.
2) Can you travel later than 1/3? Unless you are willing to fly economy or standard award levels, it will be near impossible to get award tickets until on/after 1/7 or so.
3) United awards will only permit direct routing (ie, USA-SYD) or routing via Asia to get to SYD. Europe transit points are not allowed unless you book separate awards (US-Europe, Europe-SYD).
4) Do you or your spouse have 1K or Plat status? They have access to better premium award availability than others.

why fly

simple answer NO.

Kacee

For four business class seats during peak travel season, you're probably going to have to redeem at the standard level.

PsiFighter37

There's no way there will be availability at peak season for either the SFO-SYD or LAX-SYD leg at saver levels...if you want to fly UA, better to purchase earlier. It ain't going to get any cheaper (unless there are taxes denominated in AUD included in the ticket price...AUD will almost certainly continue to weaken vs. the USD over the next year or so).

SunLover

As others have stated what you are looking for is highly improbable. Redeeming four international business saver award seats on the same flight at any time, to any destination, is mission difficult. Add in SYD, peak season, and not much flexibility and dates and you are looking at mission extremely unlikely. I think you need to adjust your expectations and planning accordingly.

One thing you can look at is something like flying into HKG or ICN or somewhere else in Asia, and then purchasing some low cost carrier (LLC) tickets to Australia. This option opens up TATL reward possibilities.

Same theory backwards for the US gateway; buy revenue tickets to LAX/SFO/JFK and then look for onward rewards. Thinking OZ might be your best bet here, but it might even be a blackout reward period I am not sure.

Standard rewards, fly coach, and split your party biz/econ are some of your other options. Good luck and let us know how you make out!


SunLover

ebabysmom

Thanks for the responses. Unfortunately, you are confirming what I think I already knew -- this is going to be darn near impossible. Neither of us have any elite status so we are at the bottom of the list for access. We will look at splitting up into pairs to see if we can make that work. Otherwise, it will be economy for us. Not going to complain about flying to Australia for (almost) free no matter where we sit.

Once I book the tickets I'll update and let you know how we made out.

Mwenenzi

Well said

Even though 15months away, on 20 Dec 2016 USA/Aust and 03 Jan 2017 Aust/USA (and the other days about this time) every airline will be expecting to sell every seat for real $$$$$. People book flights for those dates months out. You may have trouble finding a cash ticket let alone award unless booked early. At any time getting 4 business awards on the same flight, to/from a destination that is hard at the best of times, is an unrealistic expectation. And SYD is not the only airport in Australia

Airlines that fly USA/Canada to/from Australia (most from LAX) are
- United (LAX SFO – SYD MEL & GUM-CNS) [Star Alliance]
- AA (LAX SYD) from Dec 2015 [OneWorld Alliance]
- Qantas (LAX JFK DFW HNL – SYD BNE MEL) SFO from Dec 2015 [OneWorld Alliance] (AS partner)
- Jetstar (HNL – SYD BNE)
- Delta (VA & AS partner) (LAX – SYD) [Skyteam Alliance]
- Virgin Australia (DL partner) (LAX – SYD BNE)
- Hawaiian, via Hawaii (AA & VA partner) (HNL – SYD BNE)
- Air NZ, via AKL [Star Alliance]
- Fiji Airways, via Fiji (AA & AS partner)
- Air Tahiti Nui (last segments on codeshares) (AA & DL partner)
- Air Canada [Star Alliance]
And others via Asia & Middle East

In The 216

Your biggest hurdle is what has already been said. I would suggest that when you search you do not search from ORD-SYD but from LAX or SFO to SYD. Adding on the ORD-LAX/SYD portion, even in coach & with a connection if necessary, will not be an issue. Also try looking at building a creative routing through Asia and do not rely on United.com to give you every option available.

Best of luck to you!

FlyWorld

As others have said, "no" would be the most accurate answer.

The only thing I'd add is that I've noticed that fares historically drop to SYD on Dec 24 and 25, so if you wanted to fly on Xmas or the day after, you might find some saver availability, but I'd guess if that's released at all, it wouldn't be released until very soon before departure.

It's been many years since I've flown SFO/SYD, but I used to make that trip a lot and remember that Dec 24/25 had a lot more availability than any day before those dates. I'd also explore connections through TPE, SIN, ICN, NRT, and PEK.

If you literally want to fly on Dec 20, good luck, and you want to fly ORD-SYD on the most convenient routing, and you want saver J, good luck.

mh1361

I'm looking for economy saver tickets on a specific route and was wondering if anyone knows what time the inventory is updated each night/morning. I found a post from a couple years ago but I didn't find anything more definitive or recent.

"I did some more experimentation last night but I fell asleep for a couple of hours in the middle of my testing so I didn't get the definitive answer. The awards were not loaded by midnight pacific time. The new awards were active sometime before 3 AM pacific. So, I'm thinking they load on the hour and that this means that the awards would have been loaded either at 1 AM pacific (4 AM eastern) or 2 AM pacific (5 AM eastern). I'll try to confirm this another night."

sterlingice

I'm curious for the answer about the above, too. I'm looking to do a non-stop flight IAH-ANC next September. Is there any hope to even getting this?

SI

WineCountryUA

A general caution that can be seen from a review of this thread is award availability is not on a rigid, regular schedule.