findark

A 16-seat lie-flat F cabin and a monopoly on the city pair.. I think you would have to get extraordinarily lucky to find saver F.

flyguy6

Good advice thanks. Even looking at booking via cash with in advance Chase UR points from my CSR I am showing a rt tip cost of 104k UR points. That is a much better deal than 190k United miles rt for First Everyday awards. Or maybe if I'm get lucky I will get some more vouchers to cover this

I'll have to see if there are any better airline point options.

Kacee

Since that is based on a cash ticket price, it just reiterates that these are "buy F" routes.

good luck with that. Everyone wants to use miles to fly to Hawaii.

nick030

Hi,

I have been trying to plan a trip to Asia for my family, and we decided to use my United miles to purchase business saver tickets. We are looking at travel dates in the middle of March. After months of searching with no availability, I realized that it was going to be very difficult to get 4 business saver tickets on the same flight, particularly on a weekend. So after we noticed that we could get 4 tickets on SWISS on a Monday night, we decided to shift our vacation back by a few days.

My searches consistently showed 4 available seats in business saver (I) on LX19 + LX180 for a EWR/ZRH/BKK routing, leaving EWR on March 18. Unfortunately, our miles were split across two accounts. I had sufficient miles in my account to book three tickets, but we had to use my wife's account for the fourth one. After finishing the booking of the first tickets, I immediately switched to my wife's account in order to book the last ticket. Unfortunately though, the business saver award was no longer available, as if my purchase of the three tickets had triggered some kind of reset of available business saver tickets. That was four days ago, and the fare is still not available, not even as an everyday award.

Strangely, the LX19 segment appears in the United app on some two-stop itineraries for a business saver fare, and the LX180 leg appears in other combinations as well - just never together.

Any advice on what to do about this?
1) Since both legs seem to be available in some other combinations, is there a special way to get this pieced together on the phone? I tried once, but was not successful (I was told we see more online than they see in their system).
2) Should I just wait, since we are still 6 months out?

Any feedback is appreciated.

Thank you.
Nick.

findark

It's unlikely, but it's definitely worth calling to see if you can get it to happen. Married segment control on LH Group awards is a finicky thing.

There's a good chance things will just work out anyway, but I would try to proactively take care of this now if you can.

nick030

WineCountryUA

There are thousands of potential phone agents -- and no way to ask for a specific agent.

Agents have limited ability to book something you don't see -- they see pretty much the same as what you see. And they are especially limited when coming to partner award space.

If worth calling but would have very low expectations.

John A Adams

I am trying to get an International trip to any major European city planned for Early Dec time using miles to "buy" a seat

Looking at the flights EWR->AMS the only award showing inBF is a 155k each way seat = 310K miles. There are lots of economy seats at around 30k each way. All cabins are all showing very few seats taken at this time for these flights but there are no seats on any flight allocated to Business Saver awards. There are some partner airlines showing at 70k miles - but no UA flights.

My conclusion is that the revenue management team are holding back on any Business saver awards. The same exists for direct flights to European cities like LHR, VIE, MIL, DUB, BRU, CDG

Does anyone here know when Business Saver Awards are usually released?? Or is this a new strategy by UA on managing ticket pricing.

glbltvlr

That's been my experience for at least a year. UA seems to have found the sweet spot (from their perspective) for US - EU business class seats and are selling almost every one. The cheapest fares are at least $1K higher than they have been in the past. They don't seem to have any incentive to want to give up revenue seats for miles and a pittance.

John A Adams

Yes that is how it seems.

And as far as buying an economy fare:

Basic fare $1500 - + 40 k miles each way (80k) + $1100 Copay

So much for the "loyalty" program and folks like me who have earnt miles/rewards that are now effectively useless.

BullishGS

UA usually blocks saver inventory for long haul flights that are more than a couple of months ahead. They'll release saver space up to the time of departure if there are enough seats, and that's to be determined by the revenue team. Keep in mind that UA also implemented "everyday award", which will most likely be the more pricey option. Also, BF is now marketed as Polaris

seanp7

Yeah BF = Polaris. (Thank goodness they got rid of the awful 'BusinessFirst' name).

As stated above, people seem to be paying more for these seats than in worse times, so Saver Awards can be tougher to find. Be sure to try other NYC airports in your search (eg. JFK) and you may find LH saver awards (with a connection). If you have the miles, you can also try for an F saver award on LH at T-14 (110,000 each way, beats Everyday Business @ 155,000 and is an outstanding experience).

Kacee

This is not something new. Saver J long-haul award space has been difficult for years. It's true on virtually all carriers. The basic answer is check everyday and you may get lucky.

Nonsense. UA doesn't "block" anything. Award releases are simply not predictable. They may make an initial release many months in advance and then release more later. Or they may only release within a week or two of departure. Or they may never release.

zrs70

Sorry - I lose empathy when posters go down this road. While often hard to find, awards are there and the program isn't useless. OP - you are about two months away from your travel window. When did you start looking for the awards?



__________________________________________________ __________________
I am willing to bet that if I go to UAL.com right now, I will find something in your window.... (As did you, according to your post). My question is, why DON'T you want the *A options?

Wow - there it is on my first try. All week Dec 1-7 EWR-LIS-AMS on TP or EWR-VIE-AMS on OS.

cesco.g

Looking at OPs travel early December there should be a decent chance that some business class awards on UA or one of its numerous *Staralliance partners will show up - more so, with some date flexibility, e.g. weekdays vs.weekend.
OP as a 1K can redeposit and rebook free of charge.