United R/T Award + free one way
 

I have a US - Asia trip that I have ticketed as one-way using miles. I wanted to book the R/T but due to lack of miles I was not able to do it. I recently understood the "free one way" on united awards.

I am planning to book the other one-way now (with miles) and wanted to utilize the free one way with UA. Not sure how to proceed.

Should I reserve the one-way & then call UA for combining these?

Will I have to cancel the one-way & then book the entire trip again?
Any other options?

Can you elaborate? Not sure I understand the free one way.

UA R/T award has one feature for Open jaw & stopovers. Eg - LAX - DOH & DXB - LAX. In this case I can add one free one-way from LAX - SFO with the same miles as R/T award. (http://milevalue.com/how-to-book-fre...ited-airlines/) So my question is related to this.

I haven't encountered your situation-- having a oneway booked, but wanting it to be a roundtrip to unlock the open jaws and stopover that are necessary for the free oneway.

I don't have an answer about whether United will let you book another oneway, then combine them into a roundtrip, then let you add a free oneway. I would think they would make you cancel your oneway at a cost of $150. Probably not worth it for a oneway LAX-SFO.

For anyone who missed my post in this forum about free oneways. It is apparently now post #7 in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ard-miles.html

You'll need to cancel and rebook - but make sure there's availability all the way first!

There's no stopovers allowed on one-way awards, only on returns, so there's no way to book it as a one-way.

Remember, this isn't a "free one way" - it's an open-jaw return trip with a stopover. Start calling it a "free one way" to United and you're going to lose them very quickly.

Sure. But how about SFO-JFK in p.s. business like my upcoming "free" trip... :)

Yeah SFO-JFK in p.s. biz is a great use, as is a oneway to Hawaii for only 2,500 extra miles on a European award! I was just commenting that OP should probably wait until next trip to take advantage of a free oneway, since cancelling for $150 is not worth it to add LAX-SFO.

By the way, I made a youtube video of how to book these free oneways in case anyone is unaware: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aj4k4AF5x4

And I agree that there's no point in calling them free oneways when talking to agents. Though I also wouldn't say open jaw with a stopover. I just name my flight numbers and dates without using jargon.

Who came up with the phrase "free one-way" to encourage people to start using the free stopover allowed on intl round-trip awards?

It's catchy. It's also a little worrying, as whenever "great deals" start getting mainstream they start vanishing (e.g. Yapta price decrease alerts).

Its the blogger from the post above - didnt really come up with it - its been that way forever - but the blogger decided to encourage abuse of this rule. :mad:

Does not realize his 15 minutes of fame is gonna cost permanent damage.

Did the blogger ever say one-way?

That's the OP - snatching at something, since he just read it and wanted to exploit it quickly.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ard-miles.html

Yes, post #7 - while advertising his blog.

Ugh. I see.