OTADeals

Hello FlyExperts out there,
I'm planing our honeymoon trip to Europe in May,2104. I want to max my miles thus I add 1 stopover, 1 open jaw and 1 layover into my itinerary. However United.com gave error. Please help or give me best advice to adjust my itinerary.


Here is my itinerary at this moment (# day can be adjusted):

Leave: May-14
NYC---->Rome(Stopover for 4 days)--->London(Final Destination-Stay here for 7 days).

On cheap fights:
London--->Paris(7days)--->Barcelona(4 days) *Note: This is an open jaw.

Return:
Barcelona--->Venice(Layover within 24 hrs)--->NYC

Please give me advices what is wrong with my itinerary?



This is error I got:
Error

! We were not able to find any available flights for award travel meeting your requirements. You may modify your search criteria or review the MileagePlus Travel Award Rules. If you need additional assistance, call 1-800-UNITED-1 (1-800-864-8331) within the U.S. or Canada; elsewhere contact your local United Reservations Office."

mherdeg

This itinerary may be a bit too complex to book online; you may need to call Reservations and book this trip. UA's Web site does a bad job of showing you flight options for some complicated combinations of segments which, individually, have availability.

You can probably book the "frame" of your itinerary online as a multicity search
NYC-FCO,
FCO-LON,
BCN-NYC

(which should price as a round trip — with a stopover on the outbound, and a single open jaw)

then call and change to your desired routing BCN-NYC thru VCE.

I'm assuming you don't have frequent-flyer status which gets you waived award booking fees. I hear that UA agents sometimes waive the phone booking fee if you call and say that you were unable to get the Web site to price it out.

UA-NYC

When you say "cheap flights", I'm assuming those are just flights you're buying separately

Regardless, have to call it in

appenzeller

routing seems legal to me but can only be booked by phone

Enjoy your honeymoon

Alpha Golf

For London-Paris, you might want to check into Eurostar (the train). With the inconvenience of airports at both ends (most - LCY is OK), it's a pretty good option.

OTADeals

Thank you so much for your advices. I thought I did something wrong. The answer is call in.

I have Chase MileagePlus, does it help with the award booking fee? ( Sorry I'm new to this)

Also, what are things I need to do for upgrade later on if I want. Again I want to max my miles value. Thank you.

PS: My miles are very limited
United: 200K miles
CSP: 70K miles
Amex Gold: 80K miles
Marriott: 100K points

Does Eurostar cost more than easyjet? I checked the ticket only cost me around 50 USD from London to Paris.

ajGoes

It's also a much nicer trip.

The fare on Eurostar will be more than that, though you may get a good deal booking this far in advance. But Eurostar gets you directly from St. Pancras Station to the Gare du Nord, saving you transport to and from airports. The total time in transit will be similar. And it's the kind of trip I'd want to take on a honeymoon, as opposed to an EasyJet trip which I'd rather avoid at any time. (I've flown EasyJet and it wasn't all that bad, but you can't beat a fast train.)

OTADeals

I meant the easyjet ticket costs only around $50. Thank you for your advices

We will take the train from London to Paris to feel the speed of the fast train . For Paris to Barcelona, I think we will do easyjet to save money.

milepig

Based on my "exhaustive" check of one random date, Iberia is offering a one-way fare from ORLY-BNC for $75. For this short flight, how bad can they be...?

callum9999

Eurostar seems to be about $60. It will get you from Central London to Central Paris quicker than Easyjet however - particularly as the fare you found seems to be from London Luton, which is quite out of the way (many people argue over whether it should even be allowed to be called a London airport!). I don't know if you included it, but Easyjet will charge $18 per bag whereas it's free on Eurostar.

OTADeals

Is that $18 fee also applied for carry on? I could find any other best way to travel from Paris to Barcelona. Thus at this moment, EasyJet is only way for me to travel Barcelona.

milepig

According to ITA as mentioned in my earlier post, I was finding one-way fares for as little as $75. I just checked for all of May, and depending on the day you can fly either Air France or Iberia on this route for as little as $65.

I think this link will work:

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/view/c...5-87eb8fbfafda