Looking taking our first trip with miles...
 

We are looking at taking our first trip with miles, I see that there are Saver Award and Standard award.

Is there any way to specifically search for Saver Award???

we are looking at heading from
WAS-SHA
BKK-Was

we plan on flying from SHA to HKG from HKG to BKK (total for both of us would only be $540, so we thought we'd spend that and save some miles)

Best Ive seen is about 195k miles and $120 in taxes and fees.

We are flexible with dates and would like to find them for Saver Awards. The search dates we were currently looking at were including Labor day (Sept 1) so its one less PTO day, but when we looked in middle of May we were found flight from WAS to HKK and BKK to WAS for 130k miles. (We know its different then flying to shanghai) The good thing was, I was able to pick Saver award or Standard Award, I obviously picked the Saver which is odd. (We are just looking for Saver Award if possible, if not thats fine. as long as one is saver award and doesnt add multiple layovers and hours)

We are 110% fine flying economy.


Thank you so much for the help.

Washington D.C to Shanghai should only be 32,500 miles on UA one-way. BKK will cost you more because UA is d/c service there and it will put you on a star alliance partner which will cost a lot more miles than UA. BTW based on my search there is nothing in may or june.

When you search, the calendar on the top will show you saver availability based on the colors the day is lighted up on. Yellow days are the days with availability. There's a key just in case you were wondering.

http://i.imgur.com/qjfpMFDl.png

here are multiple options for WAS-SHA for 32k miles on July 7th
http://i.imgur.com/sNhTm8el.png

Thank you, yeah, we've been looking at the Calenders, but I rarely see Blue as a color for a day, I need to click on the yellow and every now and then, Ill find a few Blue Savers.

Ill do more research and narrow down the weeks we will travel and report back, I appreciate the point in the right direction, only playing the point game, finally about to use my IHG/Hilton/United points I've been getting.

Welcome to FT and congrats on getting to use your miles. A few comments:

1) If you book this before February 1, it will be fewer miles, so get on it.
2) You are allowed to both open-jaw and stopover, so you should be able to hit multiple cities (i.e. Washington to Shanghai, open-jaw to Hong Kong, then HKG-Bangkok for a stopover and then home from there) which should cut down the other costs
3) As others have posted, if you can find availability (and it should not be too hard) it will be 65K each = 130K total. If you have more miles to spend, consider a business class award
4) Do not (fully) trust the calendar on United.com. Partner dates especially may still be available even if it shows white. Click on the date and see what is there -- you may be surprised.
5) Search each segment separately -- even from WAS to BKK you might try searching from WAS to SFO and then from SFO to PVG (shanghai) or from WAS to FRA and FRA to PVG. Once you find segments that are available you can build your trip from there; you may need to call an agent to actually book it rather than do it online. If you do call, ask to get the service fee waived since you tried unsuccessfully to book online.
6) While you can still book partner awards at the same cost, many here would advise you to look at alternatives to United. For example, United has no seat-back entertainment in economy on the 747, which you'll likely see heading to PVG. Given this, consider a partner. I took a quick look at availability in late August from WAS to PVG and found decent availability on Air Canada via Toronto. I also saw some availability on Austrian via Vienna and SAS via Copenhagen.
7) You can "stopover" for 24 hours somewhere -- so for example you could fly Washington-Vienna, stop for a day, then onto Shanghai.

Good luck!

Blue means there are no Saver Economy seats, but just because it's yellow doesn't mean there's no Saver First/Business.

Correction in bold. Officially, the max layover that doesn't count as a stopver is 23:59.

Interesting; I got 24 hours (13:30 one day until 13:30 the next day) as a stopover recently. Maybe they let that 1 minute slide...

So ive read up quite a bit about open jaw and stopovers.

Trip 1
WAS-PVG
SHA (other shanghai airport)- HKG
BKK-WAS

this seems like a Stop over and 1 Open Jaw (Correct?)
Total miles 195k for both of us.
we also pay for the flight from HKG-BKK (total- $230)

then I looked it up apart
Trip 2
1st Part - 65k Miles
WAS-PVG
2nd Part - 95k Miles
PVG-HKG
HKG-BKK
BKK-WAS

Same Dates Different times, this way I would save on the Cost of flights from Trip 1 which would have been from HKG-BKK (Total $230) and I also save 30k Miles.

is this how people usually do it?? Am I getting a better hang of it??

Trip dates were from
August 29th - Sept 6th (I know its short, Im just doing a practice run for itinerary booking purposes)

It should be 65K each way; its adding in 30K each there. That should not be happening.

An agent should be able to help you, but you don't want to book HKG-BKK (that may be why it is adding it on) you want to pay that on a low cost carrier and book
WAS-PVG
SHA-HKG
BKK-WAS

I expect there will be more savers after feb 1, when they charge more

I book them like you said, flight from WAS to PVG that was 65k miles
then I did
SHA to HKG
BKK to WAS
and total was 95k miles, I guess I just cant fly back for the same 65k I am flying there, but I would have thought SHA to HKG and BKK to WAS would have been an open jaw flight. Maybe calling would be the best way, any specific number to call, and are they able to run the account without all the miles necessary in the account, I am waiting for UR to post then transferring to United.


Im also hoping for that as well, cause I will not be able to book before Feb 1st. waiting to have points post then transferred to United.