Albert

I have been quite frustrated with trying to get saver awards from United for the past year. I'm just a cranky old man.

Is there any service I can pay or subscribe to find me two saver awards for next summer?

I'd love to get two business class seats from SFO to Amsterdam, Frankfurt or Brussels. I get really annoyed when I have to pay double for them

I was 1K for many years, now I mainly fly on the West Coast, so I am just gold on United.

aacharya

Your first issue is that you think Saver Awards open up 333 days in advance. That is when awards can be booked, not necessarily when the most availability is.

Your 2nd issue is that as a Gold, you are not considering the reduced fees for changing flights versus your "crankiness". So you could book SFO-EWR-FRA or any variant, and call in to waitlist on the direct.

Or book some in saver Y and some in saver C and waitlist for C.

Both options (and reading the "when are saver awards opened" in the master wiki) will save you $$ over a service.

Albert

I will read the post you suggest, thank you.

I think my crankiness is because I used to be 1K back in the early 2000's and United treated me very nicely. Now I seem to pay 50k for every domestic award in economy.

I was actually wondering if there is a third party I could pay to troll availability and let me know when something pops up that meets my criteria. I'd happily pay $100 per ticket.

craz

Ive been a 1K for the past 10 yrs and all I usually see is Standard and not Saver. The past few days Ive been able to change my flights making a 5+ hr layover into a 90 min 1 and getting Biz instead of Y and in 1 case get Saver from Standard only becuase its < 1 month for both trips, so everyone starts to open up their flights, except for UA who it seems waits till 1 week out or so, even when the flight isnt close to being full.

I think most places today will charge you just for looking and more if they actually find something. But if you dont have the patience for doing it (I happen to enjoy the hunt) I can understand wanting to pay for it

aacharya

I have the opposite experience. But I am not looking for Hawaii travel in Winter, Europe travel in Summer, or Spring Break travel to the Caribbean.

That plays a big part in Saver v. Standard.

MatthewLAX

Albert, I sent you a note via e-mail and PM.

snic

Try:

pointspros.com

upgrd.com/awards/

craz

Nor was I. I have a LGA-YYZ-XXX and the only thing available back in Nov for a 6/1 Outbound was in the morn then changed to 12:30pm finally the 2:30 flight opened the other day on AC and the next day F opened. Yesterday F opened for my YYZ-JFK return Im the 2nd person in the cabin, till now AC didnt even allow it as Standard (YYZ is not my final destination only connecting onward same day).

My end of June EWR-YUL-XXX-XX was no different except its in Saver Y, yesterday Biz opened up but Im not kean on using another 80K for 140K instead of the 60k in Y. Today LH and SK opened up but SK means leaving @ 6:20am from my destination as much as Id like 11 hrs down in CPH I passed. LH is in Y and Id rather walk then subject myself to LHs Y ever again, being 6'2" its no joke, so i kept my XXX-FRA-YUL-EWR as is for now.

My hope is for the return UA 91 FRA-EWR to open even in Saver Y, outbound cant use UA they arrive too late into FRA to catch my connecting flight.

Have you ever tried for JFK or EWR nonstop into LAX or SFO if anything is available in Saver its the 1st flight or last flight but most often nothing is available in Saver.

jerseygirl

Has anyone had success with either of these 2 services? Look like a really great deal if they come through, I am Weary!! Of ending time and not coming up with an ward or upgrade even though I have good flexibility to 1. Hawaii ewr HNL in January/February or 2. Europe in sept or October

Have not had this much trouble in past years : (

MatthewLAX

I run the UPGRD Award service linked to above ... I recently found a family of four tickets from IAD-HNL in Business on a 767-400 with lie-flats at the saver level...it is possible even in 2014.

But in all honestly, you don't need me to do this for you unless you just value your time more than I do and want to have somebody frequently check the award space so you don't have to worry about it. You can do it yourself by checking united.com multiple times throughout the day.

abaheti

I've used upgrd.com (Matthew) for complex bookings and when I just can't make the time to stay on the task and been quite satisfied. Sometimes having an expert's creativity (like for international itineraries) is just worth the price. Here is a list and discussion of various services: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...e-reviews.html

LaserSailor

If you take the view that you can buy them for 1/2 price by bring inflexible it feels much better

lazard

OP would have better luck searching for BF saver availability a couple days prior to departure rather than 333 days out.

aacharya

A random date of June 11th (I really picked it at random as two weeks from now) is open on quite a few flights. Yes, afterwards, there is very little available. But that's summer break.

Thunderroad

The Expert Flyer site used to offer a partial solution for UA, in that you could pop in specific flights, dates, classes of service and how many award or upgrade seats you're looking for, and it would email you if something popped up. Sadly, UA cut of EF access to its data last year. Yet another UA change we would supposedly like.

However, the site awardnexus.com offers a pretty good service by which you can plug in the routes (no need for the specific flight numbers), class of service, number of seats you're interested in, and it will email you if something becomes available. It searches on a daily basis. Its most basic service does not provide this - you just look on your own. But a more advanced version does the automated searches and emails I've described. I believe it is a cheaper option than the other services listed above, though I can't say whether it is more efficient.