rogue4jc

Sorry, but I've never used my points before. My question is can I use my mileage points on Expedia?
I have approximately 50,000 points from my mileage plus CC and I so happen found a route in Expedia that is a UA flight that codeshares with Trans state and Nippon Airways.

It's STL-IAD-NRT

Also anyone here been to Dulles airport? is that an atlantic flight or a pacific one?

Sorry for all these question I'm a newbie.

Thanks

sammyindc

Can't use UA miles on expedia but should be able to find the same or similar route on the UA website.

IAD-NRT is transpacific.

mdobbins

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

Your questions are not stupid; we all start from zero!

You cannot use your miles on Expedia. You'll need to go to united.com and log in to your MileagePlus account. Search using "award space" for the same route you found on Expedia. Please be aware that awards may not be available for the route you desire.

DHalltheway

Your points will take some time to transfer from your cc to your account too.

BTW, there is a sticky for newbie questions, it maybe better to ask there in the future to avoid flaming.

RandomBaritone

Just to clarify (or confuse!), OP mentioned that the miles were coming from a "mileage plus CC," so they're probably already UA miles. If so, there won't be any transfer involved.

If they're some other type of credit card points, of course your comment is right on target, but I got the sense they were UA miles, despite being called "points."

goodeats21

M+ credit cards dump the miles each month into the cardholders M+ account, so no need to worry about transferring.

rogue4jc

ok thank you to all who responded! I guess my followup would be can United match the fare I found on Expedia? do pricematching work in the airline industry ? LOL

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)



If you want to redeem your UA miles for an award ticket, why do you care about the price of a cash ticket?

The prices you find on united.com are the prices UA charges. I'm not sure if UA offers a "best-price guarantee," but if it does, I'm sure that such a guarantee would be displayed on united.com -- subject to terms and conditions, of course.

noah

I think you are confusing a few things.

1) You can *earn* UA points on a ticket purchased on Expedia.
2) You can *use* UA points on an award ticket -- but you need to do that on the United website.

From the sounds of it, you've found an itinerary STL-IAD-NRT on Expedia, and are wondering if you can *earn* United points by taking that flight. Yes, you can, it is based on the cost of the ticket.

Hopefully this helps and welcome to FT!

TerryK

What fare are you talking about if using miles? Expedia doesn't showing mileage fares.

rogue4jc

Yikes! I'm also confuse now..
ok here's the deal.. the fare on Expedia for that particular route is about $100 cheaper than on UA website.
so I have basically 2 options right? Buy the Expedia one using my Mileage Plus CC and hopefully get some miles from that purchase.

Option 2. Use my exisiting miles to buy the UA one even though it's more expensive. The problem is how do I know if my exisiting miles cover the UA flight?

How do I determine which is a 'better' deal in terms of a combination of miles and actual $$ spent?

hope that make sense.. or not LOL

IADFlyer123

You are confusing two completely different options. If you find a fare on United that is more expensive than Expedia on the same day, yes you can call them to see if they would refund you the difference. This is in terms of the ticket bought using money and not the 50000 miles you speak of.

The mileage option is a completely different option that is only valid via United.com as they are united miles. If you have the money and would like to earn more miles, buy the money ticket. If you do not have money and would like to use the miles, remember that each united mile is about 2c, so your ticket has to be more than $1000. If yes, and you dont have enough cash, use the miles. It also depends on whether there are award seats available on the date you are looking to fly. Easiest thing would be to call reservations and tell them that you need to book an award ticket to NRT on ta certain date and see if they can give you whether seats are available. This will cost you $25 phone booking fee.

You cannot combine cash and money!

rogue4jc

Thanks IAD.. although I don't understand the above. The ticket for both Expedia and UA is less than $1K.

Assuming I can afford the Expedia option would that be a better bet? How many airline miles do I earn flying from STL to NRT? anyone knows per chance?

IADFlyer123

2cents per mile is the approximate worth of a United mile. So the 50,000 miles that you got as a bonus from Chase are worth $1,000. So, if your ticket costs less than $1,000, you can just buy the cash ticket. If you book through expedia, if all the flights are United flights and not All Nippon Airways (ANA), your ticket will be issued by United. If there is a ANA flight, you could have a ticket issued by ANA.

This is for the airlines mile question - The importance of what company/ airline issues the ticket is to determine how many miles you will earn. For example, you have a $800 united ticket base price, based on your United status, you will either earn x5/x7/x8/x9/x11 times the base ticket cost in redeemable miles. You will also earn ~$800 in Premier Qualifying $ attributed and approx 16000 status miles. All details for this are listed on http://mileageplusupdates.com/

As far as your question about which option is better, everyone will tell you what suits you the best, cost wise, experience wise etc.

rogue4jc

Gawd! I looked at UA's website and now I'm even more confused! I have NO IDEA how much miles is required to go to Asia. WTH is a Saver's award? .
What does all this mean? So it is going to required 40K miles or 170K miles to purchase my ticket?

Economy Class
40,000 One-way Saver Award
80,000 Roundtrip Saver Award
85,000 One-way Standard Award
170,000 Roundtrip Standard Award