zitsky

OK, got it. Perfectly fine. I'll make sure to check and double check.

GUM_elite

I want to book a GUM-SYD-GUM award ticket. The routing options always put me through some Asian city on the way to SYD, and usually it involves two stops. For example, GUM-NRT-BKK-SYD. It's very rare to get a non-stop out of Japan on NH. If my routing is as I described earlier, GUM-(japan)-BKK-SYD----->GUM, can I use the excursionist perk to get a few days in BKK on the way to SYD? It doesn't price out correctly online. I suppose it's because I am traveling through three regions. It doesn't seem unreasonable to get a stopover on an itinerary like this. Do you think a stay in BKK can be done over the phone if I call within 24h post-booking?

mduell

No, not anymore. They really killed the perk with the new watered down thing and arbitrary opaque combined availability.

jsloan

No. It's reasonable, but it's not within the rules. To get an Excursionist Perk, your free flight (don't think of it as a free stopover) must be inside a single region, which can't be your origin, and the itinerary has to begin and end in the same region.

So, you could get a free SYD-AKL flight. Or, a free SIN-HKG flight, but you'd have to get yourself to SIN after you arrive in SYD. But you can't get a free BKK-SYD flight.

tnkngn

Hi all,

I have a question regarding an award booking I need to make today.
I have a business meeting in Bangkok tomorrow and another one in Jakarta the day after. So I need to fly SIN-BKK tomorrow morning (I am SIN based), then BKK-CGK the day after. Award space is available on both legs.

Now to my question - arrival to and departure from Bangkok are within 24 hours of each other, so I thought the award cost should be 25000 points in biz class.
However when going through the booking at United.com it ends up being 50.000 points. Is this correct?

jsloan

Yes -- sort of. UA no longer has the "24 hour" rule. If your flights don't show on a search from origin to destination, you're charged the point-to-point rate for each flight.

If you can get the flights you want to appear on a SIN-CGK search, you can book them for 25K. If it requires multi-city search, it becomes 50K.

Kacee

Has anyone tried calling to change to the later flight after flying the first segment? That might work in this scenario.

barnold

How can the excursionist perk be of benefit if United will only allow you to fly from one European city to another city in a region but doesn't allow you to stay in either city for any time? EX. I would like to travel roundtrip or multi-city from the USA to Manila with a layover in Europe using my Award miles. (That trip requires 80,000 miles.) There is a United flight option that offers that route and I was told that I could add a "free flight" to another city in Europe. However, if I use that option and attempt to stay in the second European city for more that a few hours I am charged an additional 50,000 miles to continue my flight. WHY? How can it be considered a "perk" just to fly to another location in a region if you can't spend any time in that location?

NoLaGent

It sounds like you're violating the Excursionist Perk rules by trying force a stopover in the 2nd Region (we'll call that Region B) before continuing on to Manila (we'll call that Region C) instead of continuing back to the US (we'll call this Region A).

The E.P. rules are quite clear on what's allowed and if you follow them, you'll see that the E.P. is not defined by time of stay. These rules were changed in 2016, so you may not be familiar with them:

MileagePlus Updates - Booking award flights

aacharya

You are misunderstanding the Excursionist perk. In addition to the above link this forum has a whole long thread on it.

LangerhansCellHistiocytosis

The excursionist perk gives you a free flight in the region of your destination. I don’t believe Manila is in the same region as Europe.

jsloan

This isn't true at all. The Excursionist Perk can be in any region besides the one you're starting in. However, it has to be within that region. It's not technically necessary to have any interregional travel on the itinerary at all, although that's outside the bounds of what they intended and will probably be clawed back in their next update.

The old policy would have allowed a stopover in Europe on a RT USA-Manila flight (although there was a transfer limit that made it difficult to use in practice unless you wanted to use it at a *A hub). The new policy does not.

Valid uses of the Excursionist Perk (using SFO as a starting point as an example; it can be anywhere, as long as you return to the region where you're starting):

SFO-NRT-MNL / MNL-BKK / BKK-NRT-SFO (MNL-BKK is free)
SFO-NRT-MNL / FRA-LHR / SIN-SFO (FRA-LHR is free, but you have to get yourself to FRA and from LHR)
SFO-NRT-MNL / MNL-SIN / MNL-NRT-SFO (MNL-SIN is free)
SFO-NRT-MNL / HKG-SIN / CGK-NRT-EWR (HKG-SIN is free; you just have to return to the same region, not the same city)
SFO-NRT-MNL / MNL-SIN / LAX-SFO (MNL-SIN is free; this abides by the letter, but not the spirit, of the rules, since the last segment is intraregional)

Invalid uses of the Excursionist Perk:
SFO-NRT-MNL / MNL-NRT / NRT-SFO (MNL & NRT are different regions)
SFO-NRT-MNL / LAX-SFO / MNL-NRT-SFO (Can't use the Excursionist Perk in the origin region)
SFO-NRT-MNL / MNL-SIN / SIN-NRT-MEX (Must begin and end in the same region; Mexico is its own region)
SFO-NRT-MNL / MNL-NRT-SFO / SFO-LAX (Can't use the Excursionist Perk in the origin region -- this is the infamous "free one way" that the old policy allowed and UA wanted to kill)
SFO-NRT-MNL / MNL-NRT-SFO / MNL-SIN (Must begin and end in the same region; the free segment must be between, time-wise, the outbound and return segments).

Hope this helps to clear things up.

barnold

How can the excursionist perk be of benefit if United will only allow you to fly from one European city to another city in a region but doesn't allow you to stay in either city for any time? EX. I would like to travel roundtrip or multi-city from the USA to Manila with a layover in Europe using my Award miles. (That trip requires 80,000 miles.) There is a United flight option that offers that route and I was told that I could add a "free flight" to another city in Europe. However, if I use that option and attempt to stay in the second European city for more that a few hours I am charged an additional 50,000 miles to continue my flight. WHY? How can it be considered a "perk" just to fly to another location in a region if you can't spend any time in that location?


So what is the most efficient use of miles for making this trip (USA to Manila through Germany) that will allow the additional Excursionist Perk? EXAMPLE: If I make a one way ticket from the USA to Munich, (Region A to Region B) a one way ticket from Munich to Manila ( Region B to Region C) a one way ticket from Manila back to USA (Region C back to Region A) will United allow an extra one-way flight in Germany (Region B?) Has anyone found the Excursionist perk to be of benefit when traveling between three regions and in the process returning to the original place that you started?

jsloan

If you book it as three one-way reservations, you will not be allowed any use of the Excursionist Perk. If you book it as a single, multi-city reservation, you will be allowed one free intra-regional flight in any region besides US/Canada.

Example:
SFO-FRA / FRA-LHR / LHR-VIE-BKK-MNL / MNL-NRT-SFO: FRA-LHR will be free, but you'll have to pay for the others.

If you only want to go through Europe in one direction, that's the most efficient use. If you want to go through Europe twice, there's another way to do it:

SFO-FRA / FRA-LHR* / FCO-FRA-SFO
LHR-VIE-BKK-MNL / MNL-SIN-CGK* / CGK-BKK-FCO

* free

This will get you two Excursionist Perks, but, of course, you'll have to pay 2x US-Europe plus 2x Europe-S. Asia.

barnold

EXAMPLE GIVEN by jsloan for claiming the Excursion Perk:
SFO-FRA / FRA-LHR / LHR-VIE-BKK-MNL / MNL-NRT-SFO: FRA-LHR will be free, but you'll have to pay for the others.

So why is this called a perk? How does it benefit a person to add another leg to his trip if he can't stay at either location? (In this example a person can't spend any time in Frankfort, Germany (FRA) or in London (LHR), but adding this FRA to LHR trip only extends his overall trip from San Francisco (SFO) to Manila (MNL).
From what I understand: If a person wants to qualify for the "perk" he needs to be in 3 regions and has to
(1) Begin and end the trip in the same place (Region A)
(2) can add a free short leg to their middle region but not stay in either location in the middle region without an exorbitant points fee
(3) fly from Region B to Region C on the same day he arrives in Region B.
(4) Return from Region C to Region A with no perk
This only multi-city plan with an "excursion perk" just extends a passenger's trip but offers no advantage. He would do better to fly round trip directly from Region A to Region B and home again.
Am I missing something in my understanding of the advantages of this "perk?"