goodtasting

thanks for the advice and input! your statement about visiting any region twice being the key consideration for potential for the excursionist perk really made me understand the concept better!

based on what you said, it sounds like i'll be looking at:

1. SIN->HNL + GRU->SIN as one award ticket with a free 1-way somewhere in between. This will be my most flexible award since it'll be at the start/end of the Singapore segment, so I'll have to see where in between I can get the most value out of it, whether it's for travel within Europe or Central/South America.
2. Looks like it might make sense to integrate my North Africa travels with my Europe travels (currently the two are split between a wedding in SAN), and go with ATH->CAI + RAK->BCN and I'll get CAI->RAK for free. Not possible as danielm rightfully pointed out since CAI and RAK are two separate regions.
3. For the Japan trip, I'm actually looking at doing something of a road trip, so I might be able to do SIN->KMI (Miyazaki at the south) + CTS (Chitose at the north)->SIN and then throw in a free 1-way somewhere in there, as well!

Yeah, I'm really planning this a bit last minute, so hopefully the availability is there when I need it. I'm hoping I'll have some luck since I'm flying economy and my schedule isn't that rigid.

By the way, can excursionist perks be rescheduled for free, assuming availability is there? Say, I book my SIN->HNL and GRU->SIN flight and then lock in the excursionist 1-way today. Could I change that from, say HEL->BCN to another region like JNB->CPT?

danielm

1) Is SAN-SFO so expensive that you'd like to use up a perk on that? If you have no other options, okay, but otherwise...Why not dig around and see if you can get a cheaper europe ticket from the east coast and use your perk to get there and see something?
2) Your africa segments are a great way to use the perk, but you can't use it like that. RAK and CAI are in completely different zones. Egypt is in the middle east. Instead, if you have flexibility in order, the cheapest way would be for you to fly europe to RAK on your own (that's cheap.) then get an award from RAK to anywhere in central/southern africa. Then use the perk within central/southern, and then return to RAK/TUN/Canaries. Alternatively, fly budget to RAK, then get a flight (about $300) to CAI, do your thing, then either fly to TUN to start a UA award with perk, or start/end in Cairo.

jsloan

Happy to help! Yes, economy availability does tend to be better than business availability, but it's still not always great.

Changes are tricky. First of all, the cost will be based on your status -- from $0 for a 1K to US$125 (per person, per itinerary) for a general member within 60 days of travel. Second, if there are any partner flights on your reservation, you will likely need current availability on those legs in order to make a change -- the system acts as though it's creating a new reservation and then dropping the old one. UA-operated legs aren't a problem, because the inventory can be held / forced open as necessary.

There's nothing in the rules that would prohibit changing the excursionist perk region. If you do it before you begin your trip, I can't imagine an issue other than some agent being confused by the request. I don't know if there have been any reports of people attempting to change the region after travel commences. I can come up with a couple of reasons that it might fail, but they're pure speculation on my part. I'd be curious if anyone has any experience.

Agree with #1. For #3 , what you stated is perfectly fine as written, but I wanted to point out that even if you end up flying back and forth from Tokyo, you can still use the perk: SIN-NRT / KMI-CTS / NRT-SIN is valid also.

For #2, danielm is correct. Here's the list of regions: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/app...ofregions.aspx . CAI-RAK cannot be a free flight -- I missed that at first.
Sounds like fun :-) ^

goodtasting

Thanks for the reply!

I'm still very new to the excursionist perk so I was literally looking for any way that I would be able to use it.

Are you saying I could do something like below:

1. UA Award: Europe->SAN
2. [separate ticket] SAN->SFO
3. Excursionist perk: SFO-> NYC
4. UA Award return: NYC->Europe

I didn't even consider something like this, so that's a cool idea - would give us a chance to visit some friends in another part of the US!

Thanks for pointing out my careless error in putting RAK and CAI together. Okay, just so I'm clear, your first and second options could work like something below?

Origin zone = Northern Africa

1. Get to RAK via my own ticket
2. Start UA award: RAK->JNB
3. JNB->DAR (Tanzania) <-- Free ticket
4. DAR->TUN (or anywhere in the Northern Africa zone)

Origin zone = Middle East

1. Get to RAK via my own ticket
2. Get to CAI via my own ticket
3. Start UA award: CAI->JNB
4. JNB->DAR <-- free ticket
5. DAR->CAI or anywhere in the middle east

jsloan

Either of these should work; if you have enough miles, you can do both:

1 - Get to RAK
2 - UA itinerary A, origin North Africa, RAK-CAI
3 - UA itinerary B, origin Middle East, CAI-JNB
4 - UA itinerary A, free flight, JNB-DAR
5 - UA itinerary B, free flight, DAR-MRU
6 - UA itinerary A, destination North Africa, MRU-TUN
7 - UA itinerary B, destination Middle East, TUN-DXB

goodtasting

My brain may have just exploded a bit. I'm still trying to wrap my head around routes like yours above, but it's definitely a lot more helpful when I read about it in the context of what I am trying to do compared to the blog entries that I pored through! I'll have to go back into hibernation for a bit, study my routes and possibilities with the generous advice you guys have shared, and then see what else I can come up with!

And thanks for the advice above on the flight changes! I wanted to eat least book my first/return leg so I was wondering what might happen if I needed to adjust the excursionist perk 1-way that happens in between, but I'll see if I can work within it. I'll have to review all of the miles I noted down from searching awardhacker as well to see whether the routes via United are still worth it with the excursionist perk compared to AA or Delta too, I suppose.

I think you guys have given me more than enough food for thought, so thank you very much!

danielm

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. But, if the order of the cities doesn't matter, there's another way of doing this. Many, if not most, of your flights from DAR-TUN/RAK will route via CAI. So you could actually book RAK-JNB-DAR-(CAI)-TUN on a single award, but just exist at CAI (you can finagle an overnight layover in CAI and thus get your bag checked through to there if you have it.) This is the cheapest way in terms of miles (35k in Y).

Alternatively, if you're trying to get around the world, you can start in CAI, do your trip, and then end elsewhere in the middle east, say, Dubai, and be in position for your next flight. Starting from CAI will run you 60k miles, though, so to my mind, its far more worth it to just do an award starting in RAK and then hop off in CAI (from CPT/JNB, you can often also route back to TUN via any number of European cities that are nice to jump off at.)

JSloans itinerary is great. I'd definitely try and work it out definitively, as changes can be really hard. With so many pieces, and shifting availability, you may really struggle to get it changed later.

Also, and this is just me...when I use these perks, I love to use them to cities that would be wildly more expensive to go to on a Rev ticket. If you can think of one, you might want to throw it in...something like TMS or LLW or something.

And lastly, take advantage of ET's layover policy. If you have a long layover you get a hotel and a visa. A great way to rest up, see a new city for free, and also get a night's sleep covered within your already free award ticket.

InterPlace55

Well, here's a datapoint for all y'all with the same reservation I had documented problems on here. I was able to add the morning RGN-BKK flight on TG on business with relative ease on top of my BKK-CDG-FRA-IAD-CVG reservation made all the way back in February. The computer didn't complain that there wasn't any BKK-CDG business award seats there and all that was needed was a couple of long holds. Once there, went to TG and LH sites to confirm booking was confirmed and was able to select seats.

Though cause of the documented problems, I booked the single flight as award economy from UA the other day cause of those fears, but swiftly canceled once they were able to make the change. $50 fee for each change but go being Premier Plat and my AmEx Fee Credit being on UA.

beerandcheese

Seeking advice: Looking to redeem miles for PEK-WAS in J. I’ve found Saver availability on all the legs I’m looking for PEK-TPE-ORD-IAD/DCA on BR on the same day. Can’t find this itinerary on UA.com (plenty of other options though - CA, AC, OZ). Called premier desk and agent could only peice this itinerary as multi-city for 112.5k vs 80k as one-way fare. What to do next?

fumje

Welcome to flyertalk! (kind of—or more accurately congratulations on post 1 )

Unfortunately the only options I see are keep searching or (not great idea) keep calling. It's been reported that some agents know how / are willing to manually construct an itinerary if there is appropriate inventory on each piece, but for the most part they get the same search results you do. In some—very few—cases I have gotten desirable results by permuting the multi-city search (search PEK-ORD/ORD-WAS, PEK-TPE/TPE-WAS), but 99% of the time it comes back as a sum of one-ways.

Do you have a strong preference for BR? Given that you're originating in PEK and not connecting there, the other options don't seem terrible.

beerandcheese

fumje

Just a note that I wouldn't be super hopeful about getting an agent who can do it. There might even be only one. (Hyperbole, perhaps, but only slight I think.) My understanding is that there has been pretty clear direction given that agents should not be doing things the old way.

Side-note: I will say that CA hard and soft product I feel are just fine, and novel enough if you're used to UA that they make the trip enjoyable, but there is the legacy of mysteriously cancelled awards to keep in mind. I also see ET showing up in some miscellaneous searches, if you don't mind going the long way (although it's not much longer than routing via TPE!).

PsiFighter37

Any idea within what timeframe TG might release O availability on BKK-NRT on their A380 flight? I'm currently booked in J, but I'd love to fly F if I could...but with O1 and 2 travelers, that's a no-go right now. The tricky thing is we are flying MEL-BKK on the same PNR, so I won't be able to change the itinerary if that first leg has availability disappear first. We are traveling in late December, FWIW.

blueman2

Anyone know if LH tends to release award space WITHIN T-24 from departure?? I was able to get one seat for my wife the day before departure, but not a second one for me. It is now within T-24 and I was not sure if LH would do any further award releases in that timeframe. I see 3 seats open for sale in F which I am trying to get.

amolkold

Just a surprisingly good data point -- was booked on PNQ-FRA-ORD-PIT with the FRA-ORD segment in LH F on the later LH432 flight giving me the day in Frankfurt. PNQ-FRA doesn't have F and I was waiting for another segment from India to open up so I wouldn't be using 140K miles for 1 segments. Ended up trying to change it to PNQ-DEL-FRA-ORD-PIT with new availability on PNQ-DEL on AI and DEL-FRA on LH. The agent could only find it with the early LH430 FRA-ORD flight, which would have left me just 2 hours in the FCT and a 9 hour layover in Chicago. There was no more availability on the later FRA-ORD flight and she said the "computer has to show it's a valid routing." I mentioned that the computer obviously shows the routing as valid, it's just that there's no more seats available on the later FRA-ORD flight I want and it's forcing me on the earlier flight.

She put me hold for about 10 minutes to talk to special services (or whatever) and came back and explained she was able to keep my later FRA-ORD flight and add the PNQ-DEL-FRA segments in F. Don't know if Premier Silver status helped, but seems they are willing to listen to reason!

Best part was that despite the $100 change fee, I somehow got $61 back in taxes, so only a $39 net change! Have already flown this FRA-ORD flight on the 748 (it's the late departure so you have plenty of time to do a Porsche rental and enjoy the FCT) but will be my first time on the LH A380 from DEL.