racerx_

thanks been lurking for a while.

follow up question: would transferring miles from chase ultimate rewards would also only be award miles? (i'm assuming so just couldn't find it stated anywhere)

Aussienarelle

Correct

FlyingHighlander

I am new to booking award travel. Playing around with mock bookings and it seems that there's some kind of threshold where UA will let me purchase additional miles needed. In all cases it mentions I am X miles short, but sometimes it has the option to buy it (such as the example below), but other times it says I'm X miles short but there's no option at all to purchase them. Is there some kind of limit I'm unaware of?

Kacee

Who knows. Regardless, you can always buy more miles through award accelerator. Don't ever pay more than 2 cpm.

FlyingHighlander

The actual itinerary I want to book will be flown in May 2020. I'm not sure how many miles I'll earn naturally between now and booking. I'm currently working on figuring out if I should book ASAP (July 2019-ish?), or hold out until closer to the trip. Thanks for the tip on buying via award accelerator. Am I correct in thinking you can make an award accelerator purchase as part of a flight booking? I currently only have 1 shorthaul booking and it's offering me 2 options both for 2.5 cpm (see below). Are future bookings likely to offer a better rate?

Kacee

The general rule is if you see the award you want, book it. It could be gone in an hour. You can cancel for free for 24 hours.
Yes. You can book a ticket, buy the miles, then the cancel the ticket within 24 hours for free.
Yeah, you should be able to buy them for 2 cpm (which is what it looks like UA is offering you now in connection with the award booking).

Repooc17

You can also leverage credit card points. For example, certain Chase credit cards will allow you to transfer accumulated points into UA miles 1:1 (credit card to frequent loyalty program only; not the other way around, generally). Even if you don't have eligible Chase CCs, you still have a lot of time to accrue points/miles that way, given your planned travel dates. Take advantage of bonus points offering from those CCs, but read the terms carefully.

Good luck hunting!

FlyingHighlander

Yeah, I figured that would be most sensible. I'm looking to do an 18 day trip IAD-CPT-WHD-IAD. The CPT-WHD should be free via the excursionist perk. My only real requirement is lie flat saver business. On mock award bookings I see lots of Ethiopian Airlines and South African, which would be acceptable, however, theres much better options (eg UA and LH) if I pay cash. Two main questions right now are:
1. If I book the first available acceptable award itinerary, is it permitted to cancel and rebook if something more favorable appears later? Is that easily done, what with needing to use the same points? I wouldn't have spare points to even temporarily cover it.
2. I understand awards are priced one way, and that ideally I would book a return ticket all at once. However, if I need an 18 day long trip would it be the case that I'd need to wait until my entire date range is available to book? Is it better to pounce on one way outbound flights ASAP, then do the inbound when its available to book? I'd be willing to forego the excursionist perk if it meant better long haul flights.

ah yes, so they are. They are offering 2.1 cpm in that mock award booking.
award accelerator is offering 2.5 cpm. Is 2.5 cpm the norm for award accelerator, or might I get better offers as I make further bookings this year? Thanks for your help - much appreciated!

pdragn78

Planning a flight from SAN to ICN in 2020 or 2021, but wondering if it is worth booking Economy with 70k points round trip vs $1300 cash price (works out to about 2 cents per mile). Business Saver is 160k round trip works out to 6 cents per mile. I know the goal of awards travel is to book business class or better (more value for your points vs cash cost of ticket), but I will be traveling with family- 3 adults, 2 children. So I'm looking at 350k points for the group in Economy vs 800k points for the group in Business. I think I can get the 350k miles by then, 800k is way out of my range. I'm just trying to see if that is good use for my miles or if there is a better way to maximize 350k miles miles (~150k united and 200k Ultimate rewards)

findark

70k for $1,300 is generally regarded as a reasonable use of miles. For the amount of effort required to find I5 and actually book that Business award, you should be able to fly for ~$2,500 cash anyway.

pong1092

Flying SIN-SFO-IAH in a few weeks. I have done a miles and copay upgrade for SIN-SFO which has been conformed. I want to change the SFO-IAH flight from a morning flight to an evening flight. If I tried to change the last leg using website it costs $120 bucks change fee which is fine but the bigger issue is the SIN-SFO just says economy and there is no PZ space available. I am platinum so can do a SDC for free but would rather confirm travel plans now. If I call can in to 1800# can they make the change to just the second leg? Can you preform a SDC in between legs? I don't want to risk screwing up a confirmed upgrade.

FlyingHighlander

2 questions on Award booking:

1. If I book the first available acceptable award itinerary, is it permitted to cancel and rebook if something more favorable appears later? Is that easily done, what with needing to use the same points? I wouldn't have spare points to even temporarily cover it.
2. I understand awards are priced one way, and that ideally I would book a return ticket all at once. However, if I need an 18 day long trip would it be the case that I'd need to wait until my entire date range is available to book? Is it better to pounce on one way outbound flights ASAP, then do the inbound when its available to book? I'd be willing to forego the excursionist perk if it meant better long haul flights.

jsloan

The goal of award travel is to maximize your personal return, not to fly in any particular class of service. Different people have different priorities, and there's nothing wrong with that.

You can "maximize" them by flying from Bangkok to Sydney in first class, or by converting the 200K Ultimate Rewards points to KrisFlyer miles and booking SQ Suites on whatever their most cost-effective route is. However, since you're in San Diego, that's probably not all that useful. The worst thing that you can do is to accumulate a huge stash of miles without using them, as they're constantly devaluing. If the cash price is really $1300 per person -- that sounds really high, honestly; have you checked ex-LAX? -- then I wouldn't have second thoughts about using miles on that flight.

They should be able to do it, yes, but there's always a risk that they'd screw it up. You should be able to get it back -- make sure you have a screenshot showing that it's confirmed -- and be very clear with the agent that you only want to make the change if they can preserve the upgrade.

Yes, you can SDC between legs of a trip.

Yes and no. There is a charge based upon your status and time to departure -- from $0 to $125. However, if you have any partner segments on your trip, it can be difficult to do this unless there's still inventory available for awards on all flights.

If you're willing to forego the excursionist perk, and you expect to make changes to your flights (but not to cancel them entirely), book as one-ways. The downsides with one-ways are (a) no excursionist perk and (b) two change / cancellation fees instead of one. The upsides are that you can lock in inventory individually, as you find it, and that you don't have to worry about having partner segments on the reservation mess up a change.

There's no meaningful way to improve your chances. It could clear anytime between now and at the gate, or not at all -- if there are only a couple of seats left, your chances aren't very good. Those seats will likely be taken either by new passengers, flight changes by existing business class customers, or buy-up offers between now and departure.

Kacee

Yes. Do not do this on the website. Call and tell the agent you want to make the change to second segment while preserving the upgrade on the first. It's not that hard, but an incompetent agent can screw it up, so if the agent seems incompetent, thank them for the assistance, hang up, and call again.

The other option is just wait until your BP has scanned at SIN, then use the app to SDC segment two for free. The risk there is no inventory on segment two, so you really need to assess the likelihood of inventory being available 24 hours in advance.

findark

It is also worth noting, though, that "most awards are only available at T-330 and are promptly snapped up" is mostly a myth these days. Have a look, but don't expect that this is the only time to find awards.