Tips for using points for vacation flights
 

I'm a regular work/biz traveller, and have amassed what I *thought* was a small fortune of 110k points. I'm trying to use those points for vacation travel, and the only available flights are ridiculously long (17hours for an 8 hour flight), or at horrible times (departing at 12:25am).

What's the deal? I'm pounding on the United site, but figure that I must be missing something. Either that, or it's time to move to another airline (or stop loyalty altogether).

<Additional detail at request of [MENTION=312980]BlueZebra[/MENTION])
We're a family of four, and our ideal trip is from SFO to San Juan, Costa Rica - so between the North America and Latin American regions, with a flight time of ~8 hours with a reasonable layover in Houston. As a backup, I'm looking at a flight from Sac to Fort Lauderdale (in-laws), and find 12.5k fares, but only for long layovers or ridiculous timing.

I'm more surprised over the schedule/timing than anything else, and know what the regular schedule for awards is - but find that those only apply for these ridiculous schedules.

Thanks, John

You need to provide a lot more detail. From where to where? How far out is this desired trip?

If you are flying international, 110K points is not a huge supply of points...again depending on some variables, including how many people you are booking for.

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

I agree with the previous response -- when and where you're trying to travel make a big difference. Also, what class of travel? Do you have status with United and/or hold a United-branded Chase credit card?

That said, what you're seeing is that UA tends to open more inventory on less popular flights than they do on the ones where they think they can sell all of the seats on their own.

Thanks - added some more detail in original post. I'd be good with 110k to get to Costa Rica for our family of four, but best I can do is 60k/one person, and for ridiculous times that would be a poor way to start a vacation.

I've got Platinum status, no credit card (although was thinking about it before I found points to have little value, anyway), and yes, it seems like they offer very unappealing flights.

Welcome to FT! I think you've reversed the causality of the new Mileage Plus logic, when you wrote that "I'm pounding on the United site...." Actually, it's the United site that is pounding on you!

If you haven't read through this thread, then peruse it carefully. You may want to move your vacation plans to a date before November 15, if you want to get more value from your 110,000 miles.

Otherwise, the new rule is that you will either go where and when United feels it is best for them to redeem your miles, or you will pay through the nose and maybe get half or less value for these miles from what you had imagined/hoped they were worth.

Bonne chance!

Sorry, but 110K miles is only enough to get four people domestic round trip tickets at 25K miles each, and those are capacity controlled.

It will take 35K per person to get a "saver" award to Costa Rica, and those are tightly capacity controlled. You are going to have to be flexible on dates and routing. Maybe you can use miles for three of those tickets then buy the fourth.

And of course, as stated above these numbers are only valid until 11/15.

Signing up for a UA CC would add to your points tally....and bring you closer to having sufficient points.

While this is true, the reason that I asked is that UA has expanded economy availability for Premier members and credit card members. Since OP is Platinum, signing up for the credit card would not add any additional inventory.

OP: The best advice I have is to be as flexible as possible and keep searching; availability changes regularly. If you see something that you think would work, book it immediately -- as a Platinum, there is no charge for changes 61+ days prior to departure, so you can keep looking to see if things improve. (There is also no charge for any change within 24 hours of booking, even within 60 days).

I think getting an additional 35,000- 50,000 miles which would help with the small mileage balance. I was not thinking of available inventory. 110,000 miles is small to get a family of 4 anywhere.

That is awful; thank you for sharing/forwarding. With the variable points by schedule, it seems to me that maybe they've incorporated much of this variable pricing already; just cutting the strings - there is a huge variation already between the points for the same destination based on whether you'll accept a painful schedule. Feel like my naivete over airlines has just been broken ... and here I thought going Platinum would actually result in some loyalty from them toward customers.

Platinum does have some benefits, but yes blind loyalty to one airline makes little sense IMO. I usually encourage friends and family to join a FF program to accumulate points but remember redemption can be a long time in the making.

Also, FT has been one of the best resources for me in learning how to benefit from what is available and lots of folks on here are happy to share their knowlege.

One of the things I did with my family was to pay for my ticket and use miles for award tickets for them. Maximizing miles generation as a Platinum generates more miles than a regular person and more miles for future trips.

I mean there is plenty of 'low' mileage redemptions available for your destination. Are your looking to 10 months in the future? Sounds like you don't yet have the 140k miles that 4 tickets will cost you to Costa Rica anyway. If you book in advance and with some flexibility you can most certainly redeem your miles on these routes easily.

Two words of further advice to get where you're going less painfully: partner awards.

I've found Mileage Plus to be more generous in award offerings on partner airlines for most of my redemptions, as compared with booking UA flights.

If you monkey around with the web site, you can filter out the partner carriers on award searches. COPA and Avianca might offer you much better value and experiences to Costa Rica compared to the horrors that United appears to be offering you on their metal.

Is there a "San Juan" in Costa Rica? Or did you mean either San Juan or Costa Rica? Also you never mentioned when you want this vacation to take place. That is critical for award availability.

110,000 miles is a small fortune for one, and is grossly inadequate for four people. (That is only 27,500 miles per person) Do you have miles or points from other programs that you can transfer to the United program? For example, the Chase Ultimate Reward points can be transferred into the United program, and you can use it to pump up your balance.

The best advice anyone could give you here is to calibrate your expectations. If you think 110K points is "a small fortune" you would be very, very wrong. Increase that by a factor of 10 and you can at least see "small fortune" from there (though some would argue a factor of 20 or more would now make sense, given the recent devaluation).

Getting 4 people to and from Cost Rica is going to require some combination of the following: a heckuva lot more miles, a willingness to suffer (through miserable layovers and nonsensical routings), and a lot of luck.

There's a tremendous amount of downright dishonesty on display in every airline's marketing materials for their credit cards and loyalty programs. Caveat emptor.