laurieco

I have been trying to book biz class seats to Asia from NYC but most of the flights have some legs in coach. I'm not talking about 1-2 hour flights, many have 6-10 hour flights in coach. There is no warning of "mixed cabin" until you select the flight and then look at the details. What is up with that? Also, many places that United flies to, such as Hong Kong, they book you on foreign airlines, such as Turkish, but in coach when using miles to book a business class seat. This seems like a new practice but maybe I am wrong. How do I book a biz class seat all the way in biz class when using miles? And how do I book the award flight on United and not another airline?

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Mixed cabin is pretty common, with economy frequently showing up on the domestic leg(s). United (and/or partners) decides which flights and what/how many seats to allocate to award travel. There's no "new practice" here. United often provide award seats on Alliance/partner airlines. As long as one leg is "Business", UA will call it "Business" - it's up to the redeemer to decide if the award offering is worth the miles if some lesser seats are included. To get only United booking results, go to "Advanced search" and click on "United and United Express only". .

Repooc17

1) United is not serving Hong Kong at the moment. Getting to HKG, assuming you are allowed to enter, may require creative routing, including but not limited to flying with another alliance - airlines not in the *A, such as OW (where CX may have more award spaces). If you can provide additional details, such as preferred dates, that would be helpful. I am seeing saver spaces based on a quick search of random dates (via partner airlines - OS, LX, ET)

2) Mixed cabin would be shown in the search page of the specific flight segment. It is displayed in red right above the amount of miles.

AndyInSaigon

My info is pre-COVID.

If you want UA only at Saver Award rates some persistence & frequent checking of inventory will be required. UA, in my experience, has always been tight with award
inventory on most routes to Asia. Everyday awards are generally available on most routes.

Web search results do show Mixed Cabin, but I find that the phone app can be a bit less clear.

I really miss the days when I could book an F trip on LH/TG IAH-FRA-BKK for 80,000 miles.

laurieco

I have flown business class to Australia and Africa using UA award miles in the past, Australia 4 years ago, and Africa two years ago. None of the legs were in coach. To Australia, we flew United all the way in business class. To Africa, we flew United Polaris to Hamburg, and Turkish biz class from Hamburg to Istanbul, Istanbul to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania; and return from Zanzibar to Istanbul, Istanbul to JFK, all in biz. Admittedly, Turkish biz within Europe and from Istanbul to Dar Es Salaam wasn't great but still better than coach. Turkish from Istanbul to JFK was outstanding. And when I was researching those flights, "mixed cabin" showed up in the chart for certain flights and I did not have to wait to select the flight and click on the details. I bypassed those and never even looked at them.

As for United not serving Hong Kong, I was looking at flights in May 2022 and the paid flights do show United flying from NYC to HK. Another thing I noticed is that the saver award flights are not the same as the everyday award flights, which are more than double the miles but show many more flights with much shorter flight times. I have been using United frequent flyer awards for years and have never encountered the obstacles I am encountering now. It's downright annoying at best, especially since my husband and I have been hoarding miles and churning credit cards to get the miles to use on biz class seats to Asia or Africa. I don't care about flying biz to Europe since flying from JFK to Europe is like a walk around the block and easily done in coach.

bocastephen

Reasons for the mixed cabin answered above, but before you go to all this trouble to find a ticket, are you personally eligible to enter Hong Kong or your final destination in Asia? With very few exceptions, much of the region is closed to non-residents/non-citizens and there is currently no date published where these policies, which are set by each country, will change. Some countries have additional restrictions on transit or denying entry if you transit in certain airports. It's a lot of trouble to go through only to discover you cannot travel there.

aacharya

1. Booking in May is at the extremes of the booking engine.
2. I just did a search and mixed cabin clearly shows when booking anything mixed cabin (even Premium Economy v Economy)
3. For my search (May 1 to May 10), TK is available on the way there in Saver, but there is nothing on the return.

What dates is OP specifically looking at?

Jaimito Cartero

You don’t think the OP will be able to enter HKG in May of 2022?

bocastephen

I didn't see any travel dates in their original post, although it looks like we both replied at the same time so I see it now.

I should hope they can by then, I am hoping to get in this fall at the latest! But hope and reality are still different until there is a policy change.

laurieco

I'm not sure where we will be able to go in Spring of 2022. We had to cancel a fully booked trip to Bangkok and Vietnam in Spring 2020 due to Covid, and were lucky to get most of our money back from airlines and hotels. I was hoping to do the trip in Spring of 2022. I was just putting in all sorts of dates and destinations to the United Airlines award site hoping something would work. It seems that since they changed to dynamic "pricing" for award tickets, it has become much more difficult. Maybe they are trying to encourage people to pay money for flights to make up for all the lost revenue due to Covid, and things will iron out eventually. I think for the BKK and Vietnam trip, I will do what I did for the original trip and pay for premium economy seats on ANA, r/t JFK-BKK. The price has only gone up about $300 per round trip and I think premium economy on ANA will be quite nice. I'll save the United miles since they no longer expire. But is is disheartening to see that trying to book something has become a trying experience.

WineCountryUA

These are not yet normal times. While there are hopes for things to be more normal by next May, the airlines are trying to figure out what size the industry will be in a year and what will the nature of it be (some resumption of business travel or a low margin leisure travelers). They will be cautious in releasing too much award travel in the hopes they will be able to convert those seats to cash sells.

Award flights are not the top priority in the industry at the moment, they need as many cash flyers as possible to get them back on stable financial grounds

The airlines will release enough award travel to keep the credit card income flowing but not as much as in the past as it would absorb too much of the limited capacity the airlines are operating.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

The trouble with hoarding miles is the constant erosion of value.

laurieco

Too true unfortunately, but I don't see an upside to using them now.

BlueZebra

My experience:

The "Mixed cabin" warning appears on the search page in red print. You put in you want to fly XXX-YYY on a certain date, as an award flight, and you get a screen of results. The red "Mixed Cabin" appears quite clearly. Was just doing exactly that today, planning ahead for going SFO-CPH next summer, trying to see when, and if, Saver Awards come out. Many possible flight combos coming up with "Mixed Cabin".

Secondly, how you flew to Australia 4 years ago has absolutely no bearing on how you might fly to HKK next year. Different markets. Different world at the current time. Its hard to compare markets, in fares, or award seats. Too many other factors. 6 years ago we flew to Australia in Global First for 80K p/p, each way. Try doing that today.

Kacee

Two things going on. First is the ongoing devaluation of Mileage Plus. Experiences years ago redeeming points don't have much relevance today. Second is . . .
It actually makes some sense for carriers to be conservative with international award space right now, given the high likelihood that flight schedules will change, requiring extensive award rebooking or in some cases cancellation.