I signed up for the United Around the World Program last April for Washington DC and will be getting enough segments for that soon. Just wondering if anyone has already received the award and have an itinerary. The rules are confusing, and don't give very many details. Try to respond with a itinerary that you'll be using. Thanks!

Welcome to FlyerTalk! This belongs in our United forum so we'll continue the discussion there.

--richard, moderator

I have 22 segments for the Washington DC promotion. There are other options instead of a ticket around the world, like one domesting first class and one reg domestic ticket for 24 segements.

Anyway, after you've accumulated the segements, you have to submit to United what you want, than they will send you a voucher in a couple weeks. Than you can book your ticket.

It is a lousy system, ideally you should just book your flight online using the segments in the system.

Since the UA RTW program for DC area folks lets you choose the type of award/s that you want, it sure would be helpful if they would let you book and THEN pull the number of segments to redeem for awards--if i can not get a free XC Int'l or and XC-RTW ticket then i might just use the segments for a domestic XF ticket. But UA told me to take a leap of faith, request the type and number of awards I wanted, and THEN once I got the paper certs try and book the applicable award--they also told me the choices were Non-refundable. So, there is the possibility of being stuck with awards i can not use if the XC space is not avaialble to book once I get the certs. they also told me it could take up to 6 weeks to get the paper cert!

This is the real kicker. I can put up with not being able to book online. I can put up with having to wait a few weeks for the vouchers. But to tell me that if United has no availability for my reward, I can't exchange it for something else? That's just asinine.

I earned 38 credits so far...At the rate I'm going I should have another 14 or so by the time this promo is over...Stupid LGA-IAD and IAD-LGA

Redeemed 16 in November and flying JFK-SFO-SYD on April 30th in E+
The whole process was pretty painless in requesting the cert and booking my flight.

If you're flexible on the dates then you probably shouldn't have a problem booking a trip somewhere

I'm up to 44 credits so far. I just sent in for the first couple of certs; I've decided that the regional round trip reward is the best bet for me. I'm giving these flights away like candy to have the Chicago crew come out for the Cubs-Nationals game this May....

I am one of the lucky ones who can use the awards. I am using them for Hawaii from Chicago. The booking class is XY no matter what your status is. Also, it takes the entire six weeks to get them. They were sending them faster, but as of December they are mailing them out four weeks after request is made. What is hard is that you must get the coupon, yes this is a paper based coupon, to the airline in 24 hours. It can be post marked, but if the certificate gets lost, you are SOL.

Good luck!

A few years ago when traveling on a BA award the ticketing agent let me pay the full amt to UG from a free C seat to F by paying the fare difference from C to F. Does anyone know if a *A carrier would allow the same thing? I am thinking of the *A RTW award from DC and wonder if there is a way to pay to get some of the segments from C to F--I know it won't work with UA, but wondered if anyone had any luck/experience with other *A carriers.

What do you mean?
Do you mean that once you get the paper coupon, you must go to UA and get your itinerary within 24 hours of receipt? If so, that is REALLY going too far for being obstructive for these awards!

I suspect he means you can make the res, but you have to get the certificate to them within 24 hours (sounds like a fun trip to the airport or pay for express mail / FedEx). UA made me go in to sign over miles once for an award ticket I got for my fiancee, and that was required within 24 hours of the original booking.

But, seeing as how my current ATW promo certs are "sent for fulfillment" and not yet here, I don't speak from experience.

I know this was talked about months ago, but don't know if there was a final answer.

If i fly a circle trip (i.e. PDX-IAD(stop)-BOS(stop)-PDX)

Do i earn two points for the promo???

One for PDX-IAD
One for IAD-BOS

I believe you only get credits for flights originating or ending in Dulles.

Yes . the question is wheater or not a circle trip earns points.

It's a lousy redemption system, but I've done it. It sent "sent for fulfillment" for exactly 3 weeks. I got my paper cert on week 3 to the day. (This was just last week.) No one on at UA could answer any questions about the program; I was even stuck reading the "valid routing" T&C on the back of the cert to one CSR. Anyway, once you have cert, you can hold itinerary for 24-hrs. (I was also booking award tkt, so the really great CSR gave me 72-hrs.) Anyway, I didn't have to get the cert to them w/in 24-hours. They just told me to mail it the next day, and I would be fine. This was on Monday, and I assume it's still in the mail since they haven't yet contacted me via email, which they said they would do. All in all, what seemed like a great promotion up front, became a total pain.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have requested the cert the minute I had enough credits (which was months ago). I'm about to request the rest of them for regional domestic, and like previous poster, hand them out to people I want to visit me!

I hope this helps someone.....