xevious

I have 3 questions for those of you who fly to India from the US. I rarely travel internationally, so any insight you could provide would be greatly appreciated!

1. If I want UA to India, am I limited primarily to Lufthansa flights for full Mileage Plus accrual? This market seems considerably more expensive than any other carrier; I'm just trying to justify spending $500-600 more to maintain loyalty and get the most miles. From what I can ascertain, utilizing other Star Alliance airlines prevents me from earning any mileage bonuses.

So to get to DEL, do most of you just fly to Frankfurt on UA and then continue to DEL on Lufthansa?

2. If I purchase UA flights that are codeshared with Lufthansa, for those of you who use MP miles to upgrade from economy to business, what method do you use? I thought international one-class upgrades from the US were 60,000 miles RT, but it sounds like it's much more complicated and costly to upgrade per segment on Lufthansa (assuming I understand the process).

So if I were to purchase M or H upgradable fares on UA, do any of you consider it to be worth it to use all the extra miles to also upgrade on Lufthansa to business (assuming space is available)?

3. Is it just me, or does UA's website not display flights to and from DEL? I'm getting error messages every time I check, so I thought perhaps the problem was a result of UA not directly servicing that market. But the phone agent thought it should work. Anyone else experience this?

Thanks!

medic

If you book on Lufthansa, you can get United miles on the united metal and also on the Lufthansa metal. Not sure on other carriers, I've only done the company paid intl travel on Lufthansa.

The higher cost IMO is becuase of the better service that other carriers. I've flown international on BA, SQ, Lufthansa, Air India, and EVA. I can say the service on the first three was better than the other two. 5-600 is a lot more to pay though.

If you want a cheaper rate, go find a consolidator. Newspapers in most major cities should have some ads. Prices are generally much lower than the airlines, but you can't get miles or upgrades.

uastarflyer

I fly to SIN on UA then SQ to India (go west). I used to fly Lufthansa but can't stand them. Plus now I'm west-coast based.

Alternatively you can fly go BKK on UA and then use Thai the rest of the way.

One path that has worked well for me - pay the $1000 RT to Singapore on UA, then cash in 40k for a coach award on SQ from SIN to India...that's the expensive segment, so mileage works.

Alternatively 80k for coach (120k in Biz) gets you a seat on Lufthansa all the way.

Bottom line, many many options - but don't just rely on United.Com (you can say that about a lot of itineraries )

777-DCA

Since no one else has said it, xevious welcome to FT!! ^

xevious

Thanks everyone for the quick response-- I really appreciate it.

So if I have checked baggage and fly to SIN or BKK (and then book on another carrier to DEL), I'm assuming I'd have to go through customs, claim bags and then recheck baggage and reenter security in SIN or BKK. Do you do that or do you just have a carry on? I'm just wondering how risky this is (in terms of time) in a foreign airport.

wimpypipsqueak

Did you look into AC via YYZ. They have non-stop service to DEL.

xevious

I will check that as well, thanks. The reason I'd like to do as much as possible on UA is to get the MP bonus with Premiere Executive. I figure if I'm spending that much money for international travel, the mileage bonus alone makes it worth it doing as much of the travel on UA.

It seems that SFO to BKK or SIN is around $1100 on UA (all 4 legs on UA). The expensive part, as was pointed out earlier, is BKK or SIN to DEL on another carrier: SQ and others go there but not cheap.

I'm assuming AC, even if its affordable, is the same fiasco (as Lufthansa) if trying to use miles to upgrade from M or H to business. But I'll still check.

wimpypipsqueak

You can't use miles to upgrade (at least not until/if UA joins the *A upgrade cartel), so there isn't even any fiasco You'd also not get the elite bonus. If this is important, then flying to BKK or SIN on UA would appear to be your best option. If you want to minimize travel time, then AC is an option.

chacker

Well, a quick search on www.zuji.com.hk shows the SQ flights from SIN R/T to BOM at only around US$380. I think this is pretty reasonable on top of the US$1100 from SFO to SIN.

par

I do the round-the-world fare:

SFO - FRA - MOM - SIN - NRT - SFO

cheap and loads of miles. Only place where i don't get the full mileage credit is MOM to SIN, all other flights are either UA or LHR

thegingerman

about how much is this fare?

alex0683de

Nope, within *A they should be able to check you through all the way, even if you make an interline connection. Definitely your bags, probably boarding passes the whole way too.

If you can't get all your boarding passes for all segments at your point of departure, you can check-in airside (i.e. inside the customs area) at both BKK and SIN. Just head for the "Transfer Desk" where they will print out a boarding pass for you so you can head to the gate. There's no need to enter Singapore if you don't want to.

alex0683de

I'm guessing you mean BOM. MOM is in Mauretania.

Smooth way to solve the problem though.

gnaget

A good strategy is to fly UA metal as far as possible and then get an award on the final leg.

For example I just went to Cairo. LH economy is really bad but their business class is quite nice. So I paid 60k miles for the FRA-CAI leg.

But if you are looking to upgrade using miles (as a non 1k) then this strategy becomes quite expensive in terms of miles.

UnitedSkies

UA has some great sale fares now to DEL via HKG or NRT, using Air India or CX from NRT or HKG to DEL.