Rant about saver awards
 

Just ranting....

We fly so much, but yet when we want saver awards booked...For some reason or another, the day you want to fly out, it's not available. Arghh...It's so annoying. Also the saver award system on united.com sucks cuz you can't do multi-city, or even see other airlines such as Thai, ANA, Singapore, etc....

Grhhhhhhhhhhhh

I agree with you fully.

But every time I start complaining about saver inventory in C and F (international), some FT'er tells me, "Just get a standard award!"

I just can't see paying 2X for a product that should be available for the ADVERTISED Saver rate.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Now, if I can only use up my miles before UA's end comes....

Looking for some of that to change in 2006....especially open jaw and *A. Remember, just get dates close to what you want and bargain (waitlist) for your dates. Considering the current currency value for saver awards vs fares, I still think they're a good value, especially internationally. The tradeoff is a bit more work to ferret them out.
In the interim, you can always call the awards desk, pay the fee and get a human to book for you. Considering the possible benefit, I think it's a small price to pay.

Pat

I agree--I tried to book a J class ticket on Air NZ to AKL last summer and it was only after calling, multiple times, that they finally found a routing that worked for me. The small fee they tack on is well worth it, esp. when considering the amount of miles you save vs. standard option.

Agreed, I did mine on the phone since it wasn't going to a United flight. NO availability.

I just dont want to spend 100000 on a economy ticket. I'd rather spend 60,000.

Yes, I'm always impressed with United's bait and switch attitude when I speak to CSR's about saver award tickets..."plenty of availability using a standard award."

Someone will say it, sooner or later...

So it might as well be me. I never had any trouble redeeming miles for Saver Awards...none...zero...nada.

But...

I admit that I have low expectations. LAS-LAX on Ted (Reduced Saver), LAS-NRT in winter, etc.

However...

This spring I'll be starting the process for my kinda-dream trip to Bali, in SQ C, and yes, I expect all kinds of hassles and disappointments.

Honestly, I think saver awards work best for either super long term planning -or- ultra last minute planning. I tend to use miles for the latter (last minute trips) and more often than not there is saver availability with the obvious exception of massive holiday weekends. For mid term planning though, getting a saver award may be more difficult, but it makes sense if you think about it from an IM perspective:

Long Term: Limited number of seats on each flight are booked by those plannning way in advance.

Mid Term: Saver awards are gone, but still plenty of time to sell seats. Why should IM open up more than the standard allotment?

Last Minute: Seats are going unsold and product will perish. IM opens more Saver seats in order to collect something (miles) rather than let them go unsold. I suspect this was also the thinking behind the semi-recent united.com enhancement that shows open flights with saver availability within the next month.

As others have said, united.com is hopeless for booking all but the most simple awards. You are better off calling up res and getting them to book for you. It costs $10 ($15 ?) but it is well worth the price. (Especially if you are a 1K/UGS :p)

In the 7 International first/business awards I've booked, I've never done any via ual.com. Granted only a couple of them involved all United metal, the website capabilities seems to be limited. As to availability, while domestically there isn't much choice on international routes there are more options. I was having another FTer recently about awards and how 99% of the time there is nothing on United in Business or First, yet the options are there on SQ in the premium cabins. Go figure :) It also helps if you know the possible routings on UA and the *A partners. I've learned that if you give the agent the routing you want they will go and look to see if that flight is available.

People complain about spending 100,000 miles while it could cost 60,000 miles, yet don't flinch when the airfare is $1,200 in summers and only $500 in winters.

Exactly. As we have repeated here zillion times you absolutely must familiarize yourself with possible *A routings before calling to United. There is almost always a combination that would work.

Dealt with the fun class-of-service differences for booking the girl friend on a PS LAX-JFK flight. Couldn't get the saver flights I wanted on the specific days, but there was plenty of biz saver inventory. Better to go biz (especially on cushy ps) than coach...and for the same 40K miles.

Just to provide some perspective, I am very pleased with UA saver availability. In fact, I think UA is the best in the business in this regard at this point in time (AA used to be much better; now they are much worse).

If you want to see bait-and-switch, I suggest you try using DL miles. For almost anything remotely useful (i.e. that would get me out of paying $800 for a domestic itin), the price is 50k miles to ride in the back of the bus.

On UA, not only are 25k awards much easier to snag, but standard awards only cost 40K, AND in many cases, it's possible to snag F awards for the same price. For example, I recently flew a friend PDX-BOS-LGA-PDX for 40K in F during the peak holiday season (12-22 outbound, 1-02 return). I did the same over July 4 weekend to DCA for 2 people.

Then, there are *A awards, which saved me thousands of greenbacks intra-Asia last year.

Another good thing about UA awards: aside from the $15 charge to book anything over the phone or at a CTO, there are no booking fees. NW also excels in this regard, but DL and AA do not.

Anyway, while I agree that miles are not as easy to use these days as they have been in the past, I think UA is the wrong airline to point fingers at.

I would add to this, better that you are not stuck with Continental, either.

They don't call it NonePass for nothing.