United Business Class

n.r.g., you might have better luck posing this in the Transportation section of the Forum. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/transportation

The best place I have found having suggestions about how to best use mileage points is at Flyer Talk.

It would be nice if there were a way to minimize the cash - but I think you monitor and check all the options. That said, I recently bought flights for the fall and the cash (taxes) were minimal. Depends on the route and transit airports, I have read.

Be sure to check Seat Guru (http://www.seatguru.com) for the seat map. Not all United metal is upgraded to "true" Polaris Business. Some planes still have the old (and no longer competitive) business seats. In particular, only about half of the 787-9's are upgraded.

You can tell on the seat map; the old layout will be 2-2-2 (on a 787) with all sats oriented straight forward. The Polaris will be 1-2-1 and alternate rows will tip towards the aisle. Also, the new layout will also have a Premium Economy section, the old does do not. I think all the 777-300ERs are true Polaris.

The Points Guy had a recent update: https://thepointsguy.com/news/united-airlines-polaris-retrofit-timeline/

That explains why I can't seem to book Premium Economy for the spring on United; we flew that this fall with them but it is not available for direct flights from Chicago this spring.. I am forced back to American to get premium economy.

Not all United metal is upgraded to "true" Polaris Business.

I think that this is worth checking. I find the older business class seats to be far more comfortable than the "true" Polaris Business seats, which I find claustrophobic. Polaris is just a marketing term for more seats in less space.

I fly United all the time and so accumulate and use their miles quite a bit. First, look to see if you have any Lufthansa operated flights that will work for you. They require fewer points than United. Second, be flexible about your travel dates and go to the United FF site and look to see if there are any days that have lower mileage requirements. Third, book early, very early: United does not offer a lot of lower points seats in business class so those seats are gone very early -- so early that you are probably too late now to get the lowest point seats for a May flight. Fourth, plan on having to purchase one of the tickets because 212,000 miles is not usually enough at this point for one RT business class ticket between SFO and CDG.

Here is the link to the United Mileage Program forum on FlyerTalk, which Tocard suggested. There is even a “sticky” devoted to questions about the program.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus-681/

There is a bit of a learning curve in using FlyerTalk, due to all the acronyms and “geek speak” used, but I have found their Alaska And British Airways forums to be excellent sources for mileage plan information and tricks.

Have you flown this distance before ? I usually sleep most of the way SFO-CDG so regular Economy is fine for me (and at 60,000 miles RT I can take more trips) ... but I can sleep anywhere.

You might consider business class eastbound and premium economy on the return. Would you get sufficient benefit from flying business class on a daytime flight back to the US to justify all the extra miles required?

We are flying Polaris out of SFO to Paris this coming April. We used miles. I got the flight when it first became available 11 months out. The best deals are non-direct flights of usually 2 stops and will be mixed cabin. We'll fly out from Sacramento to SFO economy (that's all that's available), fly Polaris for the long haul to Frankfurt, and then switch to Lufthansa for the hour-long flight to Paris in economy.

When you do the award search and get the rates, hit the link for the 30 day calendar. There can be substantial differences depending on the day you fly. Also, I don't know if it's still on but UA was having a bonus sale on purchasing miles. If you are within striking distance of the flights you like, it might be cheaper to buy extra miles than to pay a cash balance. Happy hunting.