Planning a trip with United Mileage Plus Miles

A few of ways to do it and none are easy but persistence and blind luck could net you a real deal.

first Try... Saver fare on UAL online. About 1/2 the miles but flights are few and far between. You'll pretty much be stuck to hub cities (SFO, IAD, ORD) to United Europe hubs (LHR, CDG, AMR, ZRH) If your flexible you may do ok. We try to book our saver business class trips about 330 days out.

2nd way Call the Mileage Plus number and ask for Saver fares with the rep for your destinations. They charge a booking fee but they have access to the entire Star Alliance booking system and can sometimes find an alternative way. There are GREAT customer service reps and there are surly reps. Just keep calling until you get one that will help you. Some will spend hours scouring every available route and configuration. Once again flexibility is the key. Also, they have outsourced some of the calls during peak times to overseas call centers. (India and the Philippines) Sunday AM seems to get you to a US based agent and the Philippine agents seem to have a better handle on things than their Indian counterparts

3rd way- Bite the bullet and get the standard fare. It's a mile eater but you can usually find a route.

and if your a real gambler-Back in the good old days you could wait until a couple of days before the you wanted to travel and they would release some extra super saver seats to fill up the flights. It doesn't seem to work as well as it used to so beware.

One other tip: If you manage to find a Saver flight but it's not ideal you still might want to book it and see if something else pops up closer to the date. It will cost you $150 a ticket to change but it can be well worth it.

Good luck ....AND DON'T TAKE MY SEATS :)

We are traveling to Paris in August with United miles. I booked this when the window first opened and the first flights I could get on with miles was in August. You definitely have to be flexible on dates.

Carol,

Some of the advice received so far is OK, but this is a game that's as complex as 14-dimensional chess, with rules that are secret, and frequently change. Frankly, as nice and helpful as the people here (on Rick's Helpline) are, this is not the place to get detailed advice for this game. Head over to FlyerTalk (google it) and prepare for an education.

Bottom line - the keys to success almost always involve most or all of the following:

1. be (very) flexible with your dates.
2. be (very) flexible with your destinations and routings. Remember that you can get crazy cheap fares on low cost flights to make the last (or first) leg work.
3. book waaaay early - like 11 months in advance of travel if you can. You might still be able to nab seats for september/october, but you're already late.
4. be lucky.
5. be persistent. don't take no for an answer.
6. learn all the sneaky tricks and how to get around as many as you can.
7. be prepared to invest some real time learning how the game is played and then some more time playing it.

I've traveled all over the world over the past 20 years, almost every flight using FF miles. It can be done. But most people never get to use their miles and grouse that the game is stacked against them (it is). It's not impossible to be successful, but the airlines do everything they can to make it seem that way if you're not willing to learn the secret rules to win. It's your job to figure it all out.

Good luck.

We just returned from a trip, using United FF miles. I had no problem booking two free economy seats on Lufthansa (LA-Frankfurt-Berlin going and then Frankfurt-LA returning).

My mom went on the trip too, but had to fly AA to use her miles. Her flight going and coming required a layover in London, and then Chicago for the return.

This was my first time using United's FF program and I really liked it. They partner with other carriers, where as my mom had to use AA exclusively.

I use United exclusively for flights to Europe from San Francisco. To keep it simple, and make it easiest on myself, I like to fly non-stop to London. I stay overnight in London near St Pancras, then take the Eurostar to Paris the next day. I fly this way whether the ticket is "free" or I'm paying. I hate layovers whether in the US or Europe, so I pay a little extra to get where I'm going in one hop plus a trainride. You can get to Paris using my system, then take trains to the other places.

United now offers one-way award tickets and I ended up using miles for one leg of my trip this summer and paying for the trip home on Aer Lingus as I was not able to find an award flight home. I was not flexible with my dates and decided to save the miles for next year. Just another option.

David makes excellent points. I, too, use ff miles for almost all of our European flights. I have learned to make endless phone calls to get what I want. If the first agent is unhelpful, hang up and try another person. I've had several endlessly patient agents keep me on the phone literally for hours, trying every routing possibility with every code share. You can also get help and ideas over the phone and still book online yourself. My itineraries are usually too complex (open jaws, stopover cities) to book online, but worth the extra phone booking fee because if I were paying for these flights they'd be extremely expensive. However, the main piece of advice is, of course, book early. Since other people have had 5 or 6 months to snag the tickets you want in high season, your chances of success diminish considerably. When booking as soon as the seats are released, I have always been successful in getting tickets for my whole family.

Thank you all for your time & good advice. I called United today and found out I need to book on the phone because I will need open jaw and possible partner airlines. The representative was very nice & helpful. We spent about 25 minutes looking at options and found many possibilities for September. We will probably forget Rome for this trip and fly into Milan to do Venice & Florence before heading to Paris, London and possibly Bruges.

I was shocked by how much it will cost me to buy miles though. Looking at about $1,000 to get us both to 55,000! Thanks again everyone.

Alexandra,just curious...why did your mom only fly on American Airlines to use her miles?

I'm not sure. I think she told me that she could only use AA. Do they partner with other airlines too? I thought it was strange that she couldn't get a direct flight from LA to Frankfurt; they all required a layover somewhere.

I also suggest if you don't find what you want online to call the airline. One time I was trying to book a frequent flyer trip to Australia - the agent worked with me for over an hour to find connecting flights.

Unfortunately we got disconnected before I got the agent's name (Luckily I got the flight numbers first and called back). this was one agent I really wanted to write a positive note to the airline about

Alexandra, AA partners with other airlines, just like Delta and United.

Carol:

The easiest way to get miles is to get a UA credit card. There is an offer right now with 30k bonus miles for signing up and it is free for the first year. You can just cancel at the end of the year.

This of course is based on the assumption that your credit it good. Much cheaper than buying the miles.

Also, you can check availability on seats across almost all the Star alliance carriers by using the ANA tool (see my PM).

My husband and I each have a ua visa so we can't take advantage of that 30,000 miles promo. Also, my daughter would have transfered her 16,000 miles but United never notified her that they were expiring and they erased them! Several years ago they emailed her so she donated some miles to keep her account active. She was able to get back 7,000, but that is it.

My husband and I are flying open jaw (Sacramento - Rome, Munich - Sacramento) next fall using our Continental miles. I was able to complete the entire transaction (each of us had to book separately) online and the dates we wanted were available. I'm sure it helped that I did this in late October or early Novemeber for our trip this coming September. When I considered changing a portion of our flight a couple of months later I was not able to because of availability. If you have not yet booked I would do it ASAP.

BTW - even though I booked at Continental.com using our Continental miles, we are flying United except one leg from Toronto - Rome on Air Canada. I didn't request this, it is just what we got. I am leaving next week for NYC, booked at Continental.com. Again, our flight is actually on United. I checked the same flights on United.com and they were about $170 more!