UAL Frequent Flyer Question

Thomas, how many miles do you have? I just cashed in 120,000 UAL miles for my wife and daughter roundtrip to Italy from LAX. R/T for one person is as low as 50,000 on saver points as shown on the chart I'm looking at. You can almost get that many miles by signing up for one of their credit cards.

I have a little under 60K for my wife and about 25K for me. You can get the round trip for 60K for certain dates this summer.

Thomas, You are probably better off to buy your R/T ticket and save your miles for the future. A few of the airlines have transatlantic one-ways for close to half the price of a R/T (e.g. Icelandair and I think Aer Lingus), but from what I've seen on United and its partners, one-way costs as much or more than a round trip.

Use miles for one round trip ticket and pay for one round trip ticket. Save the miles for next trip. Also if you don't have a United Credit Card already, you could sign up for one. They'll give you a bunch of miles right away. You might have all the miles you need for 2 round trip tickets that way.

You can also purchase miles from United for a ticket. It's not cheap, but it could cost less than buying a ticket. You simply use the 25K miles you have, and then purchase the rest. Based on a round trip ticket without using miles, it could be a bit less. Call customer service and they can tell you if it's worth it or not. I had this same thing happen just this year but we were trying to use miles to fly business class, not worth it, but could be for economy. Agree with others that if you get a United credit card, you will get 30-40K miles after one month of use, that should get you to the amount you need. But do it soon, as it's HARD to get good flights using FF miles! it took me 3 weeks of trying with different customer service people to finally find a decent flight (read, only one stop over, not 3, and 16 hours of travel instead of 24-26 hours)

I am a UAL FF mile junkie. Definitely get Chase Sapphire card for everyone in family (over 18). Take advantage of MP Mileage dining and shopping. I ONLY shop online and using links on Sapphire or United.com which earn me the most miles. Also, Sapphire is double miles for dining.

I am sorry but the question does not make a lot of sense unless I am not reading it properly. There would be absolutely no reason to buy a round trip ticket and then use ff to go one way. Second - that would not work if you tried. When you don't show for the first trip, your ticket for the return trip would be canceled. Save the miles for a future trip.

I agree with the suggestion of getting the United Mileage Plus Explorer card. The first year is fee free and you get 30K miles if you charge $1000 in the first 3 months.

Italy is one of the most diff to get United ff tix w/o many stops in my experience since 1999. Consider Munich as an alt then fly cheap airlines or rail to your italian destination. For sure buy one tix and use ff miles on other if you can and do this thru an agent(small fee imposed). Using website for this kind of a purchase is futile IMO.As others have said agents(usual based in Asia) for Utd are not usually very helpful for more involved requests as this. You will need to perservere and try all hrs and hope you reach an agent (i call them Angels, as they make itins happen)in Denver, most helpful IMO. Ck kayak website for you ticket fare (for guidelines) hopefully your dates are bef end of June bef they go to very costly summer fares. Me I would buy asap with a fare you are ok with in the next 2 mo max. Italy is very popular espec in summer w/ everyone it seems. Also try flying out of San Jose airport as an option.
All this is a very time consuming effort, I wish you the best.

I am using UAL FF tix for upcoming trip in December - into Munich and out of Milan. Booked SuperSaver Business First back in April. I have never seen FF tickets in/out of Rome.

I just used my ff miles for our trip next May to Rome. Denver-Toronto-Rome. Flying Air Canada. Same on the way back. 60K miles for each ticket, economy class. Took me SEVERAL times to find this flight. I was open for dates, so that helped. I let the agent find me a start date, then return date 2 weeks apart. Since I didn't have specific dates of travel, that helped a lot. I just called and told the agent to choose a day in May, any day of the week to start, then return 14 days later. Usually if you fly middle of the week, you have a better chance of getting a FF seat. I paid the $50 extra for the agent to do the ticket for me. Keep in mind to get this flight, I spoke to 4-5 different people at United. As others have said, getting those foreign based agents isn't the best, they don't really work "for" you. I got a nice lady in the US and she found me a route I'd never flown before, and it looks great! Just used ff miles this year and our trip was Denver-Dulles-Frankfort-Florence, home Florence-Frankfort-Houston-Denver. UGH! Over 21 hours of travel time. 3 hours of layovers in 2 cities. But- I got to Italy and home, so we did it. To use FF miles, you have to plan months and months ahead. There just aren't as many seats available. I could have gone business, but just not enough miles, and I didn't want to spend $900 more this time, even though I'd much rather sit in business...the plane does go to the same place no matter where your seat is in it! If you want to use FF miles, consider using Star Alliance companies. We've mostly flown Lufthansa using United miles, but there are options. ASK when you call for other airlines within the United umbrella.

Thomas, I doubt that FF miles or prices will go down later. I just used 60,000 UA FF miles for a RT to London in Apr-May 2013. I looked at flights to Paris, but more FF miles were required. So I will fly to London and take the train to Paris a couple of days later. UA flies nonstop to Frankfurt, but I don't want to go there.

Thomas,
We also fly out of SFO and almost always use United. Last trip to Europe we used 120K miles for 2 saver coach fairs rountrip to Frankfurt. From there we drove from Germany down to Italy, then flew back to Frankfurt from Florence on Lufthansa. I knew we wanted to go August/Sept, so to get direct flights using miles you have to book as soon as flights are avilable. I think it's around 330 days in advance. The good flights on miles are snatched up quickly. So in preparation, I was very familar with various options, flight times, so when our date "window" arrived, the moment I saw the direct super saver fair for the first two weeks of Sept, I booked immediately. It seemed there were not many saver flights available during the summer months. For our trip to Italy in April 2013, I had 150K miles, so decided to get a United Explorer card for 50K miles, another 5K for another user. This gave us enough for two round trip business class tickets to Italy via Frankfurt. In addition, with the United card you get priority boarding (Zone 4) and a free checked bag. We use the card for all purchases and pay off the card in full every month, and that helps the miles add up also. I believe that with this card there are more flight options using miles available to cardholders.

Like Karen said, get a United card and buy everything with it. I pay our homeowners and auto insurance, all utilities, groceries, kids camp - everything. Of course this can backfire if you don't pay it off each month!