Using Miles for return trip from Bergen

SAS is in the same alliance. When you sign into United, what does it show as available flights? I don’t understand the frustrating research. I just spent 3 minutes on the United website and was shown multiple options.

The major departing airlines are Lufthansa and SAS. Most options have 2 connections black to Milwaukee. Some had one connection to Chicago.

Go to the United website. Check “one way”. And “use miles” , input your date, and it will show you your options.

My United Mileage account gives a reply of Nothing Available. There are many flights out - and so early in the morning - but none that are available from them. I put in "all airlines" in the filter so that all options would be checked. I spent so much time researching yesterday and today. Finally decided to talk to someone in reservations. They suggested the Frankfurt alternative.

Also so many flights leave at 6:15 am. So will be lots of early checkouts from hotels.

Next determining how to get from Hotel to Airport. I sent email to the Thon Rosenkrantz hotel for their suggestion.

thanks for your help.

I wonder if you are getting that response because of the date you are looking at. How far out are you looking?

I had the same issue when booking on Delta. There were limited code share tickets between AMS (via KLM) and Bergen. So, I did what I normally do and that is book a direct flight to one of the 3 cities Delta flies to from my airport to Europe. I have a day/night in London sandwiching a week in Norway in a couple of months. Easy and cheaper to book inter Europe flights anyway. I have no problem, in this case, with getting over jet lag by walking around London and in and out of some nice pubs before an early morning flight to Bergen the next day. So, you could consider booking a direct flight to/from your airport to an airport that gets you to Bergen on a direct flight.

You might also consider reversing your itinerary so you're flying into Bergen. Sometimes a change like that works. You might end up spending more for hotels, though, if you booked the ones you currently have quite some time ago.

I don't know if there is the same issue on United, but sometimes when I book on American using miles, I can find an itinerary using "multi-city" that I can't find on "one-way" even if it is the same day. So consider looking at Bergen-Frankfurt, then Frankfurt-Milwaukee or Bergen-Stockholm and then Stockholm-Milwaukee or some other combination. Is likely more miles but it can be better than nothing.

When are you traveling. I suspect part of the complication is that a flight from Bergen to Milwaukee is going to require at least 2 connections and odds are that mileage flights aren’t available on all 3 legs. I just put a random date in (May 26) and see multiple options between Bergen and Milwaukee using mileage so there are dates when this is possible. Here are some suggestions:
1) Can you fly out a day later? Are there flights available on other dates?
2) Would Chicago be an option? If so, have you checked to see if you can get a flight on miles into Chicago? Since ORD is a United hub, there may be more flight options.
3) Could you find a cheap flight from Bergen to another city, spend the night in that city, and then use your miles to fly home from that city. This is similar to the agent’s suggestion to fly to Frankfurt.

What does the itinerary look like? Do you have to fly back from Bergen or could you rearrange it and fly back from Oslo? That would give you a few more option I guess.

Next determining how to get from Hotel to Airport.

If flying from Bergen, the tram is the solution to your problem.

Thanks to all who have replied. Yes - that's what I did - book a flight from Bergen to Frankfurt. Not that expensive and it solved the problem. I knew I'd have stops to get to Milwaukee - smaller airport. Chicago was my other option and turns out that is where I'll be changing planes.

I wanted to start using my miles on this Rick Steves Scandinavian trip - June 25 - July 8. Haven't done any big travels since COVID hit us. I did use United miles to get to Copenhagen. So now happy to use more miles flying from Frankfurt to Milwaukee on my return home.

Looking forward to my adventures with family from Fargo and Chicago - all going on this trip.