How early to redeem frequent miles?

Hi Devika, we were told by the united frequent flyer rep that available europe tickets pretty much disappear as soon as they become available. We weren't able to use ours for this trip 7 months out. I'd check into it ASAP.

Thanks! We will try earlier than that. May be we can alteast get the standard award ones for 2 instead of Saver awards for 4. We will be going regardless but it would be nice if we could go for free!

Thanks again

Seats are usually loaded into the computer system 330 days prior (not exactly sure for United though). Use a calender calculator to get the exact day and try every day until you get something. Also try at several different times of day (esp middle of the night). Sometimes there are FF seats available at the 330 days and sometimes it depends on how the flight is selling.

But if you have lots of miles and tell them you want to get to xxx in June 2010, they can find you something. That something may not be the most direct route or convienient time. Persistance is the key

Josh is correct. United is 330 days out. We easily went online two weeks ago and made a saver rewards reservation, with seat selection, in and out of London-Heathrow. Not a problem. With the economy the way it is, seats seem to be available.

That being said, you may have to call directly to make reservations that are a bit more difficult. This is especially important to get into and out of areas that United doesn't serve. In many of those cases, they will use their Star Alliance partner Lufthansa. Two years ago, we wanted to fly into Florence and out of Venice. They couldn't do it. But, they said that they could fly us into Florence (Lufthansa from LAX to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to Florence) and out of Zurich which is a major United airport. We were delighted with the option and changed our plans to visit Northern Italy and Switzerland. For us, it was great.

Hi Devika! I would concur that you should try to book as soon as the window opens. We booked on miles (Alaska, not United) and couldn' get seats on NW even 300 days out, so we went on BA, which was fine but we had to adjust our days a bit.

I would suggest having some flexibility in your departure and return days so that they can search around the days that you really want. I'd also look at a bunch of different flight options (and maybe even a different city to fly in/out of), so when you can actually start booking you have an idea of what routes/days are flown. Then you can prioritize a bit the exact route you want and have a few stand-bys. Good luck!

Jed

I booked my July 2009 trip on FF United Miles in January. Geneva is a new airport for United so I booked fast and got 2 seats rdtrip. For 4 seats just call United rep they know when to start trying.

I booked using United FF miles, pretty close to the 330 days out. I had 80K miles and was hoping to go business class, fully expecting them to tell me they had nothing. To my delight, they booked me on Air Canada SFO-Montreal-Paris, and since Air Canada doesn't have business class, I am going first class all the way, including the lie-flat "pods" for the transatlantic portion of the trip. I keep checking to be sure they still have my reservation -- I have to pinch myself periodically. I'm not going until September, but I have found the people at United's international phone desk to be incredibly patient and helpful in locating the perfect flights. Best of luck to you, Devika.

Margie, we had the same experience two years ago coming home from Zurich. We changed planes in IAD to an United Airbus with no business class. This last leg home to Sacramento was in 1st class. A very nice feature of going business class with your points.

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I really appreciate the tips. I will calculate so that we start trying about 350 days ahead and will keep the dates flexible. Even if we get a couple of seats I'd be happy!

One thing I forgot to mention, when you are 330 days out and call to get seats, they will only be available for the outgoing leg. Depending on how long your trip is, you will have to call back when the fares load for the return portion of your flight. The airline will be able to hold the outgoing flight for you until you have the return booked.

One mistake that I see a lot of people making is limiting their searches to just UA when redeeming your freq flyer miles. Please keep in mind that going to Europe you have a choice of all the star alliance partners (Lufthansa, US Airways, Turkish, Singapore, Scandanavian, LOT(Polish), BMI, Spanair, Austrian, Swiss) and once in Europe you can connect onto smaller regional carriers such as Air One, Air Dolomiti, Adrian, Croatian, etc. all on the same ticket.

Do not limit yourself flying into just a major hub - a great feature of these tickets is flying into smaller cities without having to pay extra. For example flying into Stockholm and out of Vilinus or flying into Dubrovnik and out of Bucharest.

For United, you can get a great view of the frequent flyer seats available by getting an account on ANA (Air Nippon airways) which shows all the Star alliance availablity with the exception of Swiss, China Air and Shanghai Airways. Using this tool, you can figure out your own routings and then call UA. This works very well especially since sometimes the agents are not that familiar with complex international routings.

PM me if you need help looking up availability using the ANA tool.

You have received a lot of good advice here. I fly AA and on average I use my miles twice a year.

In the past two years I never have had a problem getting seats domestically because I determine my dates early and call the airline.

If the agent tells me I am too early, I ask for the date. I call after midnight on that date and always get direct flights and my favorite seats even in peak season.

When I asked how many seats were available on a particular flight, the agent told me they set apart a different number for each flight.

She said it varies from 4 to 6 on most flights. There is no way to predict the number because every airline will be different.

In summary I guess you should reserve as early as you can and be flexible on dates and times.

After reading all your advice, I will definitely try the different ideas suggested.
Thanks again to everyone for their help!