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United.com prices a certain one way award from the Europe to the US entirely on partner metal at the United business class price of 57,500 miles though there is a big catch:
- The intra-Europe 1hr20min flight is in business class (Hamburg to Zurich)
- The region-connecting 9hr5min flight is in economy (Zurich to New York)
Still 57,500 miles–the United chart price–is intriguing instead of the partner business class price of 70k miles or the partner economy price of 30k miles.
I am well aware that this is a minor curiosity and not a major breakthrough that will help you unlock the value of your miles. But I also think that every little bit we learn about how award prices work helps us book future awards better. And maybe someone will have an insight that I don’t have about how we can take advantage of this united.com pricing anomaly.
In case it isn’t clear: do not go book this itinerary. You can book both legs in economy for 30k miles. I would not pay 27,500 miles more to get a one hour flight in intra-Europe business class which literally has the exact same seats as intra-Europe economy class.
Hat Tip to JB for spotting this!
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You can also book a short trip entirely within a a region on a partner at the United price.
Interesting.
Yeah, I think United’s computers treat most (but not all) partner flights that are within a region as if they are on United metal, for pricing purposes. This seems to apply to connections or short one-way trips. I’m not sure if that is deliberate or if it a limitation of their IT systems. They treat them as partner flights if and only if the flight starts in one region and ends in another.
Ha! I love the disclaimer 🙂
Found it a few days ago. There was some 100% Swiss flights booking out at the 57K for a few days.