The ability to hold awards is extremely valuable especially at our increasingly popular Award Booking Service. Our clients might need to transfer their Chase Ultimate Rewards or American Express Membership Rewards into their frequent flyer accounts. They might need to purchase additional miles to reach the next award threshold or just simply firm up their hotel plans. Having a few days to hold an award is critical in these cases.
Of the four legacy carriers, American Airlines is the most generous. American offers a 5 day award hold. US Airways allows you to hold most awards for three days. Delta actually allows 48 hour holds, but you need to be creative to do so. For more information, check out Scott’s post, The Trick to Hold Delta Awards.
Unfortunately, unlike its legacy counterparts, United doesn’t allow award holds. This makes booking United awards for clients a frustrating challenge. Luckily, we have discovered a loophole that enables you to do so.
(You used to be able to hold United awards through a different, now-defunct trick. Hat tip to Meshugener of the Dan’s Deals Forum for letting me know of its demise.)
Similar to the Delta trick, you need to have a United frequently flyer account with little (or no) miles in in it. I created a second United account with my business address and all my relevant personal information. It has a 0 mile balance at all times.
When I need to book an award for a client, I start online and try to collect as many segments of the trip as possible. This makes future steps quite a bit easier. United.com is quirky, though, and will often spit back an error message if you are trying to piece together an ultra-complicated itinerary.
Subtract a segment or two and try your search again. As an example, I tried to hold a simple Denver -> Chicago oneway award for two people in business class. When I select the itinerary I want, I’m met with the following screen.
I need additional miles to secure this award. United should allow me to hold the itinerary for a day or two to get the necessary miles in my account, but they don’t have that option. Instead, I’m given options to pay for the privilege of holding the award for three days or one week. Both are terrible deals.
Instead of paying to hold the award, just go back to the search screen and add any segment to your itinerary that includes a Star Alliance partner. It does not matter if it’s domestic (on US Airways) or international. It also doesn’t matter when this segment occurs as long as it is not flown on United metal.
I searched for Denver to Tokyo-Narita via Chicago because All Nippon Airways, United’s Star Alliance partner, has two daily nonstops on this route with good award space. I selected an itinerary that included my previous Denver -> Chicago leg and came to the checkout screen.
The Fare Lock option is no longer available. Instead I am met with exactly the button I want to see: “Reserve.” I click the Reserve button and enter all the passenger information. After giving United my pertinent contact information, I am asked to hold the award itinerary with a credit card.
After entering my credit card information, I can click “Reserve” to officially hold the itinerary. Note that the expiration date provided on this screen is always incorrect. The correct expiration date is given on the next screen.
After clicking Reserve, I am taken to the confirmation screen. United generates a confirmation number/record locator and gives the correct expiration date/time. I have circled the correct date in red.
When I’m ready to book, I simply call United.com support at 1-800-396-1751 and give the record locator that my reservation generated. I ask the agent to discard the segments I don’t want and ticket the award from the United account that has miles. That’s the second part of this trick. I started the award in a dummy account with no miles, but over the phone I can give the agent any account number to use to ticket the award.
(Beginner tip: In all major frequent flyer programs, anyone’s miles can be used to book an award for anyone. But you can’t easily or cheaply combine miles between two airline accounts.)
What if I can’t grab all the segments I want online?
If you have a lot of segments in your desired itinerary, chances are united.com will not let you secure them all at once. Grab as many as you can online and reserve them to generate a confirmation number. Immediately call united.com support to add the remaining segments you need.
You say that united.com initially displays an incorrect date for award holds, what is the real expiration date?
Award holds done via this method expire the next day at midnight. Because of this, you always want to reserve your United awards in the morning. That will give you as close to 48 hours as possible.
Shouldn’t these awards be subject to the $25 phone booking fee?
No. If an agent brings up this fee when you book, push back. Politely let them know that the award was initiated online but you weren’t able to grab all the segments you needed. They should waive the $25 fee or not even bring it up. If the agent does insist on the fee, hang up and call back.
Will my credit card be charged if I don’t book the award?
No. United asks for a credit card to hold the award. You might see a pending transaction of $1.00 labeled “Continental” on your credit card that will eventually fall off whether you book or not.
Does adding a segment in a different price category affect the final cost in miles for the award?
No. United will recalculate your award price once you finalize everything. I wanted a simple Denver -> Chicago itinerary but added the leg to Tokyo. Discarding the Tokyo leg will drop the price in miles back to the appropriate level.
Does the United frequent flyer account that reserved the award need to be the one that tickets it?
No, which is great news! I often reserve awards for clients under my dummy account and let them call in to confirm everything. I have not had a single issue doing this.
Recap
United does not allow award holds unless you are creative and trick their site. First you need an account with little to no miles in it. Then you need to search for an award that includes at least one non-United segment. Awards with partner segments can be reserved online, while all United-operated awards cannot be.
Reserve as many segments as you can online and then phone united.com support to tweak the itinerary. Finally have United ticket the award from whatever United account you want.
Update at 9:31 AM ET on 3/8/13. Disregard most of this post. Commentor Angel pointed out trouble getting ANA to price this, and I found the problem. ANA rule: “The departure airport and the final destination on the itinerary may differ, but must be in the same country.” I’ll try to figure out a way to salvage some of this idea.
Yesterday I was effusive about the fact that ANA–a Japanese airlines most of us have never flown–stopped charging fuel surcharges on United and US Airways flights booked with ANA miles. I called it the deal of the month on twitter.
The value comes from ANA’s awesome distance based chart and the fact that it is a Membership Rewards transfer partner.
But I wanted to give some tips to get insane value out of ANA awards using free oneway principles.
The key principle of all free oneways is a stopover at your home airport. By stopping over at your home airport, you can get 1.5 trips out of what the airline thinks is only one trip. (And if the airline thinks it’s one trip, it only charges you for one trip.)
ANA has stopover rules that are liberal and strict at once. The liberal part is that you can have four stopovers on one award! But you can’t have any stopovers in your country of origin, you can only have two in Europe, and holes in your itinerary count as a stopover at both cities!
(The example ANA’s site gives is Tokyo to Frankfurt to Munich, returning after an open jaw from Frankfurt to Tokyo. The open jaw between Frankfurt and Munich counts as a stop in both, so you can’t get a stopover in Frankfurt en route from Tokyo to Munich.)
So how can we apply the free oneway principle of a stopover at our home airport when ANA prohibits stopovers in the country of origin? Easy. Add half of a trip on to the beginning of our main award, thus changing our country of origin.
Let me give an easy example. If you live in Newark and want to fly roundtrip in business class to Paris on United with ANA miles, you’d already get a great deal. The roundtrip is 7,298 miles, so the award would cost 68,000 ANA miles.
This is of course, a steep discount on how many miles United or US Airways would charge–100,000.
But here’s where my trick of adding a prior leg comes in. Add in a oneway from Lima to Newark four months before, and you’ve got the return half of a second trip on the same award. (How do you get to Lima? One way award, cash ticket, walk.)
Now the distance of the award increases substantially to 10,929 miles.
But that’s only one band higher up on the chart, so the mileage price only increases to 85,000. This is remarkable since Lima to Newark–in flat bed business class–is only adding 17,000 miles!
Of course, I can hardly say I’ve maximized the itinerary. You can take two stops in Europe after all.
Here’s a possibility: add Lima to Newark onto an award from Newark to London to Istanbul to Newark with stops in London and Istanbul.
This award traverses 13,690 miles, which is another band higher up. It would cost only 90,000 ANA miles total in business class! (Note that London to Istanbul would be on Turkish Airlines, so you would be on the hook for a modest fuel surcharge for flying a carrier other than United and US Airways intra-Europe.)
There’s nothing special about living in Newark or having every section of the trip be direct. Imagine you want to add the return half of trip to Santiago onto a trip to Tokyo, and you live in Los Angeles. Let’s even throw in a free stopover in Hawaii on the way to Japan.
That 17,850 mile trip would cost only 105,000 ANA miles in business class, which is spectacular since LAX to Tokyo roundtrip is 120,000 United miles and Santiago to LAX would be another 50,000 miles.
That means using Membership Rewards transferred to ANA miles saves 65,000 points!
So far all my examples presuppose a major international hub for United as your home airport. We’re not all so lucky. Living at a hub helps because it means fewer flights, and every flight adds to the cost of an ANA award.
But you don’t have to live at a United or US Airways hub to maximize ANA awards. I’ll give an example for the home airport of Medford, Oregon, which only features two United flights–to Denver and San Francisco.
This award has a return from Sydney to Medford, then a roundtrip to London.
Normally in business class Sydney to Medford would be 67,500, and a roundtrip from Medford to Londond would be 100,000 more. But instead of 167,500 United miles, this itinerary would cost 115,000 ANA miles.
Can you put the oneway after the roundtrip?
No. Imagine reversing the first example. Newark to Paris roundtrip then Newark to Lima. You’ve stopped over in Newark, which is in the origin country. ANA prohibits stopovers in the origin country.
Are these free oneways?
No, the oneways are all adding a bit to the miles price since they are increasing the number of miles flown on the award. There are probably free oneway opportunities to Mexico or the Caribbean. Post them in the comments.
Is this a big deal?
Yes! I already had Membership Rewards worth more than United miles. Now they may be worth more than Ultimate Rewards! If that sounds crazy, let me explain.
United has a great business class bed and releases a great amount of award space. It has a route map that covers most of the places I want to go. Using the techniques in this post, you can use about 1/3 fewer Membership Rewards to book United business itineraries than the number of Ultimate Rewards it would take.
I’ve already had the Mercedes-Benz personal Platinum, and the “regular” personal Platinum has a sign up bonus that’s below where I’ve often seen it in the past.
Recap
Booking 1.5 trips with the half trip first unlocks incredible savings on ANA awards that fly United or US Airways.
She really wanted the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card because it comes with two free weekend nights at almost any Hilton worldwide. With the recent major devaluation to the Hilton award chart, Hilton points are worth way less, but these two free nights are still two free nights.
When her application for the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card was not immediately approved, she did what I always suggest. She called Citi’s reconsideration line immediately. These are the reconsideration line numbers I use.
American Express (866) 314-0237
Barclay’s (866) 408-4064
Chase (PERSONAL) (888) 245-0625
Chase (BUSINESS) (800) 453-9719
Citi (800) 695-5171
US Bank (800) 947-1444
I’ve made several reconsideration calls, and this was Rookie Alli’s third. In our experience, reconsideration calls are painless and a bit of a misnomer. Most of our reconsideration calls happen not when the application is denied, simply when it’s listed as pending.
And most of the time, the agent only asks questions we’ve already answered on the application.
The one thing I always do to prepare for a reconsideration call is to rehearse an answer to the question of why I want the card I’m calling about. The best answers reference the co-branded partner (ie Hilton on the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card), some benefit of card membership besides the sign up bonus, or both.
For this card, Rookie Alli’s answer was going to be: “I want the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card because I travel a lot and am loyal to Hilton, so I want to have a card that has a high earning potential of Hilton points.”
It’s not difficult to formulate a good answer.
But as with many “reconsideration” calls, there were no tough questions and no reconsideration–just a short hold and an approval. Take a look.
Hopefully this video clears up any apprehension you might have about calling the reconsideration lines. Not all calls are this painless, but most are.
Recap
If your credit card application is not immediately approved:
Come up with a reason you want the card that does not reference the sign up bonus and does reference the card’s co-branded hotel or airline.
Call the bank’s reconsideration line.
Tell the agent you wanted to see if the bank needed any more information to process your application.
There are several posts on yesterday’s new PointBreaks list. Even if you’ve read those, read this. I’ve honed my strategy for getting $35 per night rooms quite a bit, and I want to share it, so everyone can have access to the best practices.
This post will tell you how to book any hotel on the list of Priority Club’s PointBreaks hotels for only $35 per night, even the ones that ordinarily cost $400 or more per night. And I’ll explain how to give yourself maximum flexibility to pick the exact dates you want as the trip approaches.
Priority Club PointBreaks
Priority Club is the loyalty program for InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Candlewood Suites, and Staybridge Suites. As we covered here, Priority Club recently devalued its award chart, so it now takes 10,000 to 50,000 points for a free night depending on the property. But every few months, Priority Club releases a list of a select few hotels where you can stay for 5,000 points per night. That’s a 90% discount on some hotels!
We can stay at any hotel on the PointBreaks list for $35 just by exploiting one loophole!
The basic premise is that Priority Club lets you buy 10,000 points for $70, which is 0.7 cents per point.
In this post, I’ll give my full strategy for taking advantage of the PointBreaks list. This strategy ensures I get all the $35 per night hotel stays I want with maximum availability of nights and maximum flexibility to change my plans. My strategy solves a number of problems.
Problem #1: Not every hotel is on the PointBreaks list.
Solution: There is no solution for this problem.
When a new list comes out, I check its end date then look at my Meet Up page to figure out where I’ll be between now and then that I might want a hotel. I also consider trips I haven’t planned, but have been mulling. And finally I look for the incredible properties that normally cost 50,000 miles to see if I want to take an impromptu trip.
I note all the hotels that I might want to stay at.
Problem #2: Not every night is available at hotels that are on the list–and what availability there is can disappear quickly.
Solution: Book award space now.
This leads to Problem #3.
Problem #3: I may want to change my plans later, but I may have to cancel the entire award to do that, costing me the chance at 5,000 point ($35) nights.
Solution: Book awards as a series of one-night stays.
If you think you want to stay at the InterContinental Fiji for five nights before March 31 during a two week period, but you’re not sure which five nights, book 14 one-night stays.
Booking 14 stays will take under 20 minutes, and you’ll have the flexibility later to cancel the nine you don’t want one at a time, leaving you the five consecutive nights you want. Then you can call the hotel to ask them to merge the five reservations or just show up and note to the front desk that all five are yours, and you don’t want to move rooms. They don’t want to move you either, since it increases their costs.
To book the 14 stays in this example, you would need 70,000 points, which leads to problem #5.
Problem #5: I don’t have any Priority Club points.
Solution: We can transfer in 5,000 Ultimate Rewards to have 5,000 Priority Club points. Once we have 5,000 Priority Club points, we can buy unlimited quantities for 0.7 cents each.
The first step if you don’t have 5,000 Priority Club points is to get them. Ultimate Rewards points transfer in at 1:1 ratio in about 14 hours in my experience. You can make the transfer at ultimaterewards.com by clicking the Priority Club Rewards link under the transfer points tab.
Then give your Priority Club account info and select the points to transfer in increments on 1,000.
You want to have 5,000 points after making the transfer. I feel bad moving Ultimate Rewards to Priority Club because Ultimate Rewards are worth almost three times as much as Priority Club points, but to be able to buy more Priority Club points for 0.7 cents, we need to have at least 5,000 Priority Club points.
The way to buy Priority Club points for 0.7 cents is to make a cash and points award booking then cancel it. Once you have a Priority Club account with 5,000 points, the next step is to book a 15,000 point award. Why? When booking a 15,000 point award, you are given the option to purchase the 10,000 point shortfall for $70, which is 0.7 cents per point. Here is such an award:
As you can see, this award costs 15,000 points or 5,000 and $70. Select 5,000 points and $70 and pay for the award. The confirmation screen makes it very clear that the $70 is going towards buying 10,000 points that would be immediately used to book the award.
After booking, immediately cancel the reservation online by following a link from the booking confirmation page. That brings you to this screen:
As you can see, my reservation has been cancelled. As you can also see in the top right, the points immediately credit back to my account. My account now has 15,000 points, 5,000 that I transferred from Ultimate Rewards and 10,000 that I just bought for $70 while making a dummy booking.
If you need more points–say you want to make 14 speculative one-night bookings–then you repeat this step. For instance, I recently increased my account balance from 5,000 to 45,000 in two dummy bookings. I just showed the first. In the second, I selected the same hotel on a three-night cash and points booking. That booking cost 15,000 points (my new balance) plus $210 to buy the other 30,000 points needed. Then I cancelled that booking, and I had 45,000 points from a 5,000 Ultimate Rewards transfer and $280 in cash.
If $280 sounds like a lot of cash, don’t forget that my 45,000 points is enough for nine nights in a hotel.
Caveats
You have to have 5,000 points in your account to buy points for 0.7 cents each. Buying points is a much better deal than transferring in your Ultimate Rewards that are worth way more than 0.7 cents each, but you may have to transfer in 5,000 Ultimate Rewards to start the point-buying madness.
Not all hotels are on the PointBreaks list. Not all nights are available as 5,000 point award nights at the hotels that are on the list. Check availability before buying points.
Make sure your account has 5,000 more points than you need for your speculative bookings. You always want a balance of 5,000 points at the end for your next round of buying points. It would be a shame to have to make another Ultimate Rewards transfer.
Example from Summer 2012
I scoured that summer’s PointBreaks list to see if any of my travel plans coincided with any of the hotels, and they did in one case: I would be in Krakow, Poland and the Holiday Inn Krakow City Centre was on the list.
I was in Krakow June 6 – 9, and I didn’t have a hotel booked. While the Krakow Holiday Inn was hardly the nicest property on the PointBreaks list, its cheapest room June 6 was 531 Polish Zloty, which was $153.
The first thing I did was search availability, and I found space June 6 and 8, but not June 7. I decided to book June 6 and 8, so I needed 10,000 Priority Club points.
I had zero Priority Club points in my account, so I transferred in 5,000 points from Ultimate Rewards. I bought 10,000 more points for $70 exactly how I outlined above leaving me with 15,000 points after I cancelled my dummy booking.
With my new points, I made two one-night bookings on June 6 and 8.
I noted the cancellation policy, which varies by hotel, in case I had to cancel. At the Holiday Inn Krakow, I just had to cancel by 4 PM the day of arrival.
I ended up very much enjoying the stay at the Holiday Inn Krakow, and I wrote about it in my Krakow, Poland Hotel Guide.
Booking two nights left me with 5,000 points in my Priority Club account, which set me up perfectly for the current list. I have just made five one-night bookings on this list after buying new points for 0.7 cents each because several of the hotels line up with my travel plans.
Recap
The new PointBreaks list is out from Priority Club. This is a list of hotels you can book for 5,000 points or $35 per night. The best way to take advantage of the list is to be active right now.
Scour the list for hotels you may want to stay at. The list is organized by continent.
Search for availability at those hotels for every possible night you might want to stay.
Book now a series of one-night stays that cover the time periods when you may want to stay.
Get the points you need for this by transferring in 5,000 Ultimate Rewards, then buying the rest for 0.7 cents.
Note the cancellation deadline at each hotel. This varies.
As your plans firm up, cancel the nights you don’t want before the deadline for a full refund of the points.
Leave at least 5,000 points in your account to repeat this cycle on the next list.
I have booked a $153 hotel room for $35 using the techniques in this post. And there are much nicer, more expensive hotels on the list of PointBreaks hotels. There are Intercontinentals that go for over $400 per night that you can get for $35 per night using the technique outlined in this post. And with my advanced techniques for holding availability that you can later fit your needs, you can be a master at staying in great hotels around the world for $35.
Which hotel will you stay at for $35?
Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Grab dinner with me in Tampa or Baltimore. (The LA dinner last weekend was a blast–thanks to everyone who came out.)
I’ve got to book a one way flight from Los Angeles to Newark with American miles next month. Is there any way to get extra value from the award?
Answer:
Sure. How about adding a one way flight to anywhere in Europe for 7,500 miles!
It’s all about perspective, and this question gave me a new perspective on free oneways. Hopefully everyone reading this has already read about adding Free Oneways to American Airlines awards. It’s a great way to add value to American Airlines international awards, and I’m using the trick to visit my mom for free next month for her birthday.
Normally I look at free oneways on American awards like this:
I’ve got an international trip coming up. Can I add a free oneway domestically?
But this reader has the opposite trip:
I’ve got a domestic trip coming up. Can I add anything to it?
And the rules–The Five Cardinal Rules of American Airlines Awards–are the same either way you think about your trip. If the reader adds an international flight from New York, he can take a free stopover in Newark and Los Angeles to Newark becomes free. Or if the reader thinks about Los Angeles to Newark costing 12,500 miles, then New York to Europe costs 7,500 miles more.
Let’s give some specific cities to make it clear. Imagine if the reader wanted to join me at Oktoberfest in Munich.
To do a multicity award search on aa.com, select Flights under Plan Travel on the front page.
To search for Los Angeles to Newark next month on a Sunday, then New York to Munich in September, first go to the AAdvantage Award tab, then select Milti-City.
It’s important to note that flying into Newark and out of JFK is not an open jaw. Newark, LaGuardia, and JFK are considered co-terminal airports by American and the its competitors. That means flying into one and out of another is allowed on award tickets and paid tickets if you don’t mind the ground transport. Of course, on this itinerary, the reader would fly into Newark seven months before flying out of JFK, so there is no ground transport issue.
(In fact, a oneway award can never have an open jaw. If you think it can, you are confused about what an open jaw is. Don’t worry; it’s the most common confusion I get by email. See What is an Open Jaw? How Can an Itinerary Have Two Open Jaws?)
The search results look like this:
I’ve selected “Non-stop only” for LAX-EWR because American has a direct flight on that route. American and its partners don’t fly directly from New York to Munich, so I left that dropdown as is. Note that the top half doesn’t have prices because American’s computer knows to price LAX-EWR on this itinerary as a free oneway.
Note also that JFK to Munich is displaying as 20k miles. You would probably expect it to cost 30k miles, since that is the oneway price to Europe with American miles during peak times. But I uncovered last month that you can fly to Europe all year round for 20k American miles by using one simple trick that this itinerary naturally uses.
There is plenty of space on the LAX-EWR direct flight next month in economy. And there is plenty of space from JFK to Munich flying airberlin and connecting in Dusseldorf or Berlin. (This shouldn’t surprise you at all if you read Book Now to Europe for Next Summer: Economy.)
My hand drawn notes are there to draw attention to the fact that LAX-EWR would be 12,500 miles and $2.50 if booked separately. Adding on the flights to have a separate trip to Oktoberfest only adds 7,500 miles and $15.40 to the price!
Book alone for 12,500 miles, or add Europe during the summer for 7,500 miles more.
This itinerary:
Los Angeles to Newark
New York to Munich
will always cost 20,000 American miles as long as Los Angeles to Newark is flown between October 15 and May 15. If you’re going to book New York to Munich either way, LAX to Newark is a free oneway. If you’re going to book LAX to Newark either way–like my reader way–New York to Munich is only 7,500 miles more.
Other Applications
Any time you want to fly an award from somewhere in the US (including Alaska and Hawaii) or Canada to your home airport, and your home airport is a North American International Gateway City, you can add on a steeply discounted international trip for after your domestic trip. Equivalently if you want to fly an award from your home airport to somewhere in the US and Canada, and your home airport is a North American International Gateway City, you can add on a steeply discounted international award to your home airport before the domestic trip.
Examples:
Los Angeles to Newark in first for 25k. You can add on New York to Istanbul in business for 25k more.
San Francisco to Washington in first for 25k. You can add Hong Kong to San Francisco in Cathay business for 30k more.
Miami to Chicago in economy for 12.5k. You can add Chicago to Shanghai for 12.5k more.
And my personal favorite:
Honolulu to New York is 37.5k one way in business class. You can add New York to Lima for -7.5k. Yes, that’s negative 7,500 miles to add on a flight from New York to Lima, which brings the total award down to 30,000 miles.
This also works to other cities with direct service to Lima on American or LAN: New York, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco.
This also works in economy, but the discount is from 22,500 miles to 17,500 miles. That means it’s “only” negative 5,000 miles to Lima in economy.
(This leads to the odd scenario that if you live in one of the cities that serves Central America or Northern South America, and you want a first class return from Hawaii, you’re better off adding on a leg to Central America to decrease the price even if you’ll never fly it. It’s kind of like how I saved 200k US Airways miles by adding dummy legs I won’t be flying to this award.)
Getting American Miles
The best current offer for American Airlines credit cards is to get two at the same time for 100k total miles. You can apply for the Citi American Airlines Visa and Citi American Airlines American Express within minutes with different browsers. In my experience, my brother’s experience, my girlfriend’s experience, and the experience of hundreds of FlyerTalkers, you can get approved for both.
The offer on both the cards linked is the same. Spend $2,500 within 4 months and receive 50k miles and two Admirals Club passes. So that’s $5,000 total spending in 4 months for 100k total bonus AA miles and four Admirals Club passes–an incredible haul.
There’s one hiccup. The offer page doesn’t mention that deal, and the offer page may be expired. But if you can pull up the page, the deal is probably still on–certainly the deal has worked for hundreds before you. But your mileage may vary.
Here’s the FlyerTalk thread bible on Citi AA offers, including information on the two-browser trick, new offers as they appear, and recent data points about whether offers are still working.
We’re all familiar with free oneways on American Airlines awards. Looking at the exact same type of award from the perspective of booking a domestic award, leads to some incredibly cheap international add ons like 7,500 miles to Europe or negative 7,500 miles to Peru!
For more great posts like this, follow me on Twitter or Facebook. If you’re in Los Angeles, Tampa, or Baltimore, let’s grab dinner.
I will be speaking at the Los Angeles Frequent Traveler University (Nov 30 – Dec 2, sold out) about adding free oneways to award tickets. To help myself prepare and to edify those who can’t attend, I’ll be writing a series of posts on the topic.
Why Free Oneways Aren’t Possible on US Airways Awards
Comparison of Free Oneway Possibilities on Legacy Carriers
Three Vacations on Two Awards
Free Circle Trips on Awards
Almost Free Oneways on American Airlines Awards
Six months ago, I was the first person to write about Free Oneways on United Awards. It is my most viewed post of all time, but it needs to be spruced up and to have the information from subsequent clarifying posts all put in one place, namely here.
To get a free oneway on a United award, you need to comply with the following rules:
You must take your one free stopover per roundtrip international or Hawaii award at your home airport.
You must route in a way that pleases the united.com computer. Exact routing rules are completely unknown. See I Don’t Know United’s Award Rules.
You must follow all other United award routing rules.
And as your reward, you will get one free oneway per roundtrip to anywhere in the same United zone as your home airport. If your home airport is in the continental US, that means you can get a free oneway anywhere in the continental US, Canada, or Alaska.
You can take a cheap oneway to other destinations like Hawaii or South America. If you want to take your cheap oneway to a different zone than your home airport, you simply pay the difference in miles between flying home from your destination and flying to your free oneway’s destination from your destination.
The free or cheap oneway will be in the same cabin as the rest of its direction, meaning if you have the free oneway before your outbound, it will be in the outbound’s cabin.
Getting these free oneways requires taking advantage of United’s booking rules that allow one stopover and two open jaws for international awards from the US. And being able to book these free oneways online requires understanding how to book free stopovers online, so if you haven’t read my post on that subject, see How to Book Free Stopovers Online: United.
Here’s the idea: you can use one stopover and one open jaw to construct a free oneway on an international United award or a United award to Hawaii.
Example:
Andy lives in Newark, NJ.
On April 3, 2013, Andy flies from Newark to Buenos Aires (connecting in Houston, but connections are irrelevant to the story.)
On April 10, 2013, Andy returns from Buenos Aires to Newark.
This award costs 60,000 United miles and $79.82 in economy class because the continental US to Southern South America is 30k miles each way.
Flying this award, Andy would be leaving his open jaws and stopover on the table. With an extra open jaw and stopover, he can tack on a free oneway to anywhere in the continental US, Canada, or Alaska! The same example with a free oneway:
On April 3, 2013, Andy flies from Newark to Buenos Aires (connecting in Houston, but connections are irrelevant to the story.)
On April 10, 2013, Andy returns from Buenos Aires to Newark.
On May 22, 2013, six weeks later, Andy flies from Newark to Chicago. <— Free oneway!
By free oneway, I mean that the miles price hasn’t increased at all–it’s still 60k total miles.
Taxes have increased exactly $2.50, the security fee for a domestic segment. This is a free oneway on a United award in its most basic form. Let me give you a ton more examples to illustrate the possibilities and answer your questions.
Those of you who are familiar with adding free oneways to American awards know that to do so you must live in an international gateway city. One advantage of United’s free oneways is that you do not need to live in an international gateway city.
Even if your home airport is tiny like Palm Springs, California, you can take advantage of free oneways. Economy awards between the continental US and South Asia–Honk Kong’s region–go for 32,500 miles each way. That means a roundtrip would be 65k United miles. Onto that, you can add a free oneway for zero extra miles.
Palm Springs to Hong Kong roundtrip with a later free oneway from Palm Springs to Chicago
What if you live at a tiny airport that only has one United route like Charlottesville, Virginia, where United only flies to Washington-Dulles? You might think you can’t get a free oneway from here since you would have to transit Dulles twice in the same direction.
To illustrate what I mean by transiting Dulles twice in the same direction, consider the example of Charlottesville to Paris roundtrip with a free oneway to Chicago afterwards.
(Note that the free oneway is two segments. There is no maximum number of segments you can use to get from your home airport to your free oneway destination.)
United considers the outbound Charlottesville to Paris and the return Paris to Chicago with a stopover in Charlottesville. That return transits Dulles twice, once on February 12 and once on March 6. Transiting the same airport twice in the same direction is completely legal according to United’s computer.
The award prices at 60k roundtrip, which is the standard economy price to Europe roundtrip.
Of course, Charlottesville is also served by US Airways, which could have been used to avoid transiting Dulles twice in one direction.
But the point remains that you absolutely can transit the same airport twice in the same direction in service of a free oneway! In fact, I’ve even constructed awards that send the free oneway back to a previous layover airport meaning that you fly a route and its exact return back-to-back in the same direction.
Here are some other awesome free oneways you can do with United miles.
Double Open Jaw
Taking a free oneway uses one of the two open jaws you get on United awards, but you still have one open jaw left. Feel free to use it by flying into one city and returning home from another on your main award.
This award is business class from Newark to London, returning from Frankfurt to Newark. Then the free oneway goes from Newark to Phoenix. This is all perfectly legal and prices at the roundtrip business class price of 100k miles.
This award also illustrates that international business class gives you the right to domestic first class within the US. That flight from Newark to Phoenix is in US Airways first class.
Before the free oneway trick, you might have been tempted to fly Newark to London, London to Frankfurt, and Frankfurt to Newark on one award, using your stopover en route. That still might be the best deal–it depends on many factors, mainly whether you prefer London to Frankfurt or Newark to Phoenix in a premium class as a free flight because you can only get one of those on the award. For more info on this dilemma, see Choosing Between a Stopover and a Free Oneway on United Awards.
Free Oneways on Hawaii Awards
Unlike American, United allows free oneways on awards to Hawaii!
The main award above is from Los Angeles to Honolulu roundtrip. The outbound is in domestic first class, which costs 40k oneway to Hawaii. The return is in economy for 20k miles. The total price of the award would be 60k United miles for just Los Angeles to Honolulu roundtrip. As you can see, adding Chicago to Los Angeles in domestic first class doesn’t change that price.
This award illustrates another important point about all free oneways. The airlines doesn’t see a free oneway at all. It just sees those legs as part of either the outbound or return. In this case, Chicago to Los Angeles is part of the outbound. Since the outbound is in domestic first, so is Chicago to Los Angeles.
If we had made the free oneway in reverse, Los Angeles to Chicago after the Hawaii award, the free oneway would have been part of the return. The return is in economy, so the free oneway would have been also. When you are mixing-and-matching cabins, add the free oneway to the direction that is in a better cabin.
This award also illustrates that United free oneways can be before your main award to your home airport instead of after your main award from your home airport.
Cheap Oneways to Hawaii, South America, and beyond
Free oneways are only possible when you take the extra legs within the same region as your home airport. Hawaii is not in the same United award region as the continental US. Neither is Argentina, but you can combine oneways to those places onto a normal award and reap big savings.
When you add a oneway to somewhere outside the region of your home airport, you can figure out the price of the trip by checking out United’s interactive award chart.
Adding a oneway to Maui onto a roundtrip economy award to Europe costs 2,500 miles. The award chart tells us why. If you’re contemplating adding a oneway, look up the oneway price for your outbound and return including your tacked on oneway.
The outbound here is the mainland to Europe, which costs 30k in economy.
The return is Europe to Hawaii, which is 32.5k miles in economy.
That adds up (30k + 32.5k) to a total price of 62.5k miles, which is exactly what united.com charged for Newark to Frankfurt to Newark to Maui.
To save you a trip to the chart, I can tell you that on a business class award to Europe, a cheap oneway to Hawaii adds 7,500 miles (57.5k vs 50k). On a first class award to Europe, a oneway to Hawaii is free because mainland to Europe and Hawaii to Europe are both 67.5k miles in first class.
You don’t just have to keep your cheap oneway within the US though. You can easily fly down to another continent.
Here is a cheap oneway to Sao Paulo after a Newark to Europe itinerary. Normally Newark to Europe roundtrip in coach is 60k miles, and Newark to Sao Paulo oneway is 30k in coach, so booking this as two separate awards would be 90k miles. But if you book this as one award with a “stopover” in Newark, the price drops by 12,500 miles!
That’s a oneway to Sao Paulo for 17.5k miles. Using the same trick, you could add a cheap oneway to Central America for 2,500 miles or to Peru for 10k miles.
Negative Price Oneways
What about to the Caribbean? The Caribbean is also a separate zone from the continental US for determining miles needed. But amazingly on the United chart, it actually costs fewer miles to get from the Caribbean to Europe than from the continental US to Europe.
This is shocking considering the way to get from the Caribbean to Europe on the Star Alliance is by connecting through the US. Here’s a sample free oneway from the Caribbean to the US tacked on before the main European award. “Free” is a bit of a misnomer though, since adding the oneway actually decreased the price of the award by 2,500 miles!
Take off the oneway from St. Thomas to Philly, and you pay 2,500 more miles.
Free Oneways Outside the US
Nothing limits the free oneways to awards originating in the US or awards that touch the US. Here is an award with a free oneway that is wholly within Europe.
Vienna to Madrid roundtrip then months later Vienna to Rome oneway for 25,000 miles in economy class, the normal roundtrip price in economy class.
European aviation taxes: ouch!
This could have value if you live outside the US or if you want a base to explore from on your next vacation.
The most common question I get by far is some variation of: “I read your post about free oneways on United and followed your steps, but I got an error message. What gives?”
The error may occur after clicking search, it may occur after picking the first leg, or it may occur after picking the first two legs.
The error is caused because United’s search engine doesn’t show all the results that it should when you search multicity. From my experience, it will only show the first few results that I found by searching each leg oneway when I repeat the exact same search as part of a multicity search.
For example, doing a oneway search of Hong Kong to Palm Springs on February 6, 2013 returns dozens of results, some near the bottom of the list with Saver (low-miles-price) availability.
Doing the multicity search necessary to book a free oneway award that includes HKG to PSP on February 6 returns only three results, none with Saver award space.
The cause of this glitch is unclear.
The only way I’ve ever remedied this glitch online is to search each leg oneway and find dates that have availability for my desired cities, preferably availability on the shortest itineraries (the ones on top). But in most cases, if the glitch strikes, booking online is impossible.
That means you have to book by phone, but United charges $25 per passenger if you book by phone. They will not waive this phone fee just because a booking could not be completed online. Here’s how you avoid the phone fee with United:
First, search for and reserve any United flight. if you reserve as much of your real trip as possible, you’ll save time, but you can literally put any one segment on hold, and this will work.
Continue as if you are booking online all the way until the payment page.
Then on the payment page, don’t pay. Instead, where you see the credit-card logos, you should click the link that says “phone order page.”
By clicking the link, you have reserved the award. You will get a confirmation number.
If you look on united.com under your itineraries, you’ll see that your award is held until 11:59 PM two days later.
Now you can call 800-UNITED-1 and change or add to the held reservation. Once the changes are made, you can ticket the reservation or hang up, in which case it would still be held until its expiration time.
Make sure when you decide to ticket it that you say you are calling in to ticket a reservation you started online, so they don’t accidentally charge you a phone ticketing fee. Don’t let them charge you that fee because if they do–and they shouldn’t–it will be very difficult to get the refund you deserve.
Phone ticketing fees are never charged to Premier Platinum members and higher.
Other troubleshooting
When the computer gives you an error message, you are in trouble. United does not post all of its award rules anywhere. Here are the posted rules. (Click the “Star Alliance air travel award rules” link.
These rules don’t give very many restrictions at all. No maximum length is mentioned; no maximum segments are given. No rule states which continents can be transited on awards. (For instance AA awards from the US to India can route through Europe, but not through Asia.)
This means the computer rules all. If the agent gets an error message when trying to price all your award segments, he will be loath to overrule the computer. Instead he will backfill reasons why your award is not permitted. Most of these reasons, in my experience, will not be written on the linked list of rules. Some “problems” will be expressly permitted by the rules. For instance, many United phone agents have told me that you can only get one open jaw per award when the rules online clearly say you get two–and I’ve booked tons of United awards with two open jaws.
What can you do? Don’t bother talking to the agent–he can’t change anything. Ask politely for a supervisor. Say you believe your award is legal, and ask him which rule it violates. Politely ask him to manually override the computer, and let you ticket the award for the correct price.
If he won’t, then you should ask him to cancel the award. You can try to call back and get a friendlier supervisor, but the first one will have noted that your held award is not valid, so you need to create a whole new reservation.
Persistence, politeness, and the fact that these awards are legal will help you, but there is no guarantee you will ever find someone to overrule a computer that won’t price an award.
The flip side of this annoyance is that sometimes the computer lets through some outrageous routings. For instance:
Yes, you are reading that right. The return is Lima to Houston to Los Angeles to Santa Barbara (stopover), Santa Barbara to Phoenix to Newark. The return goes west then east within the US. And yet the itinerary prices at 40,000 miles, which is the normal coach roundtrip from the US to Peru. Santa Barbara to Newark is a free oneway.
Can you rebook now that you’ve read this article to add a free oneway?
Yes, but it will cost you $75 or more. United’s award fees’ list says that changing the origin/destination costs $75–less if you have status.
I believe that agents must decide without a computer the correct fee to assess, so I would lobby for the destination-change fee instead of letting an agent talk you into cancelling and re-crediting then rebooking for $150.
A similar question is whether you can combine two oneway awards booked separately into a roundtrip to unlock the free stopover and thus the free oneway. That would cost $150 to cancel one and add it to the other.
Other Rules I Haven’t Mentioned
I haven’t talked about MPM, overwater carriers, or anything like that with respect to United free oneways because those concepts don’t apply. Each loyalty program has its own rules. United’s doesn’t worry about MPM for awards, and it has no crazy published-fare-from-overwater-carrier rule like American does.
Recap
Free oneways have changed how I book United awards. United is awesome for allowing us to book oneway awards for half the price of roundtrip, so I used to use United miles for oneways because I often like to travel in circles instead of roundtrips.
But since discovering free oneway, I try to book mostly roundtrips with United to unlock the stopover and two open jaws. And I try to avoid using the stopover on the main portion of the award, subbing in an open jaw and an Avios award if necessary, so I can save one open jaw and the stopover to get a free oneway.
I have earned millions of points, primarily though credit cards, to travel the world in first class for pennies. This blog will show you how to earn and redeem points to do the same!
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I have earned millions of points, primarily though credit cards, to travel the world in first class for pennies. This blog will show you how to earn and redeem points to do the same!