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United is releasing an unusual amount of award space to Europe for Summer 2016. A lot of flights have 9+ award seats in Business Class on the same flight. Book now before it disappears!
United award space can be searched on united.com, and the Saver award space can be booked with any Star Alliance miles. A check on Comprehensive Spread Sheet of 8 Star Alliance Award Charts: Cheapest Awards to Europe shows that the best options are:
- 40,000 Asiana miles each way
- 88,000 ANA miles roundtrip
- 45,000 Aeroplan miles one way to Western Europe, 52,500 to Eastern
- 57,500 United miles one way
- 63,000 LifeMiles one way
None of those programs collect fuel surcharges on United flights to Hawaii.
Asiana, ANA, and Aeroplan miles are SPG transfer partner. ANA and Aeroplan are also AMEX Membership Rewards partners. United is an Ultimate Rewards transfer partner. LifeMiles can be purchased for 1.32 cents each.
Award Space
The unbelievable award space is out of Washington and Chicago.
Unfortunately there is no free way to get a calendar that shows direct award space on the United flights, since United made the calendars on united.com less useful with the recent site redesign. These calendars show all Star Alliance options for one person instead. But they should give some idea of what is available, so you can go search united.com yourself. Green days have Business Class award space.
Washington-Dulles to Rome
Signing in and clicking on a date let me see the breakdown of all fare classes available on the daily United flight. This flight has “I9”, which means there are at least nine Saver award seats in Business Class that anyone can book with United or other Star Alliance miles.
Washington-Dulles to Paris
Washington-Dulles to Brussels
Chicago to Munich
Chicago to Rome
Connections
This space is useful even if you live in, say, Little Rock, Arkansas and want to go to, say, Amsterdam.
You can connect in United domestic First Class or United economy to these award flights for zero extra miles if you find Saver award space. You can often connect in Europe for zero extra miles, though flying another carrier will open you up to fuel surcharges if using Asiana, Aeroplan, or ANA miles.
Here is how to search and book an award like that using Segment-by-Segment searching.
Booking the Award
Search on united.com for Saver award space, and book on the website of the miles you are using or by calling the airline whose miles you are using.
You can book United award space on united.com, lifemiles.com, or aeroplan.com. The other miles mentioned would require a call to those airlines.
Bottom Line
United.com has award space for as many nine passengers on many flights to Europe this Summer in Business Class. Award space like this doesn’t last, so book it with your favorite Star Alliance miles now.
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I’m flying to Europe in August from SFO and don’t see anything less than 70k each way. What am I missing?
@Bonnieji – You probably aren’t seeing any 57.5K availability because UA award space from SFO to ORD or IAD is basically non-existent. Unless you can find a connection to these European gateways, you’re not going to see any availability from SFO.
The 70K you are seeing is probably for TK’s SFO-IST flights, which has excellent availability both ways. To be honest, it might be worth the premium to take those flights over UA options anyways.
And at least with the FCO flights, this is old/no news. UA biz availability has been excellent since the schedule opened Sun-Thurs for the entire summer. I booked mine for four in October and my flight is still showing I9. To be honest, availability is probably worse now than it has been as it’s just been picked over a bit, but it didn’t suddenly just appear and likely won’t disappear until flyers book the awards themselves (although blogger attention will likely accelerate this). It’s not like the AA LHR awards that just appeared briefly a couple months ago.
I’m flying to Europe in August from SFO and don’t see anything less than 70k each way. What am I missing?
@Bonnieji – You probably aren’t seeing any 57.5K availability because UA award space from SFO to ORD or IAD is basically non-existent. Unless you can find a connection to these European gateways, you’re not going to see any availability from SFO.
The 70K you are seeing is probably for TK’s SFO-IST flights, which has excellent availability both ways. To be honest, it might be worth the premium to take those flights over UA options anyways.
And at least with the FCO flights, this is old/no news. UA biz availability has been excellent since the schedule opened Sun-Thurs for the entire summer. I booked mine for four in October and my flight is still showing I9. To be honest, availability is probably worse now than it has been as it’s just been picked over a bit, but it didn’t suddenly just appear and likely won’t disappear until flyers book the awards themselves (although blogger attention will likely accelerate this). It’s not like the AA LHR awards that just appeared briefly a couple months ago.