Here's how I got United to "manually sell" me award seats for an itinerary. While this technique is not possible in most circumstances, in my case, it turned no award into my dream award!

I was in the midst of constructing a simple roundtrip itinerary from the US to Europe when I ran into some big trouble.

United's online award calendar displayed Austrian award space on the only day I could return to the States.

This review is a continuation of my fun US Airways redemption that I wrote about back in this post. I reviewed Turkish Business Class: Washington DC to Istanbul and Cathay Pacific Business Class: Tokyo to Hong Kong already.

I was extremely excited for my nonstop flight from Tokyo to Washington-Dulles on ANA.

I got an email from a reader that demonstrates a common point of confusion about stopovers on American Airlines awards.

There are several posts on the new PointBreaks list, which allows us to book hotel rooms through March 31, 2014 for only $35 per night. 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.

All Nippon Airways (ANA)--a Japanese Star Alliance carrier--launches a new route between Tokyo-Haneda and Vancouver from March 30, 2014.

Saver award space is excellent on the route in economy and business class. You can book the space this week--by January 31, 2014--with United miles at pre-devaluation rates.

I'm not confident that united.com will price awards correctly starting next week or offer us all the best award choices.

February 1 marks the introduction of two new United charts that are much worse than the current chart (so you should be burning United miles for 2014 travel this week).

The way the charts should work according to United's posts on FlyerTalk is that:

Awards with all flights operated by United should be on the United chart.
Awards in which United-operated flights are at least one cabin higher than partner flights should be on the United chart.

In preparation for tomorrow's MileValue dinner in Honolulu with Delta Points--still a few spots left if you want one--I made three charts of the United devaluation for awards originating or ending in Hawaii.

I made the same charts for awards in all three cabins originating from the continental US.

Per this thread on Flyertalk, Club Carlson is running a very interesting first quarter promotion. The full terms and conditions, as well as registration, can be found here. If you stay three nights at Club Carlson hotels between January 6th and April 13th, you will earn 38,000 bonus points.

What will 38,000 Club Carlson points get you?

38,000 points is enough for four free nights at a category 1 or one night at a category 4. The full award chart is below.

There is:

widely available
underpriced
economy award space
for two passengers
for all of 2014
to Australia
with the opportunity to stop in Hawaii for a few days in either direction.

If you have 75,000 American Airlines miles and about $100, you can fly a roundtrip award from the United States to Australia on almost any day you want this year.