EVA Air--Taiwan's second largest carrier--has announced that it will join the Star Alliance June 18, 2013.

Reader Christopher emailed me an exciting tip the other day: free oneways are possible on United awards within the continental USA and Canada. I already knew free oneways were possible on international United awards and awards to Hawaii, but this was news.

He sent me some screenshots, and I was able to replicate his findings and add some more of my own. I learned four things:

Christopher's tip: You can get a free oneway on roundtrip Standard economy awards within the US and Canada. That means three oneway Standard awards for 50k United miles.

United, US Airways, American, and Delta among others rely on award charts to determine the price of your award.

United has added its Dreamliners back to the schedule, which is good news for plane geeks. The FAA grounded United's 787-8 Dreamliners in January, but they are back on the upcoming flight schedule starting May 31.

Why This Is Cool

United recently acquired several Boeing 787 Dreamliners and announced the first international routes that will be serviced by the plane.

The plane has no first class (Global First), 36 business class seats (BusinessFirst), and a few hundred economy seats.

There are a lot of cool things you can do with miles. One of the coolest things I've thought up, and one which I am strongly contemplating booking, would turn 57.5k United miles and 10k Avios into:

A trip to a Pacific atoll to be determined, Guam, and Japan. Three places I've never been.
Fourteen hours on the famous Island Hopper route.
Flat bed business class for seven hours.

The center piece for this plan is the Island Hopper route, which I became obsessed with last week and read everything a google search could find.

There are a lot of reasons to use an Award Booking Service, like the MileValue Award Booking Service. One great reason is because you have miles in several accounts and want to use the most efficient type for the trip you have in mind. Different miles have different best uses.

Recently I was contacted by a friend who had mid-six-figure account balances in his American, United, and Delta accounts. He wanted a simple open jaw trip to Europe in economy class. From Washington-Dulles to Nice and returning from London to Dulles.

Below is the email I sent to him.

Asiana recently announced that starting on July 22, it would be flying a new 777-200ER daily on its New York-JFK <-> Seoul-Incheon route with the following flight times.

OZ222 departs Seoul-ICN at 10:00 and arrives New York-JFK at 11:00 AM (same day)

OZ 221 departs New York-JFK at 1:00 PM and arrives Seoul-ICN at 4:10 PM (next day)

This is big news because the three-cabin Asiana 777-200ERs have a fantastic first class.

As many of you may know, I am a college student by day and the amusing, yet mystical, Bengali Miles Guru by night. After traveling almost 100,000 miles since January, I knew that my upcoming spring break trip would have to be amazing.

At MileValue, we constantly champion the free oneway on award tickets. Adding a free oneway is possible (to varying degrees) using all four legacy carrier's miles. For more information, make sure to check out Scott's comprehensive posts below:

Master Thread: Free Oneways on United Awards
Master Thread: Free Oneways on American Awards
Master Thread: Free Oneways on Delta Awards
Master Thread: Free Oneways on US Airways Awards

Free oneways are great, but nothing gets us more excited than "negative" awards.

Update 3/6/14: This post is outdated. See Master Thread: Holds on United Awards

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.