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If you’re new to MileValue, welcome! You should click the Start Here tab on the top of the page; it tells you the best place to start depending on your skill level. Check back daily because in the next few days I’ll be revealing how to get free oneways on US Airways and Delta awards!
Occasionally I give away something awesome like a gift card or lounge passes; it’s another reason to check MileValue daily. On to the giveaway:
I’m giving away a $67 virtual American Airlines gift card. I snagged this gift card for free last year with my American Express Platinum card (along with two others), and I’ll put the terms and conditions below, so you know how you can use it.
This is a unique giveaway as it will test your comprehension of the free oneways on American and United awards!
There are two ways to enter, and entry will close at 11:59 PM PT on Monday. Entry methods:
#1- Follow me on twitter: @milevalue
#2- Comment on this post with a valid routing for a free oneway on either American or United. Include whether it is a United or American award, the miles needed, what segment is the free oneway, and class of service. You can’t use my example comment or any from my previous posts.
Example comment:
United award in business class, 100,000 miles
LAX-LHR
LHR-LAX
LAX-IAH <— free oneway
If you’re having trouble, ask for help, and someone might help you correct your comment to feature a valid routing that includes a free oneway.
You can enter one or both ways. Enter both ways and receive two entries. On Monday night, I’ll use a random number generator to figure out which comment or follower is the winner. But if a commenter is the winner, and he put an invalid routing for a free stopover, he will not win. In that case, I’ll use the random number generator to select a different winner.
I’m doing this to incentivize everyone to understand how to get free oneways on their United and American oneways, so we can all squeeze a little more value out of our miles.
Gift card T&C:
It is transferable, so this giveaway is OK. Up to eight AA gift cards can be used per purchase, so you can combine it with any you have.
Gift Cards are redeemable toward the purchase of air travel wholly on flights operated by American Airlines, American Eagle® and AmericanConnection® carriers for itineraries sold and originating in the U.S., Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. Gift Cards may also be used for payment of air travel on any oneworld® partner or Codeshare flights designated in flight listings as AA*. They cannot be used for payment of air travel on any other airline. In addition if a credit card is used in conjunction with gift card(s), the credit card must have a United States, U.S. Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico billing address. Gift Cards may not be used for upgrades, Admirals Club memberships enrollments, Admirals Club One-Day passes, AAdvantage Award Travel or other non-flight products and/or services sold on AA.com.
American award in economy class, JFK-MAD, MAD-JFK, JFK-SFO (free one-way), 40,000 miles (off-peak).
That’s one valid entry. Just as a reminder, you can get stopovers on oneway American awards, so you could have also written MAD-JFK, JFK-SFO (free oneway), 20,000 miles off peak. Or you could even add a second free oneway: to JFK before heading to Madrid. Good work.
Had this redemption last year:
HNL-SFO-JFK <– free one-way
LGA-CLT-MBJ
MBJ-CLT-EWR-HNL
PMCO Business – 75k miles
Other than the fact that Hawaii-Caribbean is cheaper than Hawaii-US in Business/First (by 2.5k miles OW), this redemption was leg 2 of a pre-wedding honeymoon, and then RT for post-wedding honeymoon.
As I'm based in NY, we just didn't board the last leg EWR-HNL, even though it was incredibly tempting.
Another redemption a friend just booked was:
ATH-LHR-JFK
LGA-ORD-SEA <– free OW
on American for 62.5k miles in F for the return for his honeymoon.
ORD -> IAD Free one way
IAD->FRA
FRA->IAD
60,000 Miles with super saver on united
Thanks for the great giveaway.
American off peak economy to Japan with a free one way to Mexico. JFK-HND, HND-JFK, EWR-SJD (this is the free one way). This is only 50k roundtrip.
United Award for 100k miles Business Class:
PHX>EZE
GIG>PHX (open jaw)
PHX>ANC (Free one way)
United BOS-FLR, FLR-BOS(stop)-BOI business saver for 100k
It’s often $500+ to get in/out of Boise, and this tacks a free leg in business!
I flew this last fall, but didn’t have the time to take advantage of the free one-way. Kind of kicking myself, but I wash pushing it with my work leave already. And yes I know it’s a crappy route/way to redeem UA miles to that region and class of service. 🙂
UA Economy @ 60,000 miles
IAD-GIG
EZE-IAD
IAD-SFO free one way
I was just going to book a reward to Maui for January but after I read this, I realized I can tack it onto my trip to Ukraine next June (thank you)! So, I decided to hold off until the schedule opens for June, to book Maui:
OGG – LAX (January) – almost free (7,500 business/first class) one-way
LAX – KBP via Munich (June)
KBP – LAX via Frankfurt (June)
107,500 miles in Business/First (100,000 without a Maui add-on).
Awesome! Try to book the outbound LAX-OGG with Avios. 12,500 Avios plus $10.9 if there is space on American.
Avios is such an awesome value to Hawai’i out of LAX! I just came back from the Big island on an Avios reward which I got back when there was a 30% bonus. Now, with a 50% bonus, it’s 8,334 MR points for a one-way on American. I’ve got to say, I love the new Avios for Hawai’i redemptions, if nothing else! But, 2,500 UA miles for an “almost-free” one-way beats even that! 🙂
AA award in coach class, 50,000 miles
SFO-HND
HND-SFO
SFO-ORD <— free oneway
Did this a couple of years ago: NCE-LHR-BOS (stop)-ORD <- free one way for 30,000 coach OW.
On BA and AA with AA miles I assume?
Yes, this was on BA and AA using AAdvantage miles.
DEN-LHR-DEN-LAX
United economy 60K award free one way DEN-LAX
Oops, this is one you used in example…I’ll try a different one that I’m not sure of, but want to book for my wife.
American economy 30K
IAD-MAD-IAD-SFO with the free one-way to SFO upon return to the gateway city.
Yet another correction! This is 30k each way not total
EWR-CPH
CPH-EWR
EWR-ORD Free one way.
60,000 Miles with super saver on united
LIT-ORD (free oneway) ORD-LHR on AA
30k AAdvantage (milesaver peak)
ICT-FRA
FRA-ICT-CUN
62.5K United miles
(Technically I guess it’s not “free” since the RT is 60,000, but I consider a one way from Wichita to Cancun for 2,500 miles the next best thing!) Thanks for the great ideas!
Me too. I think very often the cheap oneways will be a better deal than the free oneways.
United award in business class, 100,000 miles
DEN-FRA
FRA-DEN
DEN-ORD <— free oneway
SFO to MNL then MNL to SFO, SFO to IAH (free one way) im a newbie. Is this possible? For 60k on united.
I am collecting miles to do this next year. 100K American
CUN-JFK free OW – jan/feb to escape the NYC winter
JFK-NRT 50k – jun/jul summer vacation
NRT-JFK 50k – jun/jul summer vacation
JFK-HNL free OW in november after Thanksgiving
All business class
I am not sure if it’s possible because of the dates. How far in advance can i book?
Thanks. Tania
You can book 330 days in advance, but you have up to one year to complete all travel on the award.
I didn’t think your return routing would be allowed by AA: NRT-JFK-HNL is so circuitous that I didn’t think it would fall within 25% of the MPM for NRT-HNL, but I did a dummy booking at AA.com, and it priced JFK-HNL as a free oneway (if I was willing HND-JFK).
That’s great. HND works fine as well. Do I have one year from the date of booking or from the date of the first trip?
Thanks again.
United free one way – 60K miles total
CLE – CDG
OTP – CLE
CLE – SFO – Free one way
American – Free one way
ORD – LHR
LHR – ORD
ORD – HNL – Free one way
HNL-JFK Free stopover
JFK-BCN
AA 100k business award
For 40K Aadvantage miles in off-peak coach:
DFW – LHR (to London)
CDG – DFW (from Paris)
DFW – DEN
Mine is open-jaw which I thought was required for this to work, but many of the other listings are not open jawed. ???
DFW – DEN was my free one-way.
IAD – LHR
FCO – LHR (Open jaw)
IAD – SFO (Free one-way)
Economy 60k
I’m preparing to book an award route to Europe in the Fall, and this was the first in-depth look I’ve taken at the flights. Taxes and fees come out to nearly $700 — what am I doing to encourage that? Should I try flying out of/into a different gateway city?
Awesome promo, by the way. Very glad you pushed me to try this myself!
Are you flying British Airways on an American Airlines award? AA charges fuel surcharges if you BA.
Yes, it’s flying BA with AA. Thanks for that — new-guy question, and I appreciate the help. I tinkered around and came up with this instead:
AA Economy
JFK – LHR
MAD – JFK
JFK – HNL (Free one-way and a 20-hour layover in LAX, plenty of time to wander a little.)
50k miles + $42.20 = MUCH easier on the wallet. I’ll have to keep experimenting, though, as we’re more local to DC.
Why isn’t something like this possible?
IAD – LHR via MIA
MAD – IAD via MIA
MIA – HNL
Since MIA is the gateway city, shouldn’t a stopover/free one-way be permitted there? If I dropped off the return to IAD, would it then count the IAD-MIA leg as the free one-way?
First, you can get two free oneways on an AA award, one going each way. Yes, you can have stopovers both ways in MIA. You could even do something like this:
Award:
HNL-MIA <--- free oneway MIA-LHR MAD-MIA MIA-HNL<--- free oneway but then you'd have to buy MIA-IAD to get home from Hawaii, IAD-MIA to get to LHR, MIA-IAD to get home from MAD, and IAD-MIA to get back to Hawaii Keep thinking through these options, and you'll find the best one for you.
That’s fantastic. Thanks for all these ideas.
40,000 miles on UA. YUL-MSP<- MSP-LIH
LIH-MSP. Seems to work ok starting in Canada.
Also did MSP-PDX<- PDX-LIH LIH-MSP. Also 40,000 miles. Not an international routing but gave me a free stopover in Portland anyway.
These are just test routes. I have about 100,000 Avios, 50,000 Membership Rewards points and 100,000 united miles. Trying to get family of four to Hawaii next January and tack on 10th wedding anniversary tRip this October.
Thanks for letting me know that you can tack on free oneways on roundtrips to Hawaii; that’s valuable for me.
P.S. a number of people mentioned united airlines super saver flights. Am I missing something ? I only see saver and standard rewards.
no, you’re not missing anything. united has two levels: easy pass and saver pass
United award in coach class, 60,000 miles
DEN-FRA 30,000 miles + $2.50
FRA-DEN 30,000 miles + $120.00
DEN-MIA <— free oneway Just add $2.50 fee to above
HAN-HKG-JFK-STT in F for 67.5 K AA Miles
JFK-STT was free one way and in Flat Bed AA Biz! (not like CX F though!)
American on cathay pacific– Free one way
jfk – hkg
hkg – jfk
jfk – yyz – Free one way
total first class 135K miles
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