United recently announced a new partner: Azul Brazilian Airlines.

United is offering 25% off Saver economy awards between the mainland United States and Japan for flights completed by April 30, 2014.

You can book flights to Japan for only 26,250 United miles each way this month only, and the price shows up automatically online. The normal price is 35,000 United miles each way.

Any discount is nice, but there are one or two drawbacks to consider.

United flies two flights from Honolulu to the east coast on internationally-configured two-cabin planes. What is sold as First Class on these planes--and BusinessFirst if you fly internationally--is a fully flat bed in a 2-1-2 configuration across the cabin.

Flat bed first class on United flights between Honolulu and Newark and Washington-Dulles

This First Class is far superior to most domestic First Class, which is served by a recliner seat with only seven more inches of legroom than coach.

First Class Seat on a Hawaii to East Coast Flight.

I haven't been home since February 16 when I boarded a plane from Honolulu for Newark.

The 50k mile bonus offer is back on the Lufthansa card mentioned in this post until 6/30/14.

Look how easy it is to get a family of four to Europe this summer!

For only 240k United miles total, there are ample options from the United States to many places in Europe. If 240k United miles sounds like a lot, it really isn't.

On February 1, United miles became much less valuable for premium cabin flights.

Not only did all first class awards outside of the western hemisphere go way up in price, but partner first class awards went way, way up.

Since people who want to fly first class awards want the swankiest, most aspirational flights, the increase in the partner award price is a big problem.

United Global First is good.

Update 3/6/14: This post is outdated.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

In What You Need to Know about United Award Holds, I ran through the two ways to hold a United award online:

Any award that contains a partner segment can be held for free if your account does not have sufficient miles to ticket the award immediately.

I noticed a new addition to United's interactive award chart today.

At the bottom of the page, United has added the sentence: "United reserves the right to refuse or cancel any awards redeemed for travel listed at an incorrect or erroneous mileage amount."

What does it mean?

In part 1, I discussed the economy award options to Australia with American Airlines miles.

Australia is one of the hardest awards with frequent flyer miles.