This is another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I’ve booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process.

Sometimes airlines have seemingly interminable hold times before you can talk to an agent. This mainly happens during disruptions to the normal routine like a big storm that is causing a ton of rebookings or the United/Continental merger.

Here are some tricks to lower or eliminate your hold times:

1) Call the highest tier elite line. Elite lines are answered immediately or with a much reduced wait time.

If you're a top-tier elite, I'm sure you're already doing this.

Per the LA Times, the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner routes will be:

Houston (IAH) to Amsterdam (AMS) starting December 4

Houston (IAH) to London (LHR) starting February 4

Los Angeles (LAX) to Tokyo (NRT) starting January 3

Los Angeles (LAX) to Shanghai (PVG) starting March 30

These are in addition to the already announced:

Denver (DEN) to Tokyo (NRT)

Houston (IAH) to Lagos (LOS)

Despite the announcement, united.com has not been updated to show the new aircraft on the routes.

I stumbled upon the news while researching a post about getting an award on the Dreamliner.

Also while researching the

This is another post in my Anatomy of an Award series, in which I take a real award I’ve booked and break it down step-by-step to elucidate the award booking process.

Anyone without United status is charged a hefty $75 fee to book an award within 21 days of departure. There are two tricks to reduce or eliminate this fee.

Trick 1- Transfer your Ultimate Rewards to a Status-ful spouse's United account

Ultimate Rewards can be transferred to your United account or your spouse's.

When I say that United awards can have one stopover and two open jaws, it elicits a lot of confusion. Some people don't know what an open jaw is while others can handle one conceptually, but not two open jaws. Hopefully I can clear it up.

A roundtrip United award is made up of two oneway segments.

An open jaw happens when the origin of one of those two oneways does not match up with the destination of the other.

For example, consider a roundtrip United award with the two oneway segments LAX -> JFK and JFK -> LAX.

Singapore Airlines First Class and Business Class space is hard to get with United and US Air miles. Except right now, there is a glitch you can exploit, and the space is widely available.

Or: Did You Earn United Status Without Knowing It?

I have Silver Status on United. See! ---------->

It just posted a few days ago even though my last paid flight with United was in March. What was happening? I had earned Silver Status in March, but United's errors--human and computer--had kept my status from updating to Silver.

There are two requirements to reach United Premier Silver status: accrue 25,000 Premier Miles and fly four United or Copa flights.

Recently I had two clients of my Award Booking Service want to add a few 23 hour layovers onto their United award from Cleveland to South Africa. All the legacy US carriers have a rule in place that on international layovers, under 24 hours is just a layover, but over 24 hours is a stopover.

This distinction is crucial since no US carrier allows more than one en route stopover internationally.

For some, Lufthansa First Class is their aspirational goal. Using United miles, there is a (poorly kept) secret for how to get Lufthansa First Class seats: wait until the last week or even the last day!

Lufthansa only releases its first class availability to United right at the wire. For instance, I am sitting in the Lufthansa business lounge in Frankfurt right now, waiting to fly FRA-LHR-LAX on Lufthansa and United business class.