If you can get through this first paragraph I’m going to tell you how I visited Guam, Singapore, Sydney, New Zealand, The Cooke Islands and Japan in business class for 40,000 United miles. 40,000 miles is nothing! The Chase Sapphire Preferredcard, for example, gives 40,000 points (or United miles) as a sign up bonus. So stick with me and I’ll help you recreate this or a similar trip for a similar price or less. This may be the most rewarding but challenging post in the series.
- The Island Hopper with Miles
- The Island Hopper with Cash
- The Pacific Hopper with Miles
- Our Photos from these Pacific Islands
The premise of the Pacific Hopper is basically this: United has priced a round trip ticket between two destinations in the pacific as 25,000 miles or 40,000 in business. Which is cheap. But it’s too cheap when you consider that there are basically no flights from one Pacific island to another in the polynesian and melanesian islands (southern half of the Pacific). So flights need to be routed through New Zealand at the very least. Plus, when you fly from Micronesia (the northern part closer to Asia) to the Polynesia islands the routing becomes even more difficult. You would surely have to route through Japan, South Korea and/or Singapore just to get to New Zealand which is the hub for many pacific islands. At minimum the ticket from Guam to Rarotonga and back would be 18,000 miles of in-air flying!
Basically what I’m telling you is that to go from one Pacific island to another can require a routing through Asia and Australia and/or New Zealand for 25,000 – 40,000 United miles. Who cares? Here’s the big deal: United gives one stopover, two open jaws and a lot of layovers if you wanted. (Scroll down to the bottom for definitions for each term). This means that you could potentially see Asia and New Zealand/Australia as well as your Pacific Islands.
The goal is to start from an island like Guam and book a ticket to a place far away, but in the same “pacific” region, like Rarotonga. Then create your stopover in Auckland, New Zealand. I guess the hardest part is starting from Micronesia in the first place. But it’s well worth burning the miles to start the trip, or perhaps you’ll get a good sale to Guam or something. Plus I’ll show you a little trick to see more and spend less by creating a layover in Japan. Next pick your destination in the South Pacific. We went to Rarotonga on this ticket but would highly recommend Fiji as [in my opinion] a better option. I would also recommend spending the extra 15,000 to fly business class since you’ll be doing a lot of flying!
How do you find these tickets? Despite the fact there is a great post on booking these dream-trips on United.com, the website is not as good as it used to be and the multicity tool will likely not cooperate the way you want it to. So you need to find the route and then call it in. If you do not understand the rules (and terms defined below) well, you will not be able to guide the agent in your booking.
The easiest way to do this is to make a stopover in New Zealand because you can then fly out to the next pacific island whenever the flight is available (or Sydney as there is a flight direct to Rarotonga). This means that you just need to search from Guam (or wherever you’re starting from) to Rarotonga (or wherever you’re ending). I would highly recommend trying to fly Air New Zealand as I love their Business Class. It should then give some possible routes, although you can force it to do many other routes. You then can find a oneway to the island you want and then plan to leave on the day that there is an available Air New Zealand flight out.
Essentially your goal is to piece together a flight starting from Guam (or a nearby island) to an island in the south Pacific (like Fiji) with a stopover in New Zealand (or Sydney). If you find all the flights that abide by the rules, call it in and try booking. If at first you don’t succeed try again. If the computer didn’t take your route, understand what you did wrong and recreate. If you just had a stubborn agent who had never seen such a route, hang up and try again.
It may be helpful to read the series on how to use United miles to book your dream trip (stopovers) if the concepts aren’t clear. The definitions are at the bottom. Please comment below and let me know if there are any other terms or concepts that I could expand on.
The rest may get even more complicated, fyi…
Sometimes you have to try to piece together your flight. First, find flights to Guam (or wherever there are direct flights) and then find seperate tickets from Guam to New Zealand. The outbound flight from Guam just has to be less than 24 hours later than the inbound from the island you’re leaving. You just want to find all the segments of your route that appease these rules.
The reason I say that you should make New Zealand (or Sydney) your stopover is that you may not be able to connect there in less than 24 hours. Meaning you may be able to arrive on a monday and they only have flights to some pacific islands on a Thursday. Thus, this stop would not be considered a layover but would be your one stopover. If you can make this stop a layover, then you could use your stopover elsewhere.
I’m not sure but you may be able to make an open-jaw on your destination. Esentially you could fly from Guam to Sydney, then book the ticket from Rarotonga back to Guam. You would then require miles to get you from Sydney (or wherever) to Rarotonga. This means that you get to save your stopover and use it on another destination – perhaps New Zealand, maybe even Bangkok if you can pull it off. The pros and cons may be obvious… You get to add another destination but you have to use miles to get from Sydney to Rarotonga. Which kind of defeats the point as that one flight would cost 17,500 United miles when the rest of the trip could cost 25,000 United miles.
Though, with or without this trick, you still have one extra stopover and you could technically return to a different island. Like leave from Saipan and return to Guam. Though it didn’t make a different to us as we got off the plane in Japan.
How did Japan make the flight cheaper?
I booked the flight returning to Guam through Tokyo, as United has a direct flight. However, I got out of the plane in Japan. Yes, I had a ticket back to Guam but I did not take it. Why? Well, I already saw Guam. But that’s not my main reason as I’ve already seen Tokyo too. What I really wanted is to fly home from Japan using American Airlines miles. Japan to the USA costs 32,500 miles on AA and 25,000 during off-peak (Oct 1 – April 30). Although, 37,500 from Guam (or anywhere else in the Pacific) is really not that much more.
Forcing other routes?
One way to piece together other routes is search a ton of one-ways. Search one at a time and give yourself the “<24 hour” window. It will normally keep layovers short, however we wanted a long layover to spend the night in Sydney and spend an 18 hour day in Singapore.
I wonder if…
Although this is completely a theory, I wonder if you could route through the United States… Check out the Star Alliance route map. Air New Zealand has two routes that intrigue me. First is Rarotonga to Las Angeles. What if I could use up my stopover and fly business class one-way from Guam to Rarotonga for 20,000 miles. And then fly back to Guam via Las Angeles in economy for 12,500… and just get out of the plane? Is it a long shot? Something tells me the US is a more powerful pricing zone and it would price as a US ticket. But it could work. If so, the other route is Auckland to Honolulu and get out of the plane in Hawaii. That would be a double win as you would see Hawaii and get to book a much cheaper flight home. RAR-AKL-HNL-GUM for the second half of the trip? I actually have no idea if this would work, anyone else know?
On a personal note, I would really love to go to Yap [instead of Guam next time] and make another trip to Fiji. “YAP-GUM-MNL-BKK-AKL-NAN-AKL-BKK-NRT-GUM”. I’d try to fly Air NZ as much as possible. It would be nice to make a long layover in Manilla or get out of the plane there on the way back. This is assuming the Hawaii route wouldn’t work.
Did anyone actually read this all the way through? If so I’d like to hear your thoughts and please share anything you would like to hear more about?
Definitions:
Stopover: A stop on an itinerary that is more than 24 hours and has no limit in length of the stop. 1 stopover is allowed on a destination that is on the way. For example a flight from New York to Rome could have a stopover in London. For no extra cost you could spend 1 week in London and then one week in Rome.
Open-Jaw: When you fly out of a different airport than you originally landed in. For example, if you wanted to take a cruise, road trip or a train from London to Rome you could create an open-jaw. This means that there is a gap in your ticket and United is not responsible for getting your from London to Rome. You could fly New York to London [and then take a train to Rome], and fly Rome to New York. However, an open-jaw can be added to your stopover, destination or you could even return home to a different airport.
Layover: a stop that is less than 24 hours.
Drew,
I actually live in Guam so today’s post really intrigued me. I’ll be trying to do what you did and visit some other islands around here for 40,000 miles in biz class. If I’m successful or not I’ll let you know.
I’m looking forward to reading the other posts of your adventures to Guam and beyond.
I just found your blog recently and enjoy reading it.
Irene
Yes, I did read the whole thing, and will no doubt want to read it a few more times as I give thought to doing this sort of thing in 2014. It does look complicated, but thanks for the information. Is the decline in the functionality of the United website just for Pacific to Pacific flights, or is this a general issue?
@ Irene – Thanks for sharing. I’m glad you saw it then as it’s very Guam based. And I think another person commented saying they are in the Marshall Islands, so hopefully they see it too. I loved my 2 weeks in Guam and will probably see it again someday… on my way to yap :-p.
@ DaveS – I don’t believe it’s a pacific only issue though I can’t even get a simple stopover in Hawaii on the way to Guam to book. Which goes against the number of segment theory and more to the pacific-hater theory. However, I think it’s just a slightly simpler version of Continental’s website and it shows more on routing through islands. So it’s just a post-merger thing.
Wow, this is awesome and exactly what I was looking for! It might be a little while before I get to this trip but I will definitely report back if I book it. I did find your “island hopper” flight on united’s website quite easily.
Iakwe again, Drew!
I’m the guy in the Marshall Islands. Thanks for this post, it is definitely informative. My biggest frustration with trying to piece together a Pacific dream trip is the United website (at least I assume it’s the site), which has only given me “error[s]” in my attempts so far. One friend thinks that the error shows up because of a cap on flights booked using miles (A lot of people travel non-rev or using miles on the Island Hopper, so it could be, though this is just a thought). I plan to go to the Majuro United Airlines office soon for some help.
Right now though, I’m on a Niue kick. I’m pretty sure Air NZ is the only option via AKL, So Majuro to Auckland (via HNL?) to Niue. I’d use AKL as my stopover and hopefully sneak in a layover or two somewhere. Niue is in the Oceania region, as is Majuro, so I think it should technically only cost 25,000 r/t– which would be insane. Must make this happen!
Yea, the errors are frustrating. The post I just did on booking flights on united.com and getting around the segment limits talks about that. I believe they limit the number of segments you can book online. However, I outline how you can still find the routes and then call to book it. So I hope that is helpful, but I do know that the pacific hopping route is way more complicated and I think the only way to book your route is to understand the rules, piece it together and call it in.
Yea, I looked at Niue but I know very little about the island and saw very few award flights to it. But if you go, please take pictures and send them my way. I would like to do a similar route again.
Last June, while living in Guam, I travelled from Guam to Osaka to Bangkok to Auckland (stopover) to Tahiti (destination) and back for 40000 miles in business. I took my 1 year old with us as an infant in lap. I was given a price of $2000 for her since that was 10% of the cost for my ticket had I actually paid for the itinerary. So a $20000 ticket for 40000 miles isn’t bad.
Dear goodness! For a baby? And that is awesome. I really would like to stick this with Tahiti next time but the availability is awful. Good for you though.
did united’s award chart change recently? I can only get it to price out at 50000 miles in business and 30000 in economy?
I don’t think it’s changed. Are you sure that you’re not breaking any of the rules… like adding two stopovers?
Brilliant.
Does this exist anymore? United does not seem to want to display inter Pacific FLights, although from Japan I can get some decent ones, no stopovers in AKL or SYD without getting it up to ~50K miles. Thoughts from Japan instead?
I have booked this trip. Thank you for all the help! Unfortunately, I have one issue that I cannot resolve. I am beginning in Japan, going to Fiji and stopping over in Jakarta before returning to Japan.
From NAN, there is only availability to AKL. From AKL, there are many routings to CGK, but the customer service rep is telling me it is only possible to go from AKL-SIN-CGK, and that AKL-SIN must be direct. No problem, except AKL-SIN has limited/no business award availability.
I was told I cannot connect through anywhere else, or it would violate the most direct route rule. I mentioned Melbourne is directly on the flight path, but the help desk didn’t care. Does this sound correct to you?
Most direct routing rule? That’s goofy. I would call back.
That is so strange that they would do that. Obviously that’s not the most direct route… there’s no availability.
Sorry I’ll step off my soap box. But it’s not consistent at all. There’s also a AKL – NRT route apparently. 99% of all award tickets would be invalid as there is often no direct availability. And you’re right, MEL is relatively on the way. I flew via MEL to SIN. I guarantee that the computer (which is coded with all the routing rules) would let it go through.
Anyways… long answer to say, no, for sure call back. I wonder what their deal is. It seems like they are trying to be more strict for no reason lately.
First, thanks for the reply. I called several times and once escalated to a supervisor. Each time, I give them the flight numbers, they say “my computer wont process it, let me contact the support desk” and then come back and say no luck. They have taken notes on my attempts, so last time I was told: “I see here you tried this routing already and were denied before.”
Note, I made my booking online, and called in some changes. Some were accepted, but these haven’t been. At this point, I can no longer alter my flights online, I must call in.
The supervisor couldn’t give me any additional information beyond his support desk is saying its improper. His reasons were fairly vague. Is it possible that one of the following is the issue?
1) Outbound from CGK I fly via SIN to Japan. Thus, on my way back from NAN, I touch SIN twice. Perhaps this is causing issues?
2) Alternatively, my itinerary is already ~21,500 miles. Is it possible there are limits to how far an award booking can go? This seems unlikely, though, as a European stopover on the way to Asia is allowable.
I see. Sometimes the agents don’t know why it’s not working and give you an answer that isn’t true. This is the problem with not publishing your routing rules.
1) no, dont think so
2) no, for sure not anymore.
Both fine. The issue maybe a stopover in SE Asia, I’m not 100% sure. I can start to investigate though.
Tell me both what your exact route and where the stops are now. And then what you are trying to do. Also, do you have any long layovers?
I agree with the agents seeming unfamiliar. I suppose it’s not a big part of their training, and they don’t have much experience booking complex routes.
Here’s the booked route:
KIX-SIN-AKL-NAN (7hrs in SIN)
NAN-AKL-SIN-CGK (11hrs in AKL – 9 day stopover)
CGK-SIN-HND-CTS (short layovers)
On the second leg, in-between AKL-SIN, I need a layover for business class to be available. A layover in CHC, SYD, our MEL would suffice. Granted, the AKL-X is usually coach, but the long-haul portion is business. I was also denied AKL-BKK-CGK.
As a side-note, this is nested inside a NRT stopover on a MIA-ICN award flight (thanks for your help with that, too!). And, there are paid flights from NAN-SYD-AKL-NAN inside this award flight.
Tickets inside of tickets inside of tickets.
If I was judging someone based on the tickets they book… I’d say we would be friends. And that is how I judge people. Thus I hope we cross paths. :-p
So I did some verifying and it is indeed a legal routing. Very easily would price as 25,000.
So one of a few things could be the problem. So my first question is, are you trying to force these layovers? If so, I have a feeling giving up a layover or two would push it through.
If not, try doing it online. It’s a little more frustrating or requires flexibility. But online is a good teaching tool of what’s legal. If you need help with the online part, send me dates.
It would be far too difficult to train their agents on the routing rules. There are too many complicate things. Like if this route, this price, unless it starts from this place. They put it all in the computer. The computer does the pricing and knows the rules. The agents know the basics. No offense to them, but the intelligent part is done by computers.
Hello again! Yes, tickets galore. If I judged people based on their travel websites, then I would consider you a resounding success =] You should hop around the pacific with me!
In the last several months, I was told, United no longer allows there to be more than two layovers between origin/destination on award tickets. Thus, after AKL, I only have one layover to play with. I may try BKK, NRT etc.
Currently, there’s no availability for my dates, so I’m keeping my AKL-SIN in econ, and am hoping something opens up on SQ/TG in the next 3.5 months!
I have one more interesting tid-bit! When attempting new routes, one agent accidentally released some of my segments. Only one they couldn’t get back, AKL-SIN. So, the supervisor found another way to put me on the flight, and now my itinerary shows:
“Flight: SQ282
Operated by Singapore Airlines.
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200
Fare Class: Economy (Y)
Meal: None”
Should I take this to mean I will earn PQM etc for this segment? If so, I may keep this in lieu of a business seat!
P.S. I open-jawed my stopover. I now fly into Bali and then leave through Jakarta. Also, to let me be in SIN-DPS business, they allowed me to take a 27 layover in Singapore… did I break the engine?
Wow, Thanks Andrew! Man, good thing no one is judging me on my site. For a number of reasons. :-p
So I’m hearing this new layover rule is 3 connections. Which would be somewhat depressing but not the end of the world. Did you hear this from an agent?
That is also interesting… I can’t imagine a Y ticket not earning miles. Good eye. But I don’t think I would forfeit business class on a long flight for 5,000 miles. Especially on SQ. :-p But, IDK, it’s on the line. It’s really like 12% back! lol
Okay, you’re full of interesting things… What have you been up to? But regarding the 27hr layover, is this done in the original booking or did you call and change some tickets. Because if you did an original booking with a 27 hour layover, I’ll. be. darned. That would be something. If you called and changed… You shoulda got a longer layover. :-p
Long time no talk! I have been absorbing your travel insights for the past month 🙂 (Greetings from Bahrain). I think you’re right, I shouldn’t forfeit the business class. Especially given the United devaluation. Plus, I am going to take advantage of the business lounges during my lengthy layover.
The 27hr layover came from ticket changes. I don’t have any mystical powers 🙁 Now, though, the NAN-AKL-SIN and SIN-DPS are bracketed separately on the itinerary. I can send a screenshot if that doesn’t make sense. I’m going to see whether I can add a connection there and circumvent the new rule.
I have been busy booking flights to take advantage of the soon-to-expire chart. Before, my itinerary was simplistic in that my destination and layover were NRT and ICN. Now, though, I have become more adventurous. I’m open jawing that, and using my stopover in Europe. To travel between CTS and ICN, I will use a reward booking for CTS-PEK-TPE-ICN. Then, during the Euro stopover, I am going to fly around Africa.
My new itinerary is roughly this:
US-NRT-Pacific Hopper ending in CTS-PEK-TPE-ICN-Europe-Africa-SXM
I have been enjoying your blog. Particularly the article “Hotel Strategy for Full Time Travel”. I used SPG only during this Middle East trip because I enjoy the perks of status, but was sometimes forced into inoptimal properties as a result. That article, though, has helped me reenvision my upcoming trip.
Would it be possible to converse over email? I’m more reliable that way, and this discussion is getting a little long/large for a comment section.
I’ve actually been pricing out this trip lately, thinking of taking another stab with a different angle I guess.
Ah yes, you can do anything on a ticket change.
😉 I’ll send you an email.
Keep it coming. This is my new favorite go to site.
Thanks Kpow! Means a lot to me.
hi there-
i am pretty new to this but have a couple of million points between my husband and I. we would like to take a trip for a couple of weeks with our daughters, and wonder if you have a fee based service where you could help us create an itinerary using miles. thanks so much.
margie cole
Is this article still valid or has United changed their rules / pricing? I’m looking to do some Pacific hopping this autumn (2014) and have about 3 months free or my dates are flexible. I just tried GUM to RAR or HNL to RAR but got errors. Would the Star Alliance Pacific Hopper be better? Thanks.
Thanks for all this info, pondering retirement next year and looking to do a year around the world with my wife. Will dig deeper with the South Pacific game.when I have more time. Do you have any experience with Capital One Cards. I have 500,000 miles on it.
Ken
Very impressive article…. I really liked it… 🙂
Where was this blog when I was booking my miles. Wasted them. Love, love your blog. I’m a troller at flyertalk. Nothing there is coherent to me. But you just made this mysterious mileage travel clear to me.
Hi Drew! love your blog! Do you have any suggestion for flying to SE Asia (say Thailand, Cambodia) from the West Coast (CA or SEA)? I’ve been playing around through ITA, but so far no luck 🙁
Thanks!
Drew – couple of questions
1) can this pacific hopper be done using AA and their partners ?
2) I will be using mostly AA and Alaska miles but I will need to find a positioning flight from Austin, Texas .. to begin
Any suggestions if this Hopper still holds validity 2 years later ?