Using United OnePass Miles & Stopovers

United OnePass Miles are officially my favorite. You might grow tired of hearing how much I love them but seriously… they’re awesome. Why:

• On round-trip redemptions you get both an open-jaw and a stopover. A stopover is a layover that lasts as long as you want and an open-jaw means that you return from a different airport than you arrived at as your destination. For example; if you want to fly to Hawaii, you could book a flight into Honolulu and you could take a boat ride to Kahului and fly home from there.
• Star Alliance is the biggest alliance and has some great partners. Singapore Airlines is the highest rated airline in many travel magazines and Thai Airways gives a complimentary massage in their first class lounge. Lufthansa and Swiss are most notable as well.
• You can mix and match partners on an awards flight.
• You can mix and match classes. First class one way and economy the other if you want.
• Great redemption rates. A flight from Oceania to Oceania is 20,000 each way in Business Class. This includes everything in the Pacific. Guam, Tahiti, Cook Islands, Fiji, etc…
• Easy to earn. They have such a great relationship with Chase. You can transfer instantly from Chase Ultimate rewards. So if you are planning a trip, book it first and then you have three days to pay. This way you don’t have to make a decision on where to transfer your points until they’re used.

I have learned alot in the last few days about United awards trying to book a dream trip. I actually have one on hold right now but in three days it will be no more.

Starts in Saipan, Micronesia and has a layover in Bangkok and continues on to Sydney in First Class Thai Airways. It pauses in Sydney for two weeks and then continues to the Cook Islands. After two weeks it continues on from Christchurch, New Zealand to Singapore on Singapore airlines business class. And after 11 hours I could go to Seoul where I would get off, even though I’m supposed to go back to Saipan.

Notice anything missing? Like my flight to New Zealand. I tried to fly to Aukland from the Cook Islands and open-jaw, continuing from Christchurch but the agent insisted that it wasn’t allowed. Well she claimed that taking out Aukland allowed it to go through and makes it a true open-jaw.

Yea… but I’m not booking a ticket from the Cook Islands to New Zealand otherwise. So I’m going to re-plan and leave off the Australia part. They charge like $120 each in airport fees there. Without Australia my ticket will cost like $40.

I’ve priced the value of this ticket at $10,000 ticket. Without a doubt.