Best Use of United Miles to (East) Asia

Boy, here I am catching up to get out the last of this series before the big devaluation.

My guess is that this is a time of United miles burning. Yes? No? And one of the biggest changes after this award devaluation, (taking place Feb 1), is Southeast Asia. This is also one of the most important regions in the current (old) award chart for reasons we’ll go over soon.

This post is mostly about Southeast Asia, North Asia and Japan as our point of interest. Whenever I say Asia in the rest of this post, I’ll be referring to one of these three regions.

This part of Asia is incredible as it’s a relatively good price for the flying and can be combined with a number of other regions. And it happens to be a more powerful region than other zones, which we’ll talk about in a minute.

But right now the thing to know is that a trip to Asia, (when starting from the US), can be combined with:

• Australia
• Oceania
• Central Asia (India)
• The Middle East
• Africa
• Europe

(And of course you can combine it with somewhere else in Asia or the US.)

This means that you can use your stopover and destination to see Asia and any one of the other places I’ve just listed.

For example:

If you’d like to go to Bangkok and still use your stopover, you could stopover in Europe on the way. Stopovers can be as long as you want, yet it doesn’t change the price of a ticket (because Asia is a more powerful zone than Europe).

This means that a flight to Asia alone, is 65,000 miles roundtrip. But a week in Europe, before a week in Asia… well, it’s still 65,000 miles.  (Again, this is the price per-devaluation.)

Similarly, you could stop in Japan on the way, or stop in somewhere else in Southeast Asia. It doesn’t matter.

But why delay getting to the good stuff?

Asia is even a more powerful zone than other places that would ordinarily be a higher price on their own. What I mean is, when you combine Asia with these other higher priced regions, it for whatever reason, still gives the lower Asia price.

Examples…

1.) A roundtrip to Africa would be 80,000 miles.

But a roundtrip to Africa (stopover for a week), then on to Asia (stop for a week) would only be 65,000 miles.

2.) A roundtrip to the Middle East would also normally be 80,000 miles.

But a roundtrip to the Middle East (stopover for a week), then to Asia (stop for a week) would be 65,000 miles.

Yep, by using stopovers to visit Asia, you save 15,000 for an economy ticket to Africa or the Middle East.

Open-jaws on these tickets

On any of the above award tickets, you can do an open-jaw in Asia. That includes trips with stopovers in Europe, Africa or the Middle East- for all such trips you can use an open-jaw in Asia.

An open-jaw is where there is a gap in your ticket. Where you fly into one city and out of another. It means that United is not responsible for your transportation for this part of the journey.

Regardless of where your stopover is, you can use an open-jaw on your destination.

For example:

1.) You could fly into Singapore and out of Bangkok a week later.

2.) You could fly into Phuket and out of Hong Kong a week later.

Of course, in any of this post’s examples where I refer to an amount of time spent, it’s just an example. It can be as long as you want. So you could take your time, in this case, getting from one city to another.

When Asia is the stopover

However, there are examples of when Asia is considered the stopover (and therefore can’t have an open-jaw), for instance, when continuing on to some more powerful/expensive regions.

For example:

1.) A stopover in Asia on the way to Australia would cost 80,000 miles.

2.) A stopover in Asia on the way to Oceania would cost 70,000 miles.

3.) A stopover in Asia on the way to Central Asia (India) would cost 80,000 miles.

Obviously, these regions are more expensive than the flights just to Asia for 65,000 miles. And as mentioned, this negates the ability to open-jaw within Asia because in these cases, Asia wouldn’t be the destination anymore, but the stopover.

Hawaii 5-0

However, when starting from Hawaii, tickets to Asia are actually more powerful than tickets to Australia. For this reason I’ve thought about starting a ticket to Australia from Hawaii (including Asia as the final destination). From Hawaii, a roundtrip ticket to Australia is only 50,000 miles, if you make Asia your destination.

Again, when starting in Hawaii, you can stopover in Australia on your way to Asia.

Booking

Of course, all the prices I’ve given have been in economy but you could easily book the same flights with a slightly higher price for business or even first class. This applies to all tickets. Also, all prices are, again, based on the OLD award chart- the one that ends Feb. 1.  See the old award chart here.

Unfortunately, United pulling Singapore Airlines award availability from their online search engine is pretty annoying. Singapore is not only a huge airline and hub that connects many parts of the world we’ve been talking about, but it’s also a great airline with a great premium product.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t book on Singapore it means you need to call to do so.

But you’ll need to search elsewhere for Singapore flights. I like using the Aeroplan search engine or the ANA award search tool. Although ANA has the most un-user-friendly site in the world, and I tend to rely on Aeroplan more.

Still, I might lean toward using the online search engine on United.com anyways.

If I’m flying business class and can fly on Air New Zealand or ANA… that’s fine. As Asiana and Thai Airways don’t have lie-flat beds. Although Thai’s A380 does and would be a real treat. Otherwise, I’d look into Singapore availability. For trans-pacific, United has lie-flats as well.

If I’m flying economy, it really doesn’t matter as all the Asian airlines are a treat.

So what is the point of all of this?
Obviously to make good on some pretty handy tricks that are changing significantly starting February 1st.  US to this region of Asia changes from 65,000 to 80,000 in economy for roundtrip.  I’m sure you now realize how that will effect all the routes I just outlined.

If you are going to be booking, here are some posts that could be helpful.

• Here is a post on How To Book United Stopovers Online
• Here’s the complete guide to United Routing Rules