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.
NZ hasn’t released TPAC J space for ages. SQ has never released TPAC J space except when they were still flying 747’s (and of course during the F glitch space). Thai doesn’t fly TPAC except for that single LAX-ICN thrice weekly. So you’re somewhat limited to BR and NH… :O
And United. Good thing Eva joined. Although I wouldn’t mind ANA biz.
I am trying to book a flight from London-Bangkok-Atlanta. Any tips on the best way to do this for the fewest miles? Either with United miles/AA miles.
Thanks
The issue with UA is that Asia is a more powerful zone so it would be easier to use your miles to go Asia to Europe (stopover) then ATL. But if it’s not a roundtrip it doesn’t matter.
So unfortunately you would have to buy a LHR to BKK and then a BKK to ATL flight as two separate awards.
A very happy new year to you. Still in daze from your places traveled post. :). Using points next month to travel to India with open jaw in Bangkok. How does the devaluation effect all the open jaw /stop over/ layover stuff ? I guess will have to live with paying 80k for everywhere
Hey abhishek,
Happy new year! Very glad that you’re following and enjoying the travels. 😀
The devaluation has no effect on the routing rules. Those devaluations have been happening already. :-p They see no need for advance warning on those since they never published rules.
“…Asiana and Thai Airways don’t have lie-flat beds.”
This is not true. They most certainly do. Granted, not on every route/flight (who does?), but I recently flew on a TG 777 and also on a TG A380, and business seats were great, lay-flat and (as best I could tell) were identical to each other. I haven’t flown OZ but I know on *some* of their flights they have an incredible, lay-flat business class seat. You just need to know which flights its on, and that’s easy enough to find out.
Hmm… thanks for catching that, I meant to say that the A380 does have lie-flats but it somehow came out that it “would be a real treat”. Glad to hear their 777 has the same awesome product. To be honest I never see the 777 option, mostly the 747 or smaller planes. But good to know.
I’ve been trying to go JNB with a stopover in BOM….but I can’t get it to price out. Do you know if I’m doing something wrong or breaking a rule? Much thanks for your answer. Love your blog.
Specifically I was wondering if this is valid routing:
EWR>BOM stopover
BOM>JNB destination
JNB>IAD
It’s for sure a legal route, just going to have to call it in. Hope they get it booked for ya. Get over to Pilanesberg (or Kruger if you have the time). :-p
Thanks for the Reserve tips.
Looking to do a JFK-MUC (stop)- BKK (destination/open-jaw)-DPS-JFK. Can’t got it to price out on the system. I know its a touchy system and you need to go segment by segment, but its still not pricing even with all segements not included above. I take it this is a call in situation?
For sure a call situation. There are more and more of those nowadays. Hope you get it booked, sounds like a great trip.
Hi there! I just discovered your blog and it’s been so helpful! Thank you so much! I added it to my rss reader! I’m having an issue booking this itinerary on United… SFO-MNL (open jaw) SIN-SFO (free one way) SFO-YUL sometime later.. The first page shows the flights so I know this is a legal routing per your previous post on stopovers. I’ve also checked each leg separately and there are flights available. But, when I change the routing to SFO-SIN (open jaw) HKG-SFO (free one way) SFO-YUL, United prices is correctly and it is still 65k in economy. I don’t understand why it doesn’t price it for my original itinerary when the zones are all the same… Do you think this means I have to book it over the phone and pay the $25 fee? Thank you so much!
If you can’t book it online, you shouldn’t have to pay the fee. In my experience I never had to, FWIW.
Hopefully Dizzy is right and they’ll waive the fee.
But sometimes the site is just fickle. The more segments you add the more fickle it gets. However make sure that you are staying under 4 connections each direction.
Let me know. Very glad you found the site.
Hi,
Can you please elaborate starting in
Hawaii ->stopover in India ->SE Asia(Destination)->US(mainland)
and price it at lowrates from HI?
This info would be incredibly useful to a lot of folks.
It’s a good question. Basically it’s an India (central Asia) ticket. So Hawaii to India. Then India to the US. … Which unfortunately is no cheaper as it’s 40k each way on the current award chart.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for reading!
I had a nice itinerary laid out for this starting from LAX, but it seems like the same thing that was going on with business class flights I was checking for my dean back in Nov is now happening for economy too: namely, almost all domestic inventory has been pulled. Main way to get to Europe is with AC (not a bad way to do economy; it’s your best bet in North American based airlines, anyway). I was just really looking forward to a direct flight to Istanbul on Turkish, and this is going to mess up my # of segments too. Grrrrr….guess I’ll wait a few days and see if it comes back (this happened with a booking I did last month for someone, so fingers crossed)
Anyway, if you have any tips on what happened to Turkish inventory from the US, I’d love to hear about it!
Sorry, didn’t specify- this is for next summer (August 2014).
Also, yes, I think an article on that Hawaii-Austrailia (etc) for 50k would be a good one!
Maybe I need to be writing a few tips on starting from Hawaii in general.
But….
WHAT THE HECK!? I have screen shots for a post I wrote showing daily availability to IST all summer. And now I don’t see any TATL?
None.
Guess my post will be scrapped or revisited. Or I need to figure out what this is about. So, will get back to you.
P.s. what ticket are ya booking now?
Same as others, United’s system is acting up. I was planning a trip for March/April 2014 SFO-LON (stopover)-NRT-SIN (Open-jaw)-SFO and managed to price the trip at 65000 miles a few weeks ago. But somehow suddenly all the saver award economy seats are gone for the next few months.
You mean the award space just disappeared or it errors out?
If it errors out you may just have to call. If it’s just gone, you may be able to find other availability using the Aeroplan or ANA tool. Then call.
Am I understanding ya correctly?
Yup the award space just disappeared. In fact it seems like it is a common thing with flights from US to Europe as mentioned by Dizzy in her posts too. Only options are with AC.
Not true: “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.”
I just tried this one today on the phone with 2 agents and they both said it couldn’t work as 1 roundtrip ticket. Their computers didn’t allow it. But, apparently it can be done with 2 separate tickets/one way combo.
Boo hoo… sniff sniff … so disappointing
I guarantee it’s true.
However, are you sure you weren’t breaking another routing rule, like too many segments or placing an open-jaw within the Africa segment, doing it on a oneway or something like that?
Cuz that could explain why it wouldn’t work.
Well… the agents didn’t say anything about too many segments. Here’s what I was trying to do. Do you still think its possible?
NYC-JNB(preferably HDS)
JNB/HDS-NRT/HND
NRT/HND-NYC
Hi Drew:
Given your example here, I should be able to route from US to Middle East to Asia back to US on an economy ticket for 65k. Have you been successful in this? Some other bloggers think that only the US to Europe to Asia option is valid.
I live in SF and want to book a ticket to Southeast asia. can I route through middle east? Departing: SFO stopover in AUH or DXB to Singapore (destination) Return: PNH (23 hour layover in HKG) to SFO for 65k. Is this possible?
Hi Drew,
First off, your ideas and research are very innovative. I’m trying to use some of it…
I was planning to book a one-way award ticket, SFO-HKT(Stop-over)-BKK-BOM.
But the system’s pricing it as two one-ways, i.e. SFO-HKT (32.5k) + HKT-BOM (25k).
Do I only get the free-stopover on a round-trip? not on a one-way? If I get it on a one-way, then what am I doing incorrectly?
Thanks in advance!