Top 6 uses of United Miles

The future of the miles game is not in earning but in maximizing. The days of 100k card bonuses are mostly over. So don’t go blowing your miles like you used to. Here are a few ideas to better your next trip.

6) The Middle East/India for 65,000 United miles

When you use stopovers to see Both the Middle East/India and Southeast Asia it prices the ticket as 65k instead of 80k. This simple trick could be saving people 15k on one roundtrip.

To understand why see my post The Secrets of Award Engine Pricing.

5) 50k for Hawaii to Asia or Oceania roundtrip

Ok, most people don’t live in Hawaii but when you consider that a roundtrip to Japan is 20,000 miles cheaper in Economy, and 55,000 miles cheaper in Business Class, starting from Hawaii seems like a good idea. It practically pays for itself if you can use something like 12.5k Avios to get there.

Seeing Hawaii would be great but perhaps you could end in Hawaii and route through your home… if you know what I mean. 😉

4) Europe and Asia

This is a pretty common route that commonly connects two international hotspots. You could do Paris and Bali on the same ticket. Another thing about this is that the First Class availability between Europe and Asia on Lufthansa and Thai Airways are incredible (and you can upgrade last minute to a Lufthansa First Class flight to hop the pond to Europe.

3) The Caribbean Hopper

I first explained how I booked this trip in a post called How to Book Long Layovers with United Miles. Because of it a reader was able to secure a stopover in St. Maarten and a layover in Panama City on the way to Puerto Rico. For 17,500 miles I was able to book a trip with layovers in Aruba, Panama and ending in Puerto Rico (I later flew back using Southwest points). But there appear to be a number of combinations possible. I’ll be posting more about this in the future.

2) US to the Pacific Islands via New Zealand or Australia

Going to Fiji for 70,000 is a good deal; creating a stopover in New Zealand for no extra cost is a great deal. I love both of those places so I’m quite biased. Of couse you could make a number of combinations including Sydney and the Cooke Islands but I find Fiji to have more availability on Air New Zealand than many of the other routes. It is generally very hard to find Air New Zealand availability from the US to New Zealand but you can also check Vancouver (YVR) to Sydney (SYD) on Air Canada.

1) The Pacific Hopper

The greatest (yet common) award chart disparity and incredibly generous routing by United is what I call the Pacific Hopper. It could have large positioning costs but it’s so worth it. The point is that a ticket between any two points in the “Oceania” region costs 25,000 points in Economy or 40,000 in Business Class for a roundtrip.

We started in Guam (GUM) and ended in Rarotonga but you could produce the same results by starting in Yap (YAP), Koror (ROR), Saipan (SPN) and ending in Tahiti (PPT), Rarotonga (RAR), New Caledonia (NOU), Tonga (TBU), Samoa (APW) as well as Fiji (NAN).

The reason this trip ends up being incredible is because there are no direct flights or even one hub that connects both. You pretty much have to route through a hub in Asia and Auckland (AKL), as Air New Zealand is the only airline in Star Alliance that connects to most of the Polynesian and Melanesian islands. This means that you can have layovers in Asia and a stopover in New Zealand or Sydney.

Learn more about this flight in a post called The Pacific Hopper with Miles.