800 miles short from making 1K with United
 

I'm not happy right now. I had typed my miles into a spreadsheet and thought I would make 1K by 300 miles. I booked a ticket on the United website from Barcelona to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Orlando on Lufthansa, and returning from Orlando to Zurich on United and on to Istanbul with Swiss. (I've been booking my flights like a European since I had BA miles to get over to Europe but could not get a flight home)

I earned miles with all of the Lufthansa and United flights, but it turns out that United sold me an L ticket with Swiss that does not earn miles.

I'm thinking of booking a round trip flight for the day from Athens to Thessaloniki for around $200. Lounge access in both cities. 500 miles each way, right?

This happened last year on the United website when I booked a flight from Dalaman, Turkey, to Lyon, France on Turkish Airlines. I earned miles from Dalaman to Istanbul, but not to Lyon. I had to fly out to California to make 1K in December and that is not the cheapest month to travel.

In short, you don't always earn miles when you book your flights on the United website.

United shows the class of service for each flight right on the initial flight selection display. And the mileage accrual chart for each airline plainly shows the relation between class and earning.

Booking travel is not always as easy as it seems and I would expect any experienced flyer to be aware of these situations.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-mypoints.html

_______________________________________________
Vic's travels: http://my.flightmemory.com/vogilvie

I found a flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Boston round trip for $195 via Chicago and Newark.

But again I want to stress that it said I would earn Mileage Plus miles on all of the flights.

<i>In short, you don't always earn miles when you book your flights on the United website. </i>

I'm sure you earn them in strict accordance with the published earning tables on UA's website, for example...

http://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/mark...spx?ItemId=297

or http://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/mark...spx?ItemId=306

Checking the booking class before you purchase tickets is the customary means of confirming the flight's eligibility beforehand. Sometimes I've had to phone to get "up-fared" when the booking class didn't meet my needs for EQ miles/points.

>>500 miles each way, right?

Not necessarily. You wouldn't be flying UA or Copa between SKG and ATH, and I would assume that you would not find "eligible flights on select partner carriers" to earn the 500 PQM.
http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...r/bonuses.aspx

I would wager that your SKG-ATH-SKG mileage run would earn about 372 PQM (roundtrip total), if anything at all

Note that tables in the united dot com links above say: "Eligible SWISS fare classes" and "Eligible Turkish Airlines fare classes".

When you book a partner flight through United then the booking will show a United fare class. If you need to earn MP PQM/EQM then you need to find out what the other airline's fare class is and look it up in those tables.

Orlando_Vic, the link you gave leads to an offer for award miles, not premier qualifying miles. The OP needs PQM.

The FLL-ORD-BOS-EWR-FLL itin booked at United, operated by United, will earn over 3000 PQM:
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=fll-ord-bos-ewr-fll
shows 3314 miles. Add 300 miles as BOS-EWR would earn the minimum 500.

In the past, United might have given you 1K if you were only 800 PQM short and/or allow you to make up the difference with a flight next year. I would not count on it these days. You should be able to find a thread about this at flyertalk.

I've had excellent luck booking flights with Aegean on the United website and I get 500 miles per flight segment. Istanbul to Athens, Crete to Athens. I'm in their lounge drinking their wine right now at 4:25 am.

Luck doesn't have to enter into the mileage accrual game, but good luck.

Just an update. An L ticket will earn miles across the Atlantic but not within Europe. United is selling a lot of L tickets from Frankfurt and Zurich to Eastern Europe with Swiss and Lufthansa.

Hey, Wally, did you make your 100k status?

Yes, Kathie. I made 1K. However, I just found a ticket from Berlin to Miami round-trip for $705. I purchased the W ticket for the return portion back to Berlin so I could use an upgrade for $905. In short, I don't think I will be spending $10,000 this year on tickets so I probably won't make 1K next year. But with 800,000 miles saved up. . .

Glad to hear you got it! Sounds like it is time to use some of those miles now.

And your UA flights are going to "cost" you more of those miles as of February 3.

I had been looking at a BKK-ORD ticket via Europe, for end of April, and I didn't book it on Sunday, for 70k miles. I booked yesterday and it cost me 80k instead. I should have realized that the changes were coming!

Simpson, you must really like Bangkok. Have you been to Laos? I really enjoyed Cambodia.

Wally, many of us on the Asia board count Bangkok as our favorite city in the world. I loved my time in Laos, though it has been quite a few years since I was there (2002), I'd like to go back. If you liked Cambodia, I expect you'd like Laos. You might want to look at our photos, mostly of SE Asia destinations: www.marlandc.com

Enjoyed your photos. Thinking about flying into Singapore and out of Bangkok in November-December. I would fly from Singapore to Phnom Penh and take a bus to Thailand. What do you think?

Wally, glad you enjoyed the photos.

I know you've been to Cambodia, so I'm wondering what it is you want to see/do/experience that you would fly into PP. If you wanted to see more of Angkor, you'd fly into Siem Reap. The overland trip from PP to Thailand is a full day, but there are many fewer border scams than coming from the other direction.

If you want to go to Laos, I'd fly straight to Laos rather than going to PP.

Wally, sorry to not have looked at this thread for a while! No, I've not been to Laos, nor Cambodia. Someday? And yes, Bangkok is my favorite city. I have oodles of Thai friends, as well as expats from US and European countries who are also good friends.

I'm heading back to Bangkok in mid-April for about 2 weeks, and am already booked on FF miles for our annual 2014-2015 Christmas/New Year trip. Bangkok is my home away from home! (but so is Zurich and Lucerne and to some degree Lausanne Switzerland).