Trick to using UA miles for international bus/first class saver awards?
 

I have been trying to use my UA miles to go to Australia from New York in either business or first class. I have tried to from JFK, EWR to either SYD or MEL. I have been looking at dates anytime between December 2015 and May 2016. We are very flexible with our dates but booking a saver award is next to impossible. I have been trying to book it as one-way as trying to do it as a round trip was getting me nowhere. While there are a few dates available to get to Australia, we cannot get home in business or first. I refuse to fly to/from Australia in economy (been there, done that 5 times. Never again). We can't do the standard award 175,000 miles each way. DH does not have enough miles to do that, and I don't have enough for both of us. The saver award is between 70,000 and 85,000 each way. Are there any tricks to getting a saver award? I am ready to give up as I feel like I'm wasting my time.

If you're referring to difficulty with the domestic legs of your return journey, there is business class availability right now from SYD to LAX in April, but the domestic legs to JFK are in economy.

I've noticed that there now seems to be less availability in general on United for the domestic portions of my international award itineraries.

The United search engine only looks at limited routings. You need to look at other options.

For example, there's business class available on OZ (Asiana) every day in January from JFK to ICN, and most days ICN-SYD. Find a connection that works for you and book it on united.com using the multi-leg option. If you have trouble finding these routings yourself, consider paying a service to work it out for you: most of the bloggers on boardingarea.com or upgrd.com have such services.

The trick is to be lucky.

I always start trying 330 days out - as soon as you are allowed to book. But it has become less reliable, IME, that the award tickets are actually released that day. I start online and if I can't do it, I call. If you book with an agent it will cost you $25, but they can see availability I cannot. I agree with Femi, often the domestic portions are not available. But I have found that if I call periodically, I can sometimes get the domestic portion as well.

Good luck!

As an exercise I just did a dummy booking on united.com

12 Jan: OZ 221 JFK 13:25 to ICN 17:55 next day A380 business class
connecting to
13 Jan: OZ 601 ICN 20:21 to SYD 08:20 772 business class

80k miles and $36.70

You can do similar every day in January. If you get into creative routings, you need to learn about United's routing rules and the amount by which you can exceed the MPM...or pay someone to do it for you.

Thanks for the answers! I'll try again with a stop in ICN. I tried BKK and SIN and Tokyo with no luck. I may just end up calling United or using a service. It's worth paying the fee.

Good luck. I booked saver awards from ORD-SIN and did so as Kathie suggested right at the 330 day time period of our return and got a good flight going out on ANA and returning on OZ. However a few days later that return was gone though flights on SAS became available.

I also tried to look at ORD-SYD for a given time period by using that same 330 day advance to our return and wow there were no saver awards for the out bound and one for the return. It seemed a lot more restricted than our trip to SIN, why I do not know. Is it because SYN is such a desirable place to go?? I don't know. I would have thought the same for SIN, esp. in Feb. as the weather will be less hot but that was much easier.

Update. And a good one it is! I have us booked from LAX to SYD in BusinessFirst, and from SYD-LAX-EWR in BusinessFirst and First class. We need only have to get to LAX from NYC. We will probably spend the night in LA. Considering that all the other flights are free, we can stay the night in LA to make sure we do not miss our flight to Sydney. We will be in Australia for almost a month. Plenty of time to see what we want.

Yeah!

Awesome. How did you manage to do that?

jacketwatch, with a little help from my (Fodor's) friends! I now have us booked, using American Airlines miles, from JFK to LAX in first class. 25,000 miles each. We get to LAX at 1:30 PM and our flight to Sydney leaves at 10:40 PM so plenty of time and we are meeting a friend who lives close to LAX.

United absolutely refused to add a flight, even an economy flight from NY to LAX to our existing reservation. I spoke to two agents and they said I would have to use 25,000 miles per person to fly from NY to LA, in economy. American at least puts you in first class for the same amount of miles.

That's great for you.
We have a niece in Canberra so when the time comes I will look for LAX-SYD instead of ORD if that's not available

Congrats, Laurico!

Well just as an exercise I plugged in for LAX-SYD with the return just before the 330 day max and viola!. Biz is available for saver awards and on Asiana too. :). Thanks for the lesson and I hope some day it will come in handy.
Larry.

I still have over 200,000 miles on United and DH has about 67,000 left. I'm going to have to search flights to Europe. Maybe in Business Class... I may get spoiled.

Not too long ago UA had a sale on miles so I bought 100k for 50%!off. Also we bought miles at a reduced rate which was offered after we fly with them to MIA last month and will get more as offered from our booking to SIN next Feb.

My wife has about,120k and most of those came from CC offers to open new accts.

We got her a sapphire preferred which got her 45 k miles and charged a banquet which is double miles so nice!

"I'm going to have to search flights to Europe. Maybe in Business Class... I may get spoiled."

If you are on the East Coast, take one of the daytime flights to London, then continue the next day (<24h is not a stopover). This is perfectly OK in coach and better than any business class redeye.

For an overnight at LHR, use a hotel on the free bus routes along the Bath Road (such as the Holiday Inn on Sipson Road), don't mess around with the infrequent and expensive "Hotel Hoppa".

With all the recent delays at JFK, I would certainly come in the day before. Especially since you'll be on separate tickets, why take the chance of missing your flight to Sydney? My recent flights to and from JFK were all delayed by at least an hour or two.