United MultiCity Saver Awards: SFO/LHR (or CDG)/FCO/SFO
 

Hi Fodorites, Long time no chat! DH and I simply haven't had the $$$ available for a trip until now, and I get depressed/envious reading of others' wonderful experiences. :-(

We are, however, starting to think of a trip of 2-3 weeks within the next year. We'd like to use our United FF miles to land in London or Paris, then travel by train thru Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, etc. and then to Italy, departing from Rome. (probably too ambitious for the length of our trip, but we like to dream big and then cut back.)

I was appalled at the cost for an upgradeable (to Business) flight on United, but we may be able to use the Saver Awards to foot the bill. I was playing around on the United site and didn't see a MultiCity option when searching for Saver Awards.

Before braving the usually awful Customer Service Call Center, I thought I'd ask here if anyone has experience with using Saver Awards to Europe for Multicity tickets?? Is it doable?

Thanks!

You can definitely get an open-jaw saver award. I've done it a few times.

For multi-city United award tickets, you have to call. The good news is in doing so, you also get access to award space on Star Alliance partners, which is not possible via the website. Good luck!

According to united.com, you can fly open-jaw (leaving one city, flying into and out of different cities, going back where you came from).

I didn't find a way to search for open-jaw award tickets, though.

If I were you, I'd search for availability from USA-NYC/Paris, find a flight you like, and also search seperately for Rome/USA.

Finding two open business class seats can be tough on some airlines.

Thanks for the replies and suggestions! I guess I'll just have to hold my nose and call them. I yearn for the days of Airline ticket offices. I'm such a dinosaur!

Mrs Go is right, you have to call. We booked open jaw flying into Edinburgh & out of Rome. Good luck and say high to Bombay for me.

As others have said, you have to call. Do some research first so that if they say "nothing available" you have some other routes to suggest that they try. Also, book as soon as you can (try 330 days out when awards are released) as it is difficult, if not impossible during the summer, to get biz awards to Europe on UA. When you call also ask if there is award availability on any other Star Alliance carriers (Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, SAS, US Air, etc.) The call center can certainly be awful...do you have status with UA? If so, call the # on your card as I've found that generally gets me to a US-based agent who knows what they're talking about, rather than to the India call center. But if the agent is really awful, just hang up and call back to try again.

Good luck - I just booked two saver biz awards Dulles-Zurich-Nairobi and back for November and seriously probably spent more time on the award tickets than on planning the safari we're going on!