ElizaB

Please be kind. I have never attempted to book a "miles/award" ticket on United before so I am new to this.

So, I am trying to fly my family of four to Sydney from Houston (one way) this July. I would prefer to fly business due to the length of the flight. [This is for a cruise that goes from Sydney to Singapore. We are flying home from Singapore on Singapore Airlines after the cruise and I already have those tickets. Purchased 3 with miles and paid cash for the 4th.] I have about 650k united miles and with another ~150k coming in the next month but I would like to go ahead and book the tickets. The one-way pricing for business is running about $8k each so not going to pay that for four people. The miles tickets on our dates are currently running 250k from Houston or, from LA, 200k. So, flying to LA on our own dime and then booking the 200k each flight would be an option...but it means waiting another month for the rest of my points/miles to post which makes me nervous. Premium economy is 220k miles so there is no real advantage to booking PE with miles.

I thought about buying PE tickets and upgrading with miles to business. However, my understanding is that only 5-10 percent of people (without status) who buy premium economy and upgrade with miles to business typically get upgraded so that doesn't seem like a good solution. Especially since I am trying to upgrade 4 people.

Thus, I inquired with United via instant messaging how much it would be to upgrade to business from economy with money if I paid for the initial economy tix with miles (only 55k miles vs the 250k miles.) The agent told me $800 per person. So, according to this agent, I would get an $8k flight for 55k miles + $800. That does not seem right to me. At all. Does that seem right to you? If so, it is an amazing deal.

Alternatively, anyone else have any other ideas on how to finagle four people in biz without dropping $32k? I suppose I could do what we did on the way back and buy 3 tix with miles and pay cash for the 4th. My husband will not make the trip unless he is in business. He is older than I am (50), complains about his back, and hates long-haul flights anyway. [In fact, I have even considered just taking the kids on my own because he generally doesn't even seem to want to go on the trip at all.] Only other thing I can come up with is for me to fly in coach with my kids and just let him fly in business by himself. My kids are 9 and 11. The 11 year-old (almost 12) would be fine in coach because he would just sleep and play on his phone and not even talk to anyone, but the 9 year-old would potentially try to talk to anyone sitting beside him or try to get them to play games with him (like 20 questions or "I spy") and bother them, so I feel like he needs to fly with us. And I feel like it would be super mean to have 3 of us in business and my poor 11 year-old back in coach. So, long story short, I feel like a parent needs to be with the kids.

The reason I am doing this last minute is that we were supposed to take a segment of a Princess world cruise that went around Asia and through the red sea and ended in Greece. It was re-routed due to the Houthi attacks and is no longer a cruise we want to go on because it is now 31 days of sea days and completely skips ALL the Asian ports (main reason we were going on the cruise) and now just goes straight from Australia, around the horn of Africa and then ends in Barcelona. Half of the ports are (Gibraltar, spain, Portugal) are ones we have already been on and I don't want to float in the ocean for 31 days on a 40-day cruise. So, I canceled the world cruise and found a Carnival cruise that goes from Australia to Singapore and makes several stops in Asia. I can't use the original airfare for the first cruise because it was different dates.

cfischer

The best deal would have most likely been an open jaw IAH-SYD/SIN-IAH, but that ship has departed so to say. One way award tickets cost 100k if you can get a saver rate, which is not easy and certainly not for that many tickets. The agent quoted you prem eco on miles with an upgrade to business which will most likely be a waitlist (else 100k business should have been available as well). Getting that many upgrades is just as difficult as getting that many award tickets. So confirming instantly to business will be a JN award ticket where the bottom is 200k p.P.

It is possible that the $800 is a straight up confirmable UG to Polaris, but this would be an unusually cheap price for this route.

kids needs to fly in the same cabin unless you shell out a fee for unaccompanied minors.

zipadeedoodah

Alternatively, anyone else have any other ideas on how to finagle four people in biz without dropping $32k?

How about Carnival’s Fly2Fun Air Program? I have not used Carnival, but used similar programs with Royal and Celebrity when Mr Zip and I wanted to fly One way in Biz class on repositioning cruises. Usually good bulk/net rates for international travel when OW needed. Just a thought if you have not looked at that.

ElizaB

Unfortunately, they don't appear to offer Fly2Fun for this cruise. I checked. :'( They also aren't offering their typical cruise insurance. I had to buy that on my own as well.

WineCountryUA

Buy what you can at the lower mileage price now and wait till you have the rest of the miles (consider purchase additional miles at 2 cpm),

Depending on how you value the miles, at 1,5cpm the price is $3,000 to $3,250 per equivalent ticket, not unreasonable for a oneway fare (OW cash fares are expensive)
Mileage tickets are 100% refundable so if someone drops out, the miles would be refund (cruise cost is a different story)

If the mileage prices drops, you can cancel and rebook.

Upgrades to OZ in the low season for non-elites are not impossible but for 4 unlikely.

Wx4caster

You did not mention the date. There are some days in July with 100k biz rewards seats.

otherwise, being low season I don’t think your odds of mileage upgrades are all that bad, depending on day of week. But my suggestion would be to buy a coach ticket and see how much the offer is to buy up to first or premium economy. It might not be bad. And even if you only buy up to premium, I think you can then apply for a mileage upgrade to biz and get a higher priority, and avoid the copay. If the offers are no good, just cancel within 24 hrs.

good luck.

ElizaB

I have a united biz card and united explorer. Where are you seeing the 100k reward? I am only seeing 250k from IAH and 200k from LAX. I would prefer July 15-18. Would do July 13-14 for 100k. Will consider flights from IAH, LAX, or SFO. Cruise leaves on July 21st so can't really do anything later than July 18th as all the flights arrive two calendar days later due to crossing the international date line and I would not want to arrive on the date the cruise is leaving in the event flight got canceled.

mduell

That is possible if upgrade space is available; if it's not available now, it may never be for your flights. In general longhaul upgrade space is very very limited.

Wx4caster

i would swear I saw availability on the app, but now I don’t… ☹️. I’m sorry to get your hopes up.

i would still test to see if there’s a cash upgrade offer from coach that is reasonable. If not, cancel.

If cash upgrade offer doesn’t help, my next move in a case like this where odds are not too bad would be to buy the one absolute necessity seat with miles for your husband, and then the rest in coach where you apply for mileage upgrades. Others would know better than I, but I would think going via lax would have better upgrade odds than sfo.

on the 16th I see a flight that has PN4 available via lax. If only you had some global services friends with plus points to spare, the upgrades would clear instantly. But I have had times where pz=0 at purchase but pn was greater than 0, and I cleared within the hour or day. At peak season, no way-but July… maybe.

Report back and good luck again.

ElizaB

Thanks for checking! Flight on the 16th is only 200k from LAX and I could just pay for the IAH-LAX. Other problem is I am also waiting for IAH to "pool" my husband and my own miles. I added him to my pool and he accepted over a week ago. Even reached out to them. Was told to wait 24-72 more hours. Sigh.

Wx4caster

Buying two separate tickets would probably be my last choice. (In my recommendation above, I would buy from Iah to find the cash upgrade price).

cfischer

There are definitely 100k out there in July, like July 16 via LAX has IN4 available. Needs Plat/1K/GS miles to book at the 100k rate

txaggiemiles

Does IAH to SYD direct even exist right now and during NH Summer? Thought it was brought back but I’m not seeing it.

ElizaB

Bummer. I don't have any standing with United other than having the explorer card and the biz card.

I have not seen any direct flights from IAH to SYD in July. All seem to go through LAX or SFO.

Air New Zealand has a direct flight from Houston to NZ, but I haven't figured out how to transfer points/miles/avios to them. They have a very different rewards system. I even looked into flying with their sky couch, but it was going to be $3500+ each to do that and at the end of the day is still economy. Plus, there weren't even four sky couches left on any of the days I looked and my husband is 6'1 so his feet would stick out in the aisle of a sky couch and they don't allow that.

I am also mad at myself, too, because they had a special deal going on on miles that ended at the end of April and I should have purchased miles then. FX they bring something like that back soon.

cfischer

it's a lot of miles, but you might be able to see if someone wants to trade in CC (once you have access)