A reader
emailed me to request help booking an itinerary to Europe. He wants to bring
his wife to a few places for their anniversary next May-June. He said he had
about 90,000 United miles and wanted to know the best use of them and what
credit cards he would need to sign up for in order to get the rest. Here was
his proposed itinerary:
LAX-MUC
(Munich)
MUC-VIE
(Vienna)
VIE-FCO
(Rome)
FCO-LAX
Because he
has 90,000 miles on United, I figured the best option was to use those and see
what we’re left with.
Flights
United is
part of the Star Alliance, which covers Europe pretty extensively. I love the
MileagePlus program personally, because award inventory is great and they don’t
charge fuel surcharges or other ridiculous fees that some of the other airlines
do when booking flights with miles. Thanks to United’s Star Alliance partners
in Europe, it shouldn’t be a problem to find direct flights for pretty much all
of the legs.
There is one
problem though, which is that this itinerary has four legs. United’s award
rules are incredibly flexible, allowing both a stopover and two open jaws. This
means we can go to three cities for the price of a roundtrip, and we can break
up our trip into multiple parts. Even with their flexible routing rules, we
still won’t be able to fly all four legs on one ticket.
The best use
of the United miles is going to be LAX-MUC and FCO-LAX, and then we should
choose one of either MUC-VIE or VIE-FCO to add on. These three legs can be had for
the price of 60,000 miles apiece. United’s partner Austrian Airlines flies
between Munich and Vienna as well as Rome and Vienna, so we won’t have any
problem finding direct flights. The real question is what the options are for
whatever leg we don’t fly on this ticket. We will have to choose another
mileage program, or book a separate ticket with United, for this fourth leg.
British Airways Avios come to mind because MUC-VIE and VIE-FCO are both very
short flights, meaning if there is a direct flight on Oneworld, we could fly
one of these flights for only 4,500 Avios each.
Fortunately
we are in luck. One of British Airways’ Oneworld partners is an airline called
Niki, which flies both MUC-VIE and VIE-FCO. They have more flights each day to
Rome than to Munich, so we’re going to fly VIE-FCO on Niki, and leave the
MUC-VIE segment for Austrian Airlines on our United miles.
Now here’s
the itinerary we’re looking at:
LAX-MUC – Lufthansa (Star Alliance) – Ticket 1
MUC-VIE – Austrian (Star Alliance) – Ticket 1
VIE-FCO – Niki (Oneworld) – Ticket 2
FCO-LAX – Air Canada or United (Star Alliance) –
Ticket 1
Unfortunately
Star Alliance doesn’t have direct flights between LAX and Rome, so our best
options will be to stop in Newark or Toronto.
Here’s how
the tickets price out:
LAX-MUC-VIE,
FCO-LAX – 60,000 United miles + ~$310 taxes/fees
VIE-FCO –
4,500 Avios + ~$40 taxes/fees
The fees
might seem high given the other mileage flights I’ve written about, but
unfortunately these fees seem to be unavoidable, as they are mostly charges
from the German and Italian governments.
Credit Cards
Our reader
has 90,000 United miles, so he’ll need the following in order to book his two
tickets:
- 30,000 United miles
- 9,000 British Airways Avios
Luckily for
him, this can be accomplished with one credit card: Chase Sapphire Preferred.
This card has the following benefits:
- 40,000 Ultimate Rewards points after $3,000 spend in 90
days
- No annual fee first year
The great
thing about Ultimate Rewards points is their transferability. Chase partners
with both United and British Airways, so you can transfer UR points to both
airlines at a 1:1 ratio. Even better, this transfer happens immediately. This
means you can go online to find your flights and be able to book the same day,
heck even the same 20 minutes if you’re quick.
When to book
While I give
major kudos to this reader for being incredibly proactive about putting this
trip together, unfortunately he is still a little bit too early for the game.
If you go on the United website you can see that they only show tickets
bookable through early May right now. This is because airlines tend to release
their seats ~330 days ahead of time. By the end of July, our reader should be
able to book all of his flights without a problem. The great news is that he
can make changes to his itinerary (to some extent) for the next 10 months after
that (up to 21 days before departure) and not pay a dime. With British Airways
he can even cancel his tickets and not pay anything.
Best of luck
to reader J and his anniversary trip!
Need help with your own trip? Head on over to WenneTravel at www.wennecorp.com and we'd be happy to give you our two cents for no cost at all!
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