How We Used United Frequent Flyer Miles to Travel the Globe

Airfare can often be the most expensive portion of a trip, especially if travelling to dollar friendly destinations such as Asia or South America. With that in mind, I'm going to try and describe how and why we were able to use frequent flyer miles  to save money on our airfare during our round-the-world Honeymoon and provide you with some helpful tips at the bottom.

It Started as a Dream.

Seven or eight years ago I developed a dream that at some point I’d quit my job and take a trip around the world. A dream it was, to start I really had no idea where I wanted to go, what I’d do and how I’d finance my big trip. At the time I was travelling a bit for pleasure and found I really loved exploring new places, interacting with local cultures, trying new foods and most of all learning about the history of a region. Truth be told, I never thought I would actually have the guts to quit my job, get rid of my belongings, at least most of them and travel the world. After all it was just a dream…

Where Rubber Meets the Runway

At the time I was making a living as an “IT Guy”in Southern California and travelling for pleasure quite a bit, mostly by air, although never on a consistent airline. Self-doubting aside, to help me realize my dream I decided that I’d use frequent flyer miles to purchase most, if not all, the airfare for my big trip if and when I actually went. With this in mind I started flying the same airline and network of airlines, in this case United and Star Alliance, whenever I could. I chose United for a several reasons; LAX was one of their HUB airports offering many flights to many destinations daily,  United was part of the Star Alliance and therefore had worldwide reach with their affiliate airlines, lastly I felt their frequent flyer program, Mileage Plus, offered the most benefits for frequent flyers.

Next I registered for the United Airlines credit card and used it to buy everything and I mean everything from groceries to utilities to the kitchen sink. To this day I don’t think I’ve ever paid a dollar of interest on that card which in my opinion is the only way to do it. Credit card in hand I made sure I booked all my flights on United or partner airlines whenever possible and economically feasible. I flew in and around North America on United, I flew to Europe and Africa on Swiss, I flew to China on Air China, South America on Taca and eventually to Australia numerous times on United. For the record I did not fly exclusively on United or partner airlines as in some instances another airline would be so much cheaper that it would be dumb not to fly them. In that case, I made sure I was part of theirs, or a partner of theirs, frequent flyer program to accrue at least some miles or points.

Once I was in the United  “elite” category of flyer I was also given other perks like extra checked bags, lounge access, the occasional upgrade and most important of all a mileage bonus for every flight on United I took. The mileage bonus points started out small but soon graduated to a 100% bonus for every flight. For example, on my Los Angeles to Sydney flights I was received the approximate 7400 miles flown plus a 100% bonus bringing up the miles accrued to almost 15,000 miles each way. This makes a roundtrip from L.A. to Sydney worth nearly 30,000 miles to my mileage plus account and as you’ll soon see, I did this quite frequently. Not to mention that United was also one of the cheaper L.A. to Sydney return flights with my average cost of a ticket being somewhere in the neighborhood of $1200 USD. Pay dirt, especially for someone stockpiling miles for a big trip.

While stockpiling my miles I did have the occasion to use miles a couple of times to book trips.  This taught me a bit about the system including how far in advance you can book, 330 days, and the different type of award. I wanted the cheapest in Economy Saver, which normally was nearly half the miles required to book a Standard Award ticket. Check out the current United/Star Alliance Award and Upgrade Chart to see the differences between a Saver and Standard ticket. In most cases you really need to book in advance to capitalize on the seats requiring the fewest miles. 

My Dream Resurrected

Five or six years on I had almost given up the thought of quitting my job and travelling the world. I was content with the job I had and the occasional holiday break which always ended up right back where it started. It was then, on my 30^th birthday by chance, I was on a two week safari in Africa when my life was changed forever. I met a very special  Australian girl, Pamela, who would eventually become my wife. As you can imagine a long distance relationship between America and Australia is not an ideal one. It took many long flights and sleepless nights from both of us to make our relationship work. Thankfully she stayed with me in America for quite a while before heading back to Australia. The plan was for me to quit my job, move to Australia and for us to get married. Then my dream hit me like a bat, we could use this time to take an around-the-world trip for our Honeymoon.

Planning and Booking our Departure

It was time my dream finally became reality and we started planning. With about 10 months before our wedding date we started planning our dream Honeymoon. We had such a great time choosing destinations, some were places we’d been individually but most were places we’d both never been and both always wanted to go. Once a departure date was set and a tentative roadmap in place it was time to call United to book our plane tickets.

Initially we considered booking Round-the-World award tickets at a cost of 200,000 miles each. In talking to United and reading the fine print we soon decided against this type of ticket as we didn’t see much flexibility once we started our trip.  All segments of the trip were booked together and therefore nothing could be changed. This wouldn’t do for us, we wanted the ability to cancel an existing portion of our trip if wanted or needed. It turned out to be the right decision as our plans changed several times during our trip which required changes or cancellations. In most cases when you cancel an award ticket you are charged a fee for that cancellation, the fee itself could be more than the actual tax you paid on that ticket. Fortunately for us I was a United “1K” member at the time and therefore any changes or cancellations to our award tickets could be done fee free.

We decided to book a series of one way award tickets that would take us all over the world and also give us the greatest flexibility in the event of a change or cancellation in our plans. At this point I started booking the award tickets with United over the phone.  I used the http://www.staralliance.com website ahead of time to check for all available flights to a particular destination. Once I had our desired flight I would call United to check if they had Saver award seats available on the flight(s). In most cases I did get the flights I was after as I was booking in advance. I can only think of one instance where I didn’t get the flights I wanted and ended up on three different flights to get to Los Angeles from Abu Dhabi.

How it all Worked Out?

When all was said and done we used 11 one way Saver award tickets each at a cost totaling 475,000 miles and $891 USD in taxes. We had initially booked several more award tickets but cancelled due to changes in our plans. There were instances where we couldn’t use miles, flying to the Maldives, or it didn’t make sense to use miles, like from Miami to St. Thomas, where we ended up just paying for our tickets. Overall we visited 20 countries over 9 months and flew nearly 83,000 kilometers doing it. During our trip we utilized the following Star Alliance carriers for our award  flights: Thai, Lufthansa, Aegean, Turkish, Egypt Air, Air New Zealand and United. Non Star Alliance carriers we flew for various reasons were Southwest, Delta, Sri Lankan, Vietnam Airlines and Jet Airways.

Money Saved

Unfortunately award tickets are still not free. There are still taxes to pay when booking a ticket and the taxes you pay could depend on the airline chosen, segments and the arrival/destination of the flight. Over the 11 trips, 22 tickets in total, we paid an average of $81 dollars in taxes per trip and a total of $891 USD. In my opinion this is a great average and total, especially considering the high taxes I’ve seen on booking award tickets on other airlines, Qantas in particular.  

Next it’s time to calculate the savings we achieved booking award tickets vs the cheapest available flight. When I booked an award ticket for a certain segment I also found the cheapest available flight for purchase for that same segment and compared the cost of the award ticket flight taxes vs the cost of buying the fare on the cheapest carrier. Please keep in mind that most of the times the cheapest carrier was an airline not known for their quality, service, food or safety standards and more often than not involved many connections over multiple days. Think Aeroflot and Air India.  In the end I calculated we saved  a total of $6,683.00 USD using the award tickets vs the cheapest available carrier. This works out to be a dollar value of .016 cents per frequent flyer mile used.

Would I do it Again?

Absolutely, without a doubt. What’s not calculated in the total savings are the many-many hours we were able to spend in Business Class lounges all over the world as part of my Star Alliance Gold privileges. Many meals and showers were had at those lounges, we may have looked a bit scabby at some points of the trip but were sure glad to know we had a lounge to get cleaned up at before our flight. What’s also not factored in are the excess bags we were able to take, sometimes several, and the amount of time spared by accessing the Star Alliance Gold lines/kiosks at airports throughout the world. In most cases we were given seat priority, special attention and the occasional upgrade which made it all the more worth it.

Tips

I don’t profess myself to be an expert but here are some things I learned that may help someone else:

• Stick with one airline and one alliance whenever possible. I vote Star Alliance but that’s just my opinion
• Star Alliance Gold status definitely helped us throughout the trip. Research the different award programs and find out if any programs allow you to get to Gold status faster than others.
• Get the airline credit card and use it for everything. Just don’t pay any interest on it as the interest rates are usually a bit higher and negate the money you’d save on award tickets. It’s hard enough to swallow the annual fee that comes along with the cards.
• Once reaching elite status, try and fly as much as possible on that airline. The bonuses will help.
• Register for every bonus opportunity that comes up no matter if you don’t think it will apply to you. You never know what will have you flying out of Denver or Miami for a particular reason.
• Don’t convert your hotel rewards over to airline miles. You might be surprised I’m saying this but I never saw the value in it. You’ll earn more rewards sticking with the hotel point program which you can use along the way. I prefer Hyatt but that’s just me.
• Don't be too distraught if your particular award seat is not available. Availability can sometimes change so keep checking back.
• Be creative. Sometimes you might not be able to get the award ticket you're after but there could be a nearby airport that does have tickets available. For example, I've never seen award seats to Male, Maldives but I have seen plenty to the nearby island nation of Sri Lanka. You can always purchase tickets for the shorter route.
• Never, never, never give up on your dream, whatever that dream may be. Quitting my job and travelling around the world has been the best thing to ever happen to me.

I hope this article helps you out on your travels. As always, I welcome your feedback.

Cheers for Now –

Dave