United MileagePlus Explorer Miles

[Tim_S]

I'm not sure where to post this, so I thought I would try here.

As a new Chase/United MileagePlus Explorer cardmember, I've never used miles to purchase airline tickets before.  From what I've read on The Points Guy blogs, he values United miles at 1.4 cents per mile.  I've recently priced airline tickets to Knoxville for this April and I've searched both ways, (award travel using miles and paying with money).  When searching using miles, it gave me a cost of 50,000 miles plus $11.20.  When searching with money, it gave me a cost of $347.60).  Math is not my strong suit but doesn't 50,000 miles multiplied by 1.4 cents equal 70,000, divided by 100 cents to the dollar equal $700?  Do airline tickets typically cost double the cash value using miles, (i.e. if a trip costs $500, it will cost 100,000 miles)?

[iced]

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@Tim_Swrote:

I'm not sure where to post this, so I thought I would try here.

As a new Chase/United MileagePlus Explorer cardmember, I've never used miles to purchase airline tickets before.  From what I've read on The Points Guy blogs, he values United miles at 1.4 cents per mile.  I've recently priced airline tickets to Knoxville for this April and I've searched both ways, (award travel using miles and paying with money).  When searching using miles, it gave me a cost of 50,000 miles plus $11.20.  When searching with money, it gave me a cost of $347.60).  Math is not my strong suit but doesn't 50,000 miles multiplied by 1.4 cents equal 70,000, divided by 100 cents to the dollar equal $700?  Do airline tickets typically cost double the cash value using miles, (i.e. if a trip costs $500, it will cost 100,000 miles)?

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It's all about the routing and saver availability when it comes to airline miles value. The worst valuation on miles for award tickets is for domestic tickets and economy tickets. Domestic economy award tickets will, of course, be even worse. All routes are poor value when booked as a standard redemption rather than saver.

Given you priced out 50,000 for a domestic flight, you are either booking first saver or economy standard. That is, you can book domestic flights (presumably to Knoxville) for 25,000 in economy, but you will have to be flexible with dates and times as not every day or every flight has saver availability. If you find saver availability for your route, your $350 ticket can be had for 25,000 miles, which is a better value and in line with the 1.4 cpm value you're expecting.

The highest value per point is on international business/first tickets (I have broken 6 cpm several times doing this, and even the usual redemption will break 2 cpm easily). You need hundreds of thousands of miles to book them, but those tickets also usually price out to thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. 140,000 miles for a $4,000 ticket (business international) has a better value per point than 65,000 miles for a $1000 ticket (economy international), 50,000 miles for a $1000 ticket (first domestic) or 25,000 for a $400 ticket (economy domestic).

[Tim_S]

Thanks Iced.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the difference between "economy" and "first saver award" and "first everyday award". Why wouldn't everyone just pick the lowest price that meets their schedule? Do different awards earn miles differently also? 

[iced]

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@Tim_Swrote:

Thanks Iced.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the difference between "economy" and "first saver award" and "first everyday award". Why wouldn't everyone just pick the lowest price that meets their schedule? Do different awards earn miles differently also? 

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Saver awards are half the cost of standard awards, but are limited in times and days. You can search on the calendar for which days have saver awards, but there may only be one flight that day with a saver award, and if you're trying to make a connection, your connection may not have a saver award. You have to search over a range of days or even weeks to find a routing that works for your plans and have the flexibility to travel at that time. This is the part that takes practice to figure out. If you must travel on a specific day and time, if there's no saver availability you're likely better off just paying for the ticket with cash.

Standard awards are always available on all flights, down to the last seat. They come at a cost though, as you're seeing with your planning. It basically means if you have enough points and no cash and you just have to get somewhere, you can buy any seat on any flight with miles.

If every flight had saver availability, then your statement is true in that everyone would just book those flights. Higher-tiered elites have expanded access to saver economy such that they're not too hard to find, but those fliers are also usually not burning miles on economy tickets since they're not expensive in the first place. Even for standard members, economy saver availability isn't too hard to find if you are flexible on days. Premium cabins in saver is another matter and on some routes, it's nigh impossible to find. Elite-heavy routes in particular are a challenge...stuff like SFO-FRA, EWR-BOM, and domestic PS routes like SFO-EWR/BOS usually sell out in business/first, so they have no motivation to open saver availability on them.

Award flights do not earn miles.

[UpperNwGuy]

I used 60,000 United miles last night to book a round trip economy ticket to Madrid in May.  The cash price would have been $1,391.  If the cash price had dropped below $850, I would have paid cash instead of using my miles.

The key is to use your miles on international rather than domestic flights.

I do not have elite status with United any more, but I do have the Explorer card.

[Tim_S]

Thanks, I'm beginning to see the value of paying for lower cost flights and save the miles for international travel.

[Kree]

Upgrades are also useful.   I'm flying DC to LAX next month, and my ticket is about 400 bucks. First class is about 2400, but only 20,000 points to upgrade for the mythical 10 cents a point.

[iced]

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@Kreewrote:

Upgrades are also useful.   I'm flying DC to LAX next month, and my ticket is about 400 bucks. First class is about 2400, but only 20,000 points to upgrade for the mythical 10 cents a point.

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These can be tricky to execute on. The problem is mileage upgrades are in the same upgrade buckets (namely, R) as RPU/GPU/CPU upgrades. On high-demand routes (which IAD-LAX is mid-to-upper demand), the moment any R space becomes available, it's scooped up by the system and given to the first upgrader on the waitlist. If you're a standard member throwing miles at the upgrade, you have to wait for every 1K/Platinum on a RPU to clear, then every Gold and Silver to clear their mileage upgrades before your chance comes. Once you hit T-96 and the 1K CPU window opens up, forget this strategy unless you're an upper-tier Premier.

On the high-demand routes I spoke of earlier (SFO-BOS/EWR, for example), I can tell you that even as a 1K on a RPU, I've been in the 20s on the upgrade list for flights. If a 1K using an instrument can't easily upgrade, the chances of a general member applying 20k miles getting one are slim to none.

Now that I said all that, if you're on a flight/route where there's plenty of R space open even at T-24, you'll have 0 problems doing this. Just know that chances are those routes aren't very long or worthwhile to upgrade (regional jet, 3 hour flight or less, etc). There's a few exceptions out there where you can score a longer flight upgrade for cheap (EWR-SLC comes to mind).

[Kree]

@iced slightly off topic united question for you.  When you first became a 1k, did you recieve a sheet of free drink coupons?  trying to determine if everyone does, or just certain people. Don't know many 1k flyers personally.  So far its 2 for 2 for the free drinks.

[iced]

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@Kreewrote:

@iced slightly off topic united question for you.  When you first became a 1k, did you recieve a sheet of free drink coupons?  trying to determine if everyone does, or just certain people. Don't know many 1k flyers personally.  So far its 2 for 2 for the free drinks.

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All Platinums get one sheet of chits (5 coupons) and 1K get 2 sheets (10 coupons). I ended up throwing away almost all of them from last year. Also lost a RPU because I could never clear the upgrades I was trying. My GPUs all cleared, but on them I would often not clear the domestic leg while clearing international.