How to Book an Award Ticket with United Miles

Since starting this blog, I've spent a lot of time writing abut how to earn miles and points.  I've spent less time showing how to actually redeem miles and points which is where this hobby starts to pay real dividends.  So here is my first post in a series on how to redeem United Miles for an award flight.

If you already have sufficient mileage in your United account, great.  If not (and you plan to transfer miles in from Chase Ultimate Rewards or purchase them) it's a good idea to wait until you find flight availability before making the transfer/purchase.

Let's say you live in Denver and want to go to Tokyo over the summer.  You are flexible on dates and want to go for a week with your spouse/friend/etc...You have 240,000 United Miles and 80,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points which you have been diligently saving/building up in advance of this trip.  You want to fly business class to fly in style if possible and want to minimize connection time.

The first thing you want to do is go to United.com and log in with your credentials.  On the left hand side is a search box to begin looking for flights.  Notice I've selected "TYO" as the airport code so I can include both Narita and Haneda as airport options.  I've also selected "My Dates are Flexible," the departure month and the length of my trip.  Remember to select the "Award Travel" radio button as well.

Next you'll see a calendar of sorts that displays the availability by day.  You are looking for "saver level" awards meaning the least amount of miles required.  White means saver availability is not available in any class.  Yellow means saver is available but only in coach.  Green means there is availability in first/business class.

Select a date that works for you and click search.  Next you will see a list of all the available flights.  Blue means there is saver availability so that is what you are looking for.  The table (from left to right) goes coach, business, first class.  Find the flight that works for you and click "Select."  In this case, first class is only 7,500 miles more than business per person each way.  Definitely worth it in my opinion for the extra comfort and service.

It is the same process for picking the return flight home.  You can mix classes of service so in theory you could fly first on the way to Tokyo and economy or business on the way home.  But who would want to do that??

Once you have selected your flights, you'll be directed to the check-out page where you will have an opportunity to review your itinerary.

320,000 Miles or $12,674??

You are almost done!  At this point (assuming I don't have the required miles in my account) I log in to my Chase Ultimate Rewards account and transfer the remaining points to United.  Which in this case would be all 80,000 of them.  While that transfer is usually instantaneous, I have found that I have to go through the booking process again.

Now that you have all of the required miles in your account, it is time to book.  That process is really simple - select travelers, input your credit card for the $101 in taxes/fees, and select seats (the fun part!!).  Time to start planning your trip to Tokyo!

Please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions about this process.  Or feel free to email me with questions/comments/award booking help, etc...