Determining Required Mileage for an Award Ticket

One of the most challenging things about this hobby is figuring out how many miles are required to book a certain airline award (this is far easier with hotel redemptions).  It took me a couple of years and over a dozen awards to really get the hang of it.  Complicating matters is the fact that airlines have (obviously not best practice) changed their award charts recently with literally zero notice.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to get the miles required for a specific award.  On United, the chart is interactive and shows all classes of service on both United metal and partner airlines.

United Interactive Award Chart - US to Europe

United Miles Required - US to Europe

Generally speaking, this is the "101" version of award booking.  There are a variety of written and unwritten rules around routing on each airline.  For me, that is the fun part...figuring out how to get the most of my hard earned miles/points.  But this is a great place to start especially for simple (point A to point B and back) awards.