Why International First Class is a Steal

Emily and I both love Hong Kong.  We were there for the first time in 2012 on our Honeymoon and loved the city.  So we've been itching to go back but dates/flights just haven't worked out.  Until now. Yesterday, I was able to change a speculative award (that was booked under the old United award chart) to an award that we actually plan on using.

First Class availability on United's SFO - HKG route has been hard to find...especially for two seats.  But it opened up yesterday and we pulled the trigger.  United First Class certainly isn't as cool as Lufthansa or Singapore but it's still 15 hours in the nose of a 747.  Hard to complain about that.

But here's the thing - the two award tickets (one-way) cost 140,000 MileagePlus miles.  Had we paid cash, the tickets would have set us back $19,125.  While I certainly wouldn't pay that (or really anywhere near that) price, that is an unreal value.  Maybe the best award I have ever booked at 13.7 cents/mile.

And this is why leveraging your miles and points for international first class is such a "deal."  You'll never get anywhere close to this type of value out of your points if you just book coach tickets to Vegas, Miami, or Chicago.

Even if you use your miles to book international coach or business class tickets, you still won't get anywhere near 13.7 cents/miles because the premium to book first class tickets (especially on United metal) is so small.  A first class saver ticket costs roughly 2x the amount of miles as a coach ticket.  But the cash cost is more likely to be 6x or 8x a coach ticket.

So we are pretty stoked to be heading back to Hong Kong.  We hope to spend a few days in Taipei as well over New Years.  I will keep you posted as we make progress on putting the trip together.

Now on to the next challenge...finding a flight home!