You can book mileage tickets now on United for flights that are 700 miles or less for just 8,750 miles for a one-way flight or 17,500 miles for a round-trip flight.
You must book by 08/31/10 and travel by 01/07/11.
Best of all United doesn’t charge any award expedite fees, as you can see in this award fee chart roundup.
You can check the distance of a flight using the great circle mapper, which in this link tells us that Cleveland to Chicago is just a 315 mile flight and is therefore eligible for the 8,750 mile award.
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22 Comments On "Book A One-Way United Short-Haul Award Ticket For Just 8,750 Miles!"
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so NY to Montreal is a go how do you actually book these
@E:
You search on united.com for NYC to YUL using the redeem miles tab.
is this kedai? or should we save the 8,750 miles for something else? i’m thinking about going nyc-dtw. I guess before I can even think about that, I’m wondering if I can use CO miles as I don’t have any on United.
Sorry to spoil some of the fun but “This applies to awards booked at least 7 days in advance of travel” so no discounted tickets within 7 days
Details:
* Purchase by August 31, 2010 and fly before January 7, 2011
* Reduced-mile offer applies on flights operated by United or United Express that are 700 or fewer miles from origin to destination within the continental U.S. and between the continental U.S. and Canada. Only awards in economy class are available at the reduced rate
* A roundtrip Saver Award is reduced to 17,500 miles and a One-Way Saver Award is reduced to 8,750 miles
* A roundtrip Miles & Money Award is reduced to 7,000 miles plus cash*
* You must purchase your ticket a minimum of seven days before your first flight
And here is the link:
http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6867,53534,00.html
It’s a shame ORD to EWR is 719. Is there any leeway? How do you spell leeway?
ord-jfk 733 miles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! cmon
The question is it worth it to use milage on such a short trip. I was thinking about using ORD to LGA or EWR but of course that is just over the 700 mile limit.
You can fly ORD-PHL (678 miles) and drive to NY if that works for you.
@harold:
It all depends on the price of the ticket if it’s worth it.
If it will be a $500 ticket from Chicago to Toronto, then it’s probably worth using miles.
@E:
Thanks for pointing that out.
@Shmuel:
Thanks for the link.
@Eli:
Nope, that’s a no-go.
@Mikeoracle:
Yup!
@E
1 small problem you must be on UA or UA Express flights ONLY, in order to get to YUL or YYZ a person would need to 1st fly to IAD (Dulles) and then fly to Canada from there
So youd need to find where theres a SaverPass award available on all 4 segments, then in YULs case its OK but I would think both flights would still have to be under 700 miles combined. Or maybe UA only will care about from Origin to Destination (O/D) I dont know how UA will calculate it nor if it must be Only on Non-stops in which case NY-Canada is a no-go
@steve2:
Now this is interesting!!!
It does work for LGA-IAD-YUL for 8,750 even though the aggregate total flown mileage is over 700!
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=lga-iad-yul
They must only be calculating the nonstop distance between the origin and destination cities, regardless of how you route the flight!
must be since LGA-IAD is 229 and IAD-YUL is 486 = 715 in total
when on United.com (no longer ual.com) and put in LGA-YUL all that it shows is AC non-stop flights, so I had to look at each flight by itself
BTW if it doesnt then EWR-IAD-YUL is 213 + 486 = 699!
@dan thanks for your follow-up. just one more question. At what price point is it worth it to use the miles. you mentioned $500 but normally a RT from DTW-NYC is ~$240. still worth it to use miles?
@harold:
The formula goes like this.
For a flight from LGA-ORD-DTW on 08/11, returning on 08/18:
The price to buy is $220+tax equals $262.
Divide $262 by 17,500 equals 1.5 cents value per mile, which is pretty much the least bang for your buck you should get with miles.
However if you would have flown LGA-ORD-DTW you would earn 2,000 miles round trip, so really your options are:
-Pay $262 and earn 2,000 miles.
-Use 17,500 miles plus $10 tax.
So by paying for the flight you’ll have to pay an additional $252, but you’ll have 19,500 more miles that you would have had otherwise, so your real value per mile 252/19,500 which is 1.29 cents per mile.
Personally I only redeem miles when I can get 2 cents per mile of real value, but others will redeem for just 1 cent. You just have to figure out your own threshold, but now you know the 2 basic formulas.
@dan wow thanks! that really clarifies a lot and I will keep that point of thumb in mind for future award tickets. kol hakovod
I someone wants a one way say from Chicago to NY and it isn’t available with the reduced mileage since its too far, I would recommend maybe trying to make NY a stopover on the way to the final destination that is less then a direct 700 miles and hop off midway
@ G F
I take it you dont fly on UA too often, as UA doesnt fly except to its Hubs out of all 3 NY airports
so although ORD-IAD is <700 a person will need to use Multi-citys and hope they can force such a routing as ORD-LGA-IAD and that both flights are available in Saver Award level
the $59 tax on nyc-yul kills it
@steve2:
I have never seen routing through any NYC airport. However seen plenty through smaller cities like: IND, RIC, DTW, COS, CMH, DFW etc. You can fly on this award – ORD-RIC-CMH-PHL for example. Does not really help. However YUL-ORD is more then 700 miles can be done as YUL-ORD-DTW which is less then 700 miles.
@al613:
Yup, you can book a one-way LGA to Detroit and just get off the plane in Chicago for 8,750 miles.
Of course no baggage though.