Kharon
Contributor
If I try to book a round trip (say to Kauai) the total miles for both legs (cumulative) is way over what it takes to book two one way trips. 67,500 vs 45,000. Am I missing something? Does this make sense?
United pricing using miles - does this make sense?
- Thread starter Kharon
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
StefinSB
Contributor
Maverick17
Contributor
That difference of 22,500 miles is the exact difference in saver seats versus everyday seats for one way. So for some reason it sounds like when you are looking at RTs it is pulling from the everyday bucket for one way and saver bucket for one way, but when you do them individually you're getting saver fares both ways.
If it's the same exact dates and flights, then it might be tough to change since nowadays the computer runs all awards. Maybe would have to do two one-ways. But if you're just looking overall and didn't get specific, maybe the flight it's pulling up has a different route or different time of day or something. Can you share more details so we can try to recreate it or anything?
If it's the same exact dates and flights, then it might be tough to change since nowadays the computer runs all awards. Maybe would have to do two one-ways. But if you're just looking overall and didn't get specific, maybe the flight it's pulling up has a different route or different time of day or something. Can you share more details so we can try to recreate it or anything?
Welcome to the games that airlines play with pricing/miles. Going to Bonaire last summer, the one-way fare to Bonaire on Delta was 1/3 of the RT cost, while the return leg was the other 2/3s. But, United was cheaper on the return from Bonaire, but more expensive inbound. So, to save money I did inbound on Delta and Outbound on United.
outofofficebrb
HARRO HUNNAYYY
@Maverick17's response is spot on. You are probably looking at one saver and one standard award versus 2 saver awards.
As an aside, if you use United and are a MP member, I highly recommend that you get yourself started on the Chase Ultimate Rewards system and feed it with the Reserve and Freedom card. You can always transfer points 1 to 1 back to United or other partners. Or, in my experience, I have found booking a ticket with Chase through the portal is often times much cheaper than transferring points and booking with United. e.g., I was flying San Francisco to Jakarta last year and they wanted 45-50K for the same itinerary and flights that United wanted 80K for...both round trip. I always look at both and consider my options.
Sometimes, it's a better deal to book through United and that's when I transfer my points in.
As an aside, if you use United and are a MP member, I highly recommend that you get yourself started on the Chase Ultimate Rewards system and feed it with the Reserve and Freedom card. You can always transfer points 1 to 1 back to United or other partners. Or, in my experience, I have found booking a ticket with Chase through the portal is often times much cheaper than transferring points and booking with United. e.g., I was flying San Francisco to Jakarta last year and they wanted 45-50K for the same itinerary and flights that United wanted 80K for...both round trip. I always look at both and consider my options.
Sometimes, it's a better deal to book through United and that's when I transfer my points in.
OP
Kharon
Contributor
Didn't ask them. Just tried it both ways and noticed a big difference.
@Maverick17's response is spot on. You are probably looking at one saver and one standard award versus 2 saver awards.
As an aside, if you use United and are a MP member, I highly recommend that you get yourself started on the Chase Ultimate Rewards system and feed it with the Reserve and Freedom card. You can always transfer points 1 to 1 back to United or other partners. Or, in my experience, I have found booking a ticket with Chase through the portal is often times much cheaper than transferring points and booking with United. e.g., I was flying San Francisco to Jakarta last year and they wanted 45-50K for the same itinerary and flights that United wanted 80K for...both round trip. I always look at both and consider my options.
Wow - my brain is all aching and wracked with pain. Too complicated for my feeble mind. I tried it for a round trip and two one way trips and found the difference. The flights, dates, routes, seats were the same. Just seemed weird and was curious if it's a common thing or an outlier.
Not going to agonize over it. I only fly for about 2-3 dive trips a year. I check all airlines for both RT and OW and pick whatever is best for me - shortest travel time and distance, fewer stops, and convienence trump cost (within reason). I will be using my miles before they expire then switching to some other rewards program - probably no airline related.
I've pretty much given up on using air miles offered by the airlines to book trips. I don't travel for work often enough to make it worthwhile any more. In the past, I had managed to book a few trips using airline miles for me, my husband, or both, but it was always a challenge to find flights, dates, and times that would work for us and not eat up too many miles - but still use them before they expired - I frequently gave up trying and let miles expire.
Now I book airfares and other travel expenses with our Capital One Rewards credit card that we use for all our charges. We earn 2 rewards per dollar for anything we charge on the card, and we can use those rewards to "erase" travel-related expenses within 90 days after making the purchase (transportation fares, hotels, car rental, trip deposits, etc.) best of all we earn rewards on the airfares and other travel purchases that ultimately get erased.
The way it works is that you make your airfare, hotel, and other travel reservations with your card, then after these charges have posted and the rewards points for the purchases have been added to your cumulative bank for all your charges (that don't expire as long as the account is open in good standing) you can use the rewards to "erase" travel-related charges from your credit card statement - but still keep the rewards that were earned for the original charges - after they have been erased.
It's pretty easy, you don't have to think about the miles or points or a specific airline when selecting your flights, just book what you want. We recently reserved round-trip airfares to Cayman and we picked the airline, dates, and times that we wanted and booked the flights, and then I was able to erase both of our airfares.
The only negative that I can see is that once you use the rewards points - they are gone - if you have to cancel the flights or other travel purchases for some reason - you can't get your rewards back. I usually put a reminder in my calendar and wait until it's near 90 days after the purchase to erase the charges, just in case something changes. If you have already paid your monthly statement for those purchases, they will just adjust your current monthly statement and deduct the amount erased.
Another factor, but this is true for all rewards and miles programs, is that travel insurance companies usually advise you not to include purchases made with miles or points in your estimate of the trip costs, because they won't cover them.
We selected the Capital One travel rewards program, but they have other programs that may be of interest to others. Another nice thing about the card is that they don't charge any foreign transaction fees.
Last edited:
A number of years ago we were planning a trip to the east coast, with several stops in different locations. Our original thought was to fly (United) to Newark Airport and rent a car there for the rest of the trip. The price for that flight was horrendous. Then we tried to book a flight to Burlington, VT instead. The price was much less, so we took that option. Then we noticed that the flight to Burlington had a stop in Newark, and the Denver-Newark flight was the exact same one for which we would have had to pay a fortune if we had chosen that option. In effect, United was paying us a healthy sum to fly from Newark to Burlington.
From that point on, we gave up trying to find any logic in the cost of flights.
We are doing a similar trip this summer. The flight costs for all airlines is ridiculous, but we are doing it for free with our American Airline miles.
From that point on, we gave up trying to find any logic in the cost of flights.
We are doing a similar trip this summer. The flight costs for all airlines is ridiculous, but we are doing it for free with our American Airline miles.
Maverick17
Contributor
This last part is the key of course. Whatever you are happy with is best. That being said, if you want any help, feel free to PM the dates and airports and I can check as well. But if indeed everything is the same as for routes, stops, dates, etc, then it, to my knowledge, is some sort of error or glitch.
Miles can be great or they can be awful. Takes some patience and study to get the most out of them, and many don't have time or desire to do that.
Shasta_man
Contributor
<<Capital One Rewards credit card>>
KathyV/All, make sure you pay Capital One/your credit company some interest here and there. After paying my bill off every month for years, like a good customer I thought, Capital One hiked my interest rate from 8.9% to 18%. Apparently they weren't making enough money on me becuase I rarely paid interest charges. In return, I stopped using them for any purchases and only use them for 0% balance transfer offers. I pay 2-3% fee for a 12-18 month interest free loan ($100 for $5K for example). They offer those hoping I will leave a balance transfer balance when the rate expires because it jumps to 20 something percent, but I never do because every payment is 100% principal. I also know that they have to keep an amount equal to my entire credit line on hand so I force this while making no money on me. On the rest of my cards, I now make sure and pay a little interest here and there to avoid this issue.
KathyV/All, make sure you pay Capital One/your credit company some interest here and there. After paying my bill off every month for years, like a good customer I thought, Capital One hiked my interest rate from 8.9% to 18%. Apparently they weren't making enough money on me becuase I rarely paid interest charges. In return, I stopped using them for any purchases and only use them for 0% balance transfer offers. I pay 2-3% fee for a 12-18 month interest free loan ($100 for $5K for example). They offer those hoping I will leave a balance transfer balance when the rate expires because it jumps to 20 something percent, but I never do because every payment is 100% principal. I also know that they have to keep an amount equal to my entire credit line on hand so I force this while making no money on me. On the rest of my cards, I now make sure and pay a little interest here and there to avoid this issue.
Similar threads
