Around the World with US Airways Dividend Miles – Award Booking Tips

US Airways will let you fly around the world for 120,000 miles in First, 90,000 in Business, and 60,000 in coach.  The award is just their basic North America to Northern Asia, but you are allowed to route via the Atlantic and the Pacific.  You also get a free stopover (stay longer than 24 hours) in a Star Alliance hub along the way, or somewhat out of the way.  Complete Dividend Miles rules are here.  I was able to book from Denver to Tokyo with a stopover in Helsinki with all segments in business class.

Star Alliance Air Canada Jet

The first step in booking is to find the flights.  I have some time off from class in summer, wanted to go somewhere new in Scandinavia, and see Japan.  Narrowing down the possible destinations will shorten the search process and focus your attention.  I found the list of Star Alliance hubs and started looking for flights. 

The two best search tools are United.com and fly-ana.com (you need to join Mileage Club to search).  I start with United and use ANA only if I’m stuck.  United has a much simpler interface and shows more routings.  When searching on United, make sure that you are only looking at Star Alliance airlines, Aer Lingus will show in United results, but can’t be booked through US Airways.  If Aer Lingus or other airlines outside the Star Alliance keep filling the search results, switch to ANA.

Lufthansa 747

The best way to build a trip is segment by segment; being too ambitious can overwhelm the search engine.  First open a spreadsheet to track all the available flights and see all the options in one place.  From there start searching for the beginning and ending flights, NRT-DEN and DEN-European gateway city.  Flying from Japan, I wanted a lay flat bed, ANA preferred over Asiana over United.  I found several options on ANA’s new 777-300s, a pair on Asiana, and a lot on United.  To Europe I preferred Swiss (flat bed) over Lufthansa (angled) over SAS (angled) over United (flat).  I’ve flown United business class, the seat is very good, but the service and food are awful.  There were a few Lufthansa and SAS flights available, so things are looking up.  Intra-Europe connections are plentiful and have great availability if going to capital cities.  The more out of the way, the harder it is to find flights (Berlin easy, Mehamn, Norway rather difficult).

Once the bookend flights are found, it is much simpler to find the middle flights (dates and connecting cities are limited).  Through sheer force of clicking, I found several options to stop in Geneva, Oslo, Stockholm, and Helsinki.  Getting from Europe to Japan had very limited availability.  I did not want to fly Edelweiss Air (Swiss’ low cost airline with poor seats and bad service) or Air China (subpar seats and an evening arrival).  Lufthansa had a few flights, Austrian had one, and Turkish Airways had a lot from IST-NRT (but almost no options from my stopover cities to IST).  The date and timing has me on Lufthansa; I would prefer Austrian or Swiss, but the availability didn’t permit it.

US Airways, Making This Trip Possible

I found the flights I wanted and then reran the searches segment by segment before I called US Airways.  This was important because my A380 seat from FRA disappeared, so I had to find a replacement.  Luckily an A340-600 out of MUC had space and I could find a flight from Helsinki to Munich.

The reservation I had planned, DEN-FRA-HEL-MUC-NRT-LAX-DEN, met the rules and the flights were available.  US Airways agents don’t consistently interpret the rules.  If the agent says NO, just apologize, say you need to reevaluate the trip, hang up, and try again later.  I called to make the reservation and things started well.  I reached an agent quickly, gave her the flights one at a time, all were found, and the agent thought the reservation looked good.  Next the agent has to contact the rate desk to validate and price.  I was on hold, so didn’t hear what was discussed.  The agent came back and said I had to spend less than 24 hours in Tokyo or I couldn’t book the ticket.  I said I would re-plan off the phone and call back later.  I thanked her for her time, asked to have the reservation placed on hold (she did, thereby saving my flights and making it easier the next call).  This was a clear misunderstanding of what a stopover is by the rate desk.  To avoid getting the same guy again, I waited 10 hours before calling back.

United Airlines 737 Collection

My next call lasted 75 minutes and at least 60 of those were spent on hold.  I still had a positive experience thanks to the very bubbly and excited agent I spoke with.  She was new, so the US Airways culture hasn’t sunk in yet.  She quickly found my reservation, I explained what I was trying to book, she validated that it looked right to her, and then got on the line with the rate desk where things got weird.

After a few minutes on hold, I was told I could not book my trip because I was backtracking.  To make a valid reservation, I had to keep going east (my original direction of travel).  After a quick check of Google Maps, Oslo was my only option between FRA and MUC.  I quickly found flights to OSL on United.com, keeping my long haul segments in place, and she tried the rate desk again.

When my agent came back on the line, she said the rate desk now said I had to stop in a hub.  I explained both OSL and HEL are hubs for SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System) according to StarAlliance.com.  She confirmed this and went back to play rate desk lotto.

She returned excited and told me that my original itinerary with a stop in Helsinki was validated and priced out to $130.  I jumped with joy, gave her my Amex number, she booked the ticket, gave me a confirmation number, and we parted ways.

The moral of this story is twofold; first find your flights before calling, second, be patient and persistent.  

Update 2/1/15:
US Airways' new oneworld award chart isn't as generous.  It's 110,000 miles to North Asia now and 100,000 to Europe.  Also oneworld carriers have fuel surcharges (British Airways is the worst) that are added to the price of the award.