Finding United 8k Awards – 8,000 Mile Tickets on Star Alliance

Finding United 8k Awards – 8,000 Mile Award Tickets on Star Alliance

United 8k awards are the cheapest Star Alliance redemptions possible. If you’re looking for cheap award tickets, these are it. Today, we’ll look at the options for flying United 8k awards and the rules that apply to making these so cheap.

Earning United Airlines MileagePlus Miles

Before we discuss how to redeem United MileagePlus miles for valuable 8K awards we should discuss how to earn United miles. The best way to earn United miles is via the United co-branded credit cards or via their very valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner.  Here are a few of the best offers to beef up your United MileagePlus account.  Remember that all of these fall under the Chase 5/24 rule:

United Credit Cards

• United Explorer Personal Card – There is currently an increased offer on the United Explorer card.  Earn 40,000 miles after spending $2,000 within the first 3 months of card membership. Earn an additional 25,000 miles after spending $10,000 within 6 months. This card has a lot of great perks for United flyers too.  Learn More
• United Explorer Business Card – You can earn up to 100,000 miles with the Explorer business card.  Earn 50,000 miles after spending $5,000 within the first 3 months of card membership.  Earn an additional 50,000 miles after spending $25,000 within 6 months of card membership. This card comes with some great perks for United flyers as well. Learn More

Chase Ultimate Rewards Cards

Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer to United MileagePlus miles at a 1 to 1 ratio.  This is the best way to amass United miles since the Ultimate Rewards cards have better earning rates on your normal purchases vs the co-branded cards. The co-branded cards come with better perks for United flyers though.  I will highlight a few of the best offers:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred – Earn 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $4,000 within the first 3 months of card membership. The $95 annual fee is NOT waived. Learn More
• Chase Sapphire Reserve – Earn 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months of card membership. It has a $300 travel credit and better earning rates than the Sapphire Preferred but comes with a $450 annual fee. Learn More
• Ink Business Preferred – Earn 80,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5,000 within the first 3 months of card membership. It comes with a $95 annual fee. Learn More

Rules for United 8k Awards

Not all flights can be 8,000 miles on United, even if they’re short. Here are the rules that apply:

• Direct flights only
• Flight distance is less than 800 miles
• Flight is within a single United zone
• Cannot be within US or Canada

This means that not all short-distance flights are going to be 8,000 miles. There are no restrictions on partners, so all United partners are in play. The rules are just distance, non-stop, and location. Within the U.S. and Canada, the cheapest tickets are still 10k. Here’s a reminder of the United zones, so you know how to stay within them.

Searching for United 8k Awards

Now that we know the rules for place, distance, and non-stop, we can find awards. I have 4 resources at hand for this:

1. List of United partners
2. FlightConnections.com
3. GCmap.com
4. List of Fifth Freedom flights

Here’s why I’m using those. First, I need to know the partners, so I can look for their flights. Flightconnections.com tells me all flights leaving an airport, and I can search for flights leaving the home base(s) of the United partners. I can set it to show me only Star Alliance partners, which means I could possibly use United miles for a flight that pops up. GCmap helps me check distance to stay under 800 miles. I’ll also check the Fifth Freedom flights list for any United partners.

We now can confirm if a flight should be a United 8k award. We can try to book it on United.com after this, rather than just searching for awards and seeing what price comes up, hoping to get lucky.

Fifth Freedom Flights with United Partners

Knowing the rules, I can narrow down which fifth freedom flights should offer United 8k awards. The following 5th freedom flights are all under 800 miles and operated by United partners. They’re also within 1 zone.

Brussels Airlines

• Freetown, Sierra Leone – Monrovia, Liberia

Ethiopian Airlines

• Accra, Ghana – Lagos, Nigeria
• Bujumbura, Burundi – Kigali, Rwanda
• Conakry, Guinea – Dakar, Senegal
• Dakar, Senegal – Bamako, Mali
• Entebbe, Uganda – Juba, South Sudan
• Harare, Zimbabwe – Lusaka, Zambia
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Singapore
• Stockholm, Sweden ARN – Oslo, Norway
• Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe – Gaborone, Botswana

Singapore Airlines

• Moscow, Russia DME – Stockholm, Sweden ARN

South African Airways

• Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire – Accra, Ghana

Swiss Air

• Dubai, UAE – Muscat, Oman

Turkish Airlines

• Djibouti, Djibouti – Mogadishu, Somalia

I’ve actually booked 3 of these and can confirm that they price out as United 8k awards, also. I did the Turkish option back in March, and the following week I did Ethiopian Airlines from Burundi to Rwanda. Next week, I’m taking the Senegal to Mali flight on Ethiopian.

Airline Hubs

My next stop would be checking airline hubs for places I’m thinking about visiting if I’m not wanting one of these fifth freedom flights. I’m not going to check all of these for this article, but the gist is to check hubs for the United partners. Vienna for Austrian, Addis Ababa for Ethiopian, etc. Airlines like Lufthansa (Frankfurt, Munich) and Azul (all 3 Sao Paulo airports, both Rio de Janeiro airports) have multiple hubs you could check. The idea is to go to flightconnections.com and enter in the airport to start from. See where the direct flights go, and even filter for the airline you want to check as the United partner at play. You can click on the flights to see more info. Distance is most times accurate, but not always.

Check for Your United 8k Award

After brainstorming where to go, we checked flight distances and made sure we’re in 1 United zone only. In this example, I wanted to go from Warsaw, Poland to Moscow, Russia. 2 of the most beautiful and underrated cities in Eastern Europe. I’ll check United for availability.

Availability is wide open. Multiple flights a day for the whole 30 days around the random date I picked. This flight meets our rules: 1 zone, non-stop, under 800 miles, and operated by a United partner. We found a United 8k award. Direct flights are $160+, so I’m getting 1.66 cents per point value. Not crazy, but it’s good for economy prices.

Not Always Guaranteed

What if a flight is under 800 miles and on a confirmed partner? Is it always a United 8k award? Make sure it meets all of the rules. Tokyo to Seoul or Athens to Tel Aviv have qualifying 5th freedom flights from United Airlines partners. They’re under 800 miles. However, they don’t stay in the same zone. Japan is its own zone. Israel is the Middle East zone, but Athens is in the Europe zone.

There’s also the issue of United itself. Now that they’re moving to dynamic award charts, this isn’t a guarantee. What you SHOULD be able to do and what you actually find aren’t the same thing now. Availability (how many other people have already booked this flight on miles? is the flight full?) and demand (is this a super popular time for the destination?) can skew things. However, this gives us a starting point.

Final Thoughts

United 8k awards provide a cheap way to get award bookings. Remember that they have close-in booking fees, if you’re booking at the last minute. Also, there are times when you shouldn’t use your points, even just 8k. I’d never pay 8k + taxes for a short flight on Azul, because you can get these for less than $50. If you’re willing to take RyanAir in Europe, those flights are cheap and not worth paying 8k + taxes for the same route. However, some of these routes can cost $400+, so paying only 8k + taxes is a steal. It’s a starting point for finding great value on award redemptions. Of course, this assumes that you’re planning your trip by award price, not choosing a destination first. If this helps you move from city A to city B or helps you add another city to your vacation, consider it a deal.

Disclosure: Miles to Memories has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Miles to Memories and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

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