Looking at options for Altering Award Flights to accommodate a change in plans – the problems, and some solutions

It was literally 25hrs after I booked my flights to Rome, via Milan (in June) and with a free one way to Panama City (for October) as a Saver Economy Award with United that I received an email from a business partner of mine from Tokyo.  We had spoken recently about visiting the United Arab Emirates and exploring the market there for some potential business deals that we felt might be interesting, it was one of those chats over drinks in Tokyo that sometimes go nowhere, and sometimes become reality very quickly indeed.

“Hey Matt, I think I can get to Dubai in June, probably on the 12th, would you be interested in joining me?”

My current itinerary is as follows:

• NYC-Milan June 5th Destination
• Rome- NYC June 11th Stopover
• NYC – Panama City October 18th Destination

What that means is that just one day before I should be in Dubai, I am in Rome, which is actually quite close to Dubai (compared to New York at any rate) timing seems fortuitous and I agree to set this up,  now I have to find the most efficient and economical way of doing so.  I can’t believe that I got the message 25hrs later, since if it was within a 24hr window I could have simply cancelled the original tickets and rebooked without a penalty, but once the 24hr period ends it means I have less options available (unless I want to pay a $150 fee to redeposit)  and have to be more ‘creative.

United Status Benefits

Unfortunately, one of the negatives of flying for free is that I don’t gain Status with airlines.  United has 4 tiers of status above my non-status level , Silver, Gold, Platinium, and 1K.  Each tier comes with different benefits, and the top tier the 1K has pretty much every fee waived, these are the most loyal customers who rack up over 100,000 miles flown per year (on a paid revenue ticket).

United Status Benefits as they apply for altering award flights

The chart above gives a good breakdown of overall benefits for Status with United, however it is necessary to drill down a little further to be able to determine what the impact of the course of action will be: specifically what constitutes an Award Change Fee?  The chart below goes into this a little further, and allows us to start pricing out the impact of the changes I plan to make in order to get to Dubai.  What I like about this too, is by highlighting the fee, it actually provides me with ideas for how to fix the flights I need, for example the Fee Change to Origin or Destination City means I can change the Destination on the way back,so I could shuffle flights around creatively.  And the Fee changing departure 21 days or more in the Future = $0 makes me wonder if I can apply that departure to the second leg, the return… things that I will be exploring today as I lock in my flights.

Option 1 for altering award flights – Remember that Business Travel Expenses Are Deductible

It is very clear that the Milan and Rome part of my trip are vacation, so I wouldn’t try to make any Business Deductions for these, however, Dubai is all business, with that in mind I could conceivably pay for flights to and from Rome – Dubai as a valid Business Expense, and keep my original ticket more or less intact. To do that I would need to make the following changes to the Award I have:

• NYC-Milan June 5th Destination
• Rome- NYC June 11th  June 17th Stopover
• NYC – Panama City October 18th Destination

Kayak shows a price of $508 Round Trip on Qatar from Rome-Dubai

Pro’s and Con’s:

• I would keep my flight to Panama City in October
• I could deduct the revenue ticket on Qatar, at about 30% tax rate that would reduce the cost to $340
• Revenue Tickets Earn Mileage
• There would be no change fee for this, since I am making the change more than 21 days in advance (thanks to themilesprofessor again for confirming that one!)

Total Cost for Option 1 62.5K UA miles (plus fees), plus $340 for Italy, Dubai and one way to Panama City

Option 2 for altering award flights – same idea as above, but nest a second award flight

Using the same concept as above, stretching out the Rome return flight and taking an award flight round trip from Rome to Dubai.  United has plenty of availability and the rate would be 35,000 miles Roundtrip in Saver Economy.

This option would mean I couldn’t write off the business cost, but at the same time it would mean that I would keep the full amount of cash from the tickets, and I would rather spend miles and points than cash at all times, even with a tax deduction.

Total Cost for Option 2 97.5K UA Miles (plus fees increase by $110) for Italy, Dubai and one way to Panama City

One of the big negatives about option 2 for me is that there are no direct flights from Rome to Dubai, so the way back would be something like Dubai, Frankfurt, Rome, Frankfurt, NYC (if I cannot find a nonstop from Rome) so that would be one heck of an annoying route!

Option 3 for altering award flights – Cancel Everything!

Well, it is an option if I get frustrated enough, I could start over with a new reservation..United would charge a $150 to redeposit the miles into my account and I would start over from fresh.  It might be something to come back to if the other plans don’t work out.

Option 4 for altering award flights – Changing the Destination

This is an interesting one.  The award fee chart shows that a change to the Origin or Destination city will come with a $75 fee, which is a negative, but it does open up some really interesting ideass, as a reminder, this is my current ticketed itinerary:

• NYC-Milan June 5th Destination
• Rome- NYC June 11th Stopover
• NYC – Panama City October 18th Destination

Now, if I am willing to drop Panama City and make NYC my Destination then I would be able to route legally all the way to Dubai via Rome.  Dubai being in the Middle east zone might cost more miles.. though it is only a stopover so lets see what they say!

Here is the itinerary I wanted to propose for pricing:

• NYC-Milan June 5th Destination
• Rome-Dubai June 11th Stopover
• Dubai-NYC June 17th Destination

Well… 1hr and 30 minutes later on hold to United (never call the general number, call the RTW Desk!) they couldn’t price it out properly.  The reason they gave me for the problem was that I was flying out of Newark and back into JFK which made it an Openjaw (you are allowed two Openjaws and one Stopover per trip, so this reason was false) I hung up and called the RTW Desk and spoke to a guy that really knew his stuff, didn’t need to enter anything into the computer to tell me that if I tried to route like this they would assume the entire itinerary was to the Middle East (80K Round Trip) even though on the outbound leg I was going only as far as Europe.

So if I chose this option my cost goes up from 62.5K Miles to 80K miles, plus I lose the free leg to Panama City in October (and I have to pay a change fee of $75!) I figured that if I take this option, I then have to book a new ticket from NYC – Panama City so I am already looking at 97.5K miles at this point.

This is the point that I cracked open a beer, and tried to wrap my head around all of these options to find the best solution.  It must have been some beer, because I went from solving this, to booking the following trips:

• June 5th-11th Italy, Two City Rome and Milan

• June 112th-17th Dubai

• October 18th-21st Two City Panama City, Panama and San Juan, Puerto Rico

• December 12th-17th Zurich

• February 28th – March 2nd Toronto

In total, to go from my original ticketing of:

• NYC-Milan June 5th Destination
• Rome- NYC June 11th Stopover
• NYC – Panama City October 18th Destination

To the new 5 Trips took an extra 67.5K UA Miles, 20K AA Miles and 9K BA Avios which I think is spectacular value.  The best value no doubt was the flight I took from SJU-NYC and then onto Zurich (two months later)  for a total of 18K AA Miles and $5.   I’ll talk about how I crafted these itineraries using Openjaws, Stopovers, altering award flights and discounted AAdvantage Awards in my next post.