For travel booked by January 16 for travel January 27 through March 22, United is offering a discount of up to 25% on coach saver awards between the US and Europe or Central and Southern Africa.
A Saturday stay is required, and you can only get the discount on United flights using United miles and on Continental flights using Continental, though as they’re quick to point out you can freely transfer points back and forth between the two at will.
The discount is 20% for travel Thursday – Sunday and 25% for Monday – Wednesday, and you can do travel in one period in one direction and the othe period in the other direction, combinability is not an issue.
Open jaws are permitted within a region and the discount also applies to miles and money awards when those are available.
(HT: Online Travel Review)
Ghana isn’t really Southern Africa, but oh well.
I only see two destinations in Africa, Accra, Ghana, and Lagos, Nigeria.
CO is also offering the same, at the link below. However, as of now, the offer seems to be working only on the United site.
http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/apps/onepass/promotions/registrationDetails.aspx?promoCode=A10195
The other day, I happened to look at the seatmaps on my February transatlantic flights and they were wide open — so I’m not exactly surprised by this promo. It used to be the airlines heavily discounted winter tickets across the Pond — you could often fly for a few hundred bucks — but that practice seems to have ended. With airlines like UA now trying to sell NYC-PAR tickets in February for $900+, there seems to be excess inventory.
Of course, other airlines — like AA and US — have long discounted winter award seats to Europe. Perhaps UA should consider making this promotion permanent. Personally, I don’t think 45,000 miles is “cheap enough” to spur a lot of spontaneous winter transatlantic travel — AA will let you do it for 40K in MAY — but I guess UA sees this as a win-win for anyone interested.