United Book Today: 50% Off Coach Awards To Europe, Asia (E.g. 20,000 Miles Each Way To Australia)

by Gary Leff

United is running a sale on coach international award travel that lets elites and co-brand cardmembers book Australia awards from just 40,000 miles roundtrip, as well as discounting numerous other destinations up to 50%, when you book today while lesser discounts will remain through December 2.

Today these members get ‘40% off’, while elites and co-brand cardmembers get a bigger discount and elites with a co-brand card get more still (50% off), for travel on United between the U.S. and Europe and Asia Pacific. That means Europe from 30,000 miles roundtrip, Japan and French Polynesia from 35,000 miles as well. Tuesday through Friday discounts drop to ‘up to 30%’.

Specific covered destinations:

  • Europe: Amsterdam; Barcelona; Berlin; Brussels; Paris; Edingburgh; Frankfurt; Geneva; London Heathrow; Lisbon; Madrid; Munich; Zurich

  • Australia: Brisbane; Melbourne; Sydney

  • Japan: Fukuoka (they serve Guam..); Tokyo Haneda; Osaka; Tokyo Narita

  • Other Asia Pacific: Guam; Singapore; Tahiti; Micronesia: (TKK), (PNI), (KSA), (KWA), (MAJ)

This summer I found United’s business class from Australia to be mediocre but certainly going a bit hungry wasn’t the end of the world. I don’t really want to fly United coach that far. But that’s how most people fly! And goodness 40,000 miles roundtrip represents a deal when paid fares can be over $2500. When’s the last time we saw redemptions worth more than 6 cents apiece on an economy redemption? Even against a $1350 fare that’s a value.

What’s more the deal appears to be for travel during peak season to Australia – but off peak for Europe and North Asia: January 27 – March 21, 2023. Since there are no cancel/deposit fees to deal with you can feel free to book speculatively.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  2. While I’ve burned almost all of my UA miles, I’m glad I have enough CSR points that I can transfer. Let’s see. Where shall we go? Disclaimer, I flew JFK/SYD in coach once. 😉

    dh

  3. Looks to me like this is only for cardmembers and elites. General MileagePlus members are excluded, so I couldn’t find any sort of deals.

  5. Hey Gary, I have just booked award to Bali last week using partner SQ for 44K miles. Will I be able to get a return of 4k miles for the award? Thanks!

  6. Mileage Plus members also get qualifying credit on award flights in 2023, so that’s a good way to get that started. I rarely could use award miles and earn status, so this is a welcome change. It’s based on the number of points used, so a sale will reduce the earnings.

  7. This definitely was alive about two hours ago to Melbourne (I got it to price out of curiosity) but I think it may be dead now. United’s servers keep erroring out on me on multiple devices and web browsers. I am guessing they are getting hammered. I’ve done Sydney before in the back on AA and while not terrible, it is nothing I’d jump through hoops to book. Also coming from the east coast and with a fairly short connection in SFO, it really is about 24 hours straight on a plane in economy.

  8. These rates say they are for Premier Members and or Card Holders. I am only a General Member of Mileage Plus. Does this mean can not get this deal? (I moved away from United country in 1985!)

  9. After two hours of trying and getting ‘no flights available’ message, I just about gave up on my desired EWR-SYD trip in February. I decided to give it one more shot (clearing history /cache/ restarting laptop) & was able to get EWR-SYD via SFO , Feb 19 return Mar 2 for the amazingly low mileage amount of 48,000 miles ! Can’t believe it! Fare was pricing out at around $2300.

  10. There were also unpublished discounts on India-Africa partner awards. I checked an existing award on a whim and pricing was down from 38.5k/60k for Coach/Business to 35k/55k respectively. Alas, no availability on my preferred flights for me to rebook onto.

  11. I had selected flights and was checking out, and they increased the prices on the final screen. Looks like the promotion swapped over right at 5 PM EST, super disappointing missing it. Ended up paying the higher price, but it’s 33% more miles than it would have been otherwise.

  12. Thanks. R/T for two us from SLC-FRA for a week in March, all for 60K in preferred seating. I’ll take that – and if I cancel later, that’s ok too.

  13. Typical United Scam. Over promise and under perform. There were few or no discounts in the afternoon.

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