Regarding layover time, whether it's a cash or awards flight with connection(s), we always make a point of allowing extra time for the connection, *especially* if it's a holiday/busy travel time (when it might not be easy to get on "the next flight"), or if it's something like the last flight of the day/evening, so the next available flight would be the next day.Bfwolf wrote:The number of miles would be the price from the USA to Japan. 75K miles in business class for United's partner award chart. That's the price whether you just fly from Seattle to Tokyo or whether you fly from Louisville to Chicago to Seattle to Tokyo. You can have up to 5 segments (I think) on a United one way award flight, so you can keep stringing them together as long as you stay under this limit and as long as your layovers are under 24 hours.guitarguy wrote:
Interesting.
So you would have to add up the miles required for 2 separate flights together? How would the number of miles required work?
Make sure you have enough time to get to your next plane? I wonder if the layovers would be especially long doing it this way.
I assume if they strung the legs / flights together for you, they would be able to get your checked bags to the right spot?
Regarding amount of time to get to your next plane--the United computer will reject the itinerary if it doesn't leave enough time. It's never happened to me, but presumably the CSR would say "sorry that's not a valid itinerary." You won't be able to book anything "illegal."
Once your itinerary is put together, it's just as if you had booked it online with a single search. It works just like any other regular itinerary. They'll get your checked bag to the right spot. If you have an overnight layover, you can of course request to only check your bag to your layover city when you check in and then recheck your bag when you come back the next day for your onward flight.
The airline will put you on a later flight (as long as it isn't your fault, etc., and maybe even then), but... they are quite likely to bump revenue passengers ahead of you if there are others also delayed, etc.
We don't want to deal with the anxiety of knowing the flight is late, and the connection tight, running through the airport, or... actually missing a connection, if we can do a little something to minimize that - meaning no tight connections, even if "allowed".
If we aren't in a hurry and there are plenty of later flights and it's not a busy travel season, then we'll allow shorter connections.
RM