Got the air for our Dubai cruise. Just barely!

[jacketwatch]

Well first of all getting saver award airfare with ff miles ORD-DXB is tough. The pickings were very slim.  We decided to try ORD-DEL as my wife has two sisters there and its only 4 hrs. to Dubai. She can see her family and its a relatively short hop to DXB, about 3.5 hrs.  Now we like to use saver awards which means basically that we can go for < half the miles for a standard award but there aren't many and you have to get them when you can.  We had been looking for a about a week and decided to pounce on what they had for biz saver ticket especially when we saw the return date we wanted was the only one that week with saver awards available. . Its ORD-DEL on UA  with a stop in Beijing, then PEK-DEL and DEL-ORD via Air Canada on the way back. We will have to book air DEL-DXB but its pretty reasonable. We took the flights 3/17 and by 3/18 they were gone!  I don't know about other ff plans but with UA for a saver ticket you have to act fast. 

So now that we have that and the cruise out of Dubai for seven days just the excursions remain and of course hotel in Dubai.  Its a long way off but the plans are made. Now the wait. ?

[Jan115]

5 hours ago, jacketwatch said:

Well first of all getting saver award airfare with ff miles ORD-DXB is tough. The pickings were very slim.  We decided to try ORD-DEL as my wife has two sisters there and its only 4 hrs. to Dubai. She can see her family and its a relatively short hop to DXB, about 3.5 hrs.  Now we like to use saver awards which means basically that we can go for < half the miles for a standard award but there aren't many and you have to get them when you can.  We had been looking for a about a week and decided to pounce on what they had for biz saver ticket especially when we saw the return date we wanted was the only one that week with saver awards available. . Its ORD-DEL on UA  with a stop in Beijing, then PEK-DEL and DEL-ORD via Air Canada on the way back. We will have to book air DEL-DXB but its pretty reasonable. We took the flights 3/17 and by 3/18 they were gone!  I don't know about other ff plans but with UA for a saver ticket you have to act fast. 

So now that we have that and the cruise out of Dubai for seven days just the excursions remain and of course hotel in Dubai.  Its a long way off but the plans are made. Now the wait. ?

Good score, Larry. I think finding good, affordable flights is more stressful than the actual flight sometimes. With UA being notorious for cancellations and schedule changes, hopefully you'll there won't be any hiccups in your ride. I only have points for Southwest which is similarly frustrating. Southwest Saver fares, whether booked with points or not, disappear like the wind as soon as they appear 6 months ahead.

[jacketwatch]

So far we have had good luck with United at least in terms of scheduling. I think and hope the NS to Beijing should be ok. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.  

As for onboard and gate service well that’s been just fair. This flight is their Polaris service but of course that doesn’t matter much if the personnel are so so. At least we get to use the separate Polaris lounge at ORD which is far superior to the United Club.

[jacketwatch]

Now that I think of it if you have ff miles and can't get a flight to your destination of choice then try alternative routing like we just did for Dubai.  Indian to Dubai is only 4 hrs. and there are many options you can choose. So you pay for that but still save a great deal overall.

Last year I could not get saver awards from ORD-SYD for our cruise but could get them LAX-SYD. So we had to pay for ORD-LAX but thats not too much and to be safe we flew in a day early so as to not miss the flight so there was the cost of a hotel to consider but still the cost for two biz seats ORD-SYD then was 8k.  We saved a great deal really. 

Think outside the box so to speak.