Back in January (and before the great devaluation), my friend and I decided to use the last of our remaining United Airlines Mileage Plus miles for a trip to Japan and New Zealand. The all business class award redemption cost my friend 135,000 miles and my first/business class award cost me 147,500 miles. If we were to book these exact same trips now, his trip would cost him 160,000 and my trip would cost me 260,000 miles! How nuts is that?? Details on how we booked our trip, United’s routing rules and how to take advantage of stopovers can be found this post outlining booking our award with United miles.
I’ve been waiting for this trip for a long time and we’re finally leaving in a couple days!
My itinerary will look like this:
- Air China first class Los Angeles to Beijing.
- Air China business class Beijing to Seoul.
- Asiana Airlines business class Seoul to Tokyo.
- Thai Airways business class Tokyo to Bangkok.
- Thai Airways business class Bangkok to Auckland.
- Air New Zealand business class Auckland to Shanghai.
- Air China business class Shanghai to Taipei.
- EVA Air business class Taipei to Los Angeles.
Whereas, my friend will fly United Airlines’ 787 Dreamliner business class from Los Angeles to Tokyo. He’ll then join me for the rest of the trip on the same flights.
In addition to the trip reports, I’ll have lounge reviews for:
- Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge at LAX.
- Air New Zealand Lounge at LAX.
- Air China first class lounge at Beijing.
- Asiana Airlines business class lounge at Seoul.
- ANA business class lounge at Narita.
- Thai Airways Royal Silk Lounge at Bangkok
- Air New Zealand International Lounge at Auckland
- Air China business class lounge at Shanghai
- EVA Air Evergreen Lounge at Taipei
And hotel reviews for:
- Millennium Seoul Hilton
- Conrad Tokyo
- Hilton Tokyo
- Hilton Auckland
This will be a very interesting trip and I can’t wait to share it with you guys!
