I tried finding the answer to this on flyertalk.com, but was spinning my wheels, so I thought I'd try it here. Very simply, we are actually considering our first European vacation in 5 years, and we have enough United Mileage Plus miles for the 4 of us.

But I can't for the life of me figure out how to determine if a given flight has seats available for miles redemption. I'm guessing there's a thread here I just can't find. Thanks for your patience and help on this.

I think the only way to find out that information is to contact the carrier. United has a web based reservation form that will check flight availability (click on planning travel on the home page, and then award travel), but I just checked it and it is not currently available for international award travel, so you will have to call them.

Good luck! Finding 4 seats on a flight may be a challenge.

Dan, you often have to plan FF trips to Europe way in advance (like 11 months ahead), especially to the most sought-after destinations and especially in peak season. And Motherjudy is right, getting four tickets will likely be tough.

I have recently read about a company that will help you figure out how to use miles to book flights. You might want to check here: www.awardplanner.com. There is a fee involved, but maybe it's worth it is you can use miles instead of buying expensive tickets. I don't know anything about this service... maybe someone else does.

Kathy

Thank you both for responding so quickly and informatively. I see that I missed the "award travel" link. Wow, 11 months in advance... well, wish me luck. Thanks again.

Best of luck. If you have called United about ANYTHING recently you know how convoluted their system is, and how long you have to hold. My suggestion - call sometime between midnight and 1 AM, if you are at all a night owl. Service is MUCH better, and wait times are much shorter. This message is brought to you by the "voice of experience". And as others have mentioned in previous threads it helps to be flexible about flight dates/times; think outside the bos when it comes to originating and destination airports -- you might be able to get a flight from LAX that you can't get from SFO; you might be able to get a ticket to Paris or London, but not Florence or Rome -- if you jot down possible alternatives before you call, you can get the agent to look at a wider range of options.

Ah yes -- I remember when a single call would bring instant satisfaction. But then -- I've been around since they were still flying prop planes.

quote:

My suggestion - call sometime between midnight and 1 AM, if you are at all a night owl.

The only problem with this is that often the less knowledgeable reps are there at that time--but,sometimes you can get a good one. I have also learned that the person you speak with can make all the difference. If I don't get the info I want, I often call back to see if a different person will be able to figure somethin out. Often that happens.

Jane - you are right. That happened to me just today when I was trying to unsnarl a domestic reservation problem. First agent referred me to a second number, for a resolution that turned out NOT to be within company policy, so I just called back and got someone who listened and thought the problem through.

The advantage to the night owl call is that if you do get a good agent, s/he is less likely to have a number of "call waiting" lights blinking at her/him, so you usually get someone willing to spend a little time researching options.

Last night I had one of those experiences that confirms the advice not to just listen and accept--but to be insistent (as politely as possible)and stand your ground. We had a message about a flight change for our move to Italy in July. I called to find out what. The change resulted in a long layover for the first segment (San Diego to San Francisco). So the agent was able to change to a later flight.

In the process, somehow are seat assignments from SFO to Frankfurt were wiped out. (I found that out when I checked the itinerary on the web to make sure everything was done correctly.) I was very upset as I had spent considerable time with an agent a few weeks ago getting the exact seats we wanted.

I called United immediately to get our seats back. The woman said it wasn't possible as one of the seats has already been reassigned. (This was just an hour later.)

I was insistent that we get the seats back and she insisted that there was no way to do that. We talked for several minutes--in circles. Finally I asked to speak to a supervisor.

After being on hold for 5 minutes, the same woman came back and said it had all been taken care of and that we had our seats back. In fact, there had never been a reassignment--she had just misread the configuration.

So-the lesson is to not just sit by and let things happen. Be as assertive as you can and often you can make things happen.