An overview of how to save thousands with American Airlines and United Airlines to destinations all around the world.
Benefits of Mileage Upgrades at a Glance:
- Open Otherwise-Locked Doors
- Earn Elite Status Credit
- Connecting Opportunities
- Spend Fewer Miles
- The Bucket List Buster
- Seat Volume
- Take the Family
- High-Award-Tax Alternative
- A Path to First Class
- Easy to Book
The Clue is in the word “Mileage Upgrade”
Mileage upgrade award / noun / mile·age up·grade—A redemption option some airlines offer that enables loyalty program members to change the class of service, usually from economy class to Business Class, Premium Economy Class to Business Class, or Business Class to First Class, by using the “miles” accumulated by the member in conjunction with a normal, paid ticket.
“I’d like to go to Florence and the economy fares are $787 round-trip. I think we ought to look at dates when we can pay that fare and use a mileage upgrade award that’s available. That way, we can fly Business Class for just $787 plus the ‘co-pay’ surcharge or $1,487 along with 50,000 miles—instead of the normal Business Class fare of $3,887.”
These are the kinds of conversations I have in my head because I’ve been in love with mileage upgrades ever since I started flying frequently in premium class 27 years ago and have been writing about them ever since.
It was how I used to fly, almost exclusively, back in the 90s when I lived in Miami, and flew the world on American. In those days there were no co-pays and an upgrade was one of the best ways to fly premium for way less.
Recently, we’ve been getting a lot more inquiries on mileage upgrade awards, perhaps because we’ve been writing about them more. So, I thought to take a step back and give a high-level overview of 10 great benefits of using miles to upgrade.
Mileage Upgrade Benefits
Open Otherwise-Locked Doors
Access more seats: Free mileage award tickets can be an availability nightmare on American and United to much of the world (Asia, Europe, South America, and the South Pacific). So, the first and most obvious reason to love mileage upgrades is that the volume of seats these airlines make available for using your miles, on some routes, is substantially more than they allocate for normal mileage award tickets.
Tradition says that the reason behind this is because the airlines are generating some revenue by having you buy the economy airfare, so they are relatively happy to have you do this.
Earn Elite Status Credit
Keep or Upgrade Your Credentials: While I’ve written about the many reasons to forget about elite status, most recently here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, I know that some of you have good reasons to maintain your elite status. Mileage upgrades help you do that because they earn elite credit for the paid ticket, whereas free mileage tickets do not.
Connecting Opportunities
Able to fly from and to most places: While very often with normal mileage award tickets, you can find the long-haul flight segment available in a premium class of service (perhaps via FCF’s multitude of Sweet Redeems alerts), you often can’t get to the long-haul flight segment’s departure city or beyond its destination city, on the same, free award ticket.
That makes you vulnerable to missing a connection if you have to buy a separate ticket to connect your dots. (When times like this occur, it’s wise to take a flight that gets you to the gateway city with plenty of time to spare.)
With mileage upgrade awards however, you’re buying an economy class ticket, so unless the flight is 110% sold out, you can always find a fare that gets you from your departure to your destination city, all on one ticket.
Quick example: Say you live in San Antonio and want to fly to Stockholm, and you get an FCF alert with availability on American from Chicago to London, the long-haul segment is the one on which its critical to get a comfortable seat. With a normal mileage award, you’d have to get lucky with availability on the San Francisco-Chicago and the London-Salzburg segments.
With an available mileage upgrade award on the Chicago-London segment, however, because you’re simply buying an everyday economy class airfare from San Francisco to Salzburg, you’re much likelier to find upgrade award space on the San Francisco-Chicago segment. Worst case scenario: You waitlist. The London-Salzburg segment is part of the economy fare ticket, which is on a partner airline for travel within Europe, so mileage upgrade availability doesn’t even enter the picture. I can handle sitting in coach on that hour and forty-seven-minute flight, when everything else is going in my favor.
Spend Fewer Miles
The normal mileage award on United from San Francisco to Split in Business Class goes for 200,000+ miles, whereas a mileage upgrade costs 30,000 each way, or 60,000 miles round-trip, plus the co-pay and the paid ticket. So, the upgrade offers better value per mile, and it doesn’t drain your mile bank so drastically. More miles left in your armory for your next trip and you earn miles on the paid economy ticket.
The Bucket List Buster
You want to use miles to fly on a free award ticket to Tahiti? No way, mate. Good luck finding low-cost free award space. And the Business Class fares are typically $5,500 to $8,000. With mileage upgrades, however, you can pay $2,150 in money and 60,000 in miles. Time to put Tahiti back on your bucket list? Mileage upgrades get you where low-cost free awards can’t.
Seat Volume
Finding many seats available for free award travel—all for the same flight and date—is as difficult as climbing Mt. Everest, or at least Mt. Makalu. One seat might be available on 1 out of 20 dates, two seats 1 in 100, four seats 1 in 1,000, and six seats available on 1 in 10,000 flights, if I were forced to guess off the top of my head. With help from FCF’s Sweet Redeem upgrade alerts, getting a deal for the whole family is easier with mileage upgrades.
Take the Family
If you’re not an advanced planner and you want to take your family using your miles to fly on a free award ticket to Australia, no way, mate. You might find one or two low-cost award tickets but good luck finding three or four low-cost award tickets. And the Business Class fares are typically $10,600 to $12,200. With United mileage upgrades, however, you can pay $2,366 in money and 60,000 miles round-trip, per ticket.
High-Award-Tax Alternative
If you’re going to spend $1,100 on taxes with a British Airways or Lufthansa Business Class mileage award ticket (on top of the 105,000 to 120,000 miles it will cost you), why not instead book an economy class ticket on American or United when they are on sale—say for $500 or $600, plus the co-pay of $700 to $1,100, a total of $1,200 to $1,700—and you only need 40,000 to 50,000 miles to get into Business Class via a mileage upgrade award. It’s a lot easier to save miles on premium travel this way. And who doesn’t love avoiding and minimizing taxes? Save cash and miles together with mileage upgrades.
A Path to First Class
Perhaps one of my favorite benefits. Many of the awesome flash and low-fares routes we publish in Business Class are upgradable to First Class. Find an awesome fare on American and the fun begins.
Comfort airficianados should pair awesome fares with mileage upgrade awards, or at least when you’re in the mood to splurge. Perhaps you just upgrade to First Class for the long-haul, overnight flight. It’s no problem because upgrades are on a one-way basis.
Easy to Book
Step 1: Find out the routes and months with availability. Perhaps in FCF’s Upgrade Reports and Sweet Redeems Upgrade Alerts.
Step 2: Verify your specific dates, or ones you can live with. Just pick up the phone or go online, depending on the airline.
American: Phone call needed as you can’t see availability online: (800) 433-7300.
- It can be done in less than 10 minutes from beginning to end (if there’s no hold time), or you select the “call back” feature if they are backed up and not wait on hold.
- No American miles? Anyone can buy them after you have an account for 30 days, and they go on sale often.
United: See availability online, or call (800) 538-2929
- Search upgrade award space on the “Advanced search” page.
- Make sure you have the miles required in your account. (If you don’t have the miles, you can buy them easily or get them by transferring points from Chase.)
- Click the “Upgrade type” dropdown box in the middle of the page.
4. In the “fare preferences” section, select the “Upgrade to Business, Buy Economy” option to search for upgrade space in Business Class. Your search results will show fares and flight schedules as well as the flights offering an upgrade and the cost. (Sample route below is Washington, DC-London.)
5. You will see a green box with a check mark if the upgrade is available. Select your flights and book your ticket.
There you have it: You’re on your way to quickly becoming an American and United mileage-upgrade expert—and flying more lucratively for less.