Take Advantage of United’s Excursionist Perk to Receive a Free One-Way Flight When Redeeming Miles
If you are redeeming award miles for international travel with United, there is an easy way to get a little more out of your virtual money: plan your trip with at least three stages.
This week, Travel + Leisure posted a story about United’s little-known flyer privilege called the Sightseeing Privilege . This privilege allows you to receive a free one-way award ticket when you book a trip that includes multiple cities.
For example, if I wanted to book a flight from San Francisco to Scotland and then from Scotland to London before heading home, I could get a free flight from Scotland to London.
To take advantage of this privilege, you cannot be in the same region as defined by the MileagePlus program where your trade was started. So if you start your trip in North America, the privilege should be for travel outside of North America and vice versa.
Your journey must end in the same region from which it started, and the cabin and type of free one-way free flight must be the same or lower than the previous one-way flight.
If you have enough miles to collect an award ticket and would like to try it, you can find this option by using the advanced search feature when booking your ticket on United’s website. You need to select the multi-city option and then just enter your destinations. If your route meets the terms of the deal, you will see one of the legs fly zero miles.