Flights Booked With Frequent Flyer Miles, Despite No Availability

I've been starting to get nervous about booking our return flights from Vietnam. It took a bit longer than expected to receive our final credit card mileage signup bonus that would give us just enough miles to book a return economy flight. I've been monitoring flights for weeks, and the only economy availability on United's website was on Air China (an airline I've been advised not to fly in long-haul economy), with a JFK to Newark connection (extremely undesirable).

Based on my research, I was only comfortable waiting until April 1 to book our flight (about 9 months out). After that, availability was likely to be spotty at best. So, our Chase Ultimate Rewards bonus finally hit our accounts on Wednesday, and I promptly transferred what I needed to my United MileagePlus account. I had 80,000 miles, enough to book two one-way economy flights from Asia to the U.S.

After repeatedly trying to find an alternate to the Air China flight, I started to get creative. I researched what direct flights were available on Star Alliance carriers, and started to create my own multi-destination itinerary on United.com. Through some trial and error (I couldn't fly through Africa because it would increase the mileage cost, but I could fly through Asia, the Middle East, and/or Europe), I found an itinerary that included acceptable airlines on a timeline I could accept.
I asked United.com to book a multi-destination flight that looked like this:

• Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok, January 3
• Bangkok to Dubai, January 3
• Dubai to Chicago, January 3

Using this method, there were multiple options to get home with award availability. The Dubai to Chicago segment included a connecting flight in Toronto, but this combination got me home the next day (early morning on January 4), and still only cost 80,000 miles. I'd also found itinerary options that took me through Istanbul or Ethiopia, but they greatly increased the travel time.

So now, with just an $85 cash investment, I have our return flights. I've emailed Thai Airways reservations to get our seat assignments, and I'll call Canada Air to get those seats assigned when their wait times are less than an hour.

I've learned a lot in this process. Namely, if how you get somewhere matters, you should take matters into your own hands and book a ticket as multi-destination. Second, I've learned a lot about stopovers, and would likely use this method to book every flight in the future so I can maximize those options.

But for now, our first adventure of booking flights strictly with miles (earned from credit cards, not flying), is done ... save for the actual travel, which is almost 8 months away. We're already on our way to having enough miles for our next international trip, and will be able to start thinking about that later this summer/fall.

Now to start worrying about how I'll handle jet lag on these flight...

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