Fly United Airlines anywhere in the US for $5.6

There are multiple ways to book United reward tickets but I wanted to share a great way to redeem the least amount of points for any direct UA flight between two American cities.

Finding saver fares

Step 1 is to find a saver fare ticket. Note these are subject to availability and I’ve found the best way to check is to use SeatSpy.com. Key in the cities and you’ll be presented with an annual calendar with highlighted dates.

Here is a test run for Seattle to New York. As mentioned before, you only want to search for direct routes where UA operates.

Next step is to quickly verify the date and saver seat availability on United’s website. You do not need to log into UA for this.

Using Star Alliance Partner to book

Star Alliance includes multiple airlines but for this we’re going to leverage Turkish Airlines. One awesome benefit of using TK is that United saver fares is that economy is a standard 7500 miles one way and business is 12500 miles.

Capital One Points to Turkish Airlines

While there are many ways to transfer points to TK, I’ve found the most convenient and quickest way is to transfer Capital One points (that can be earned from cards like Venture or Spark). With the current Venture X 75K sign up bonus, you could theoretically get 10 one way economy flights in the USA.

To verify availability on TK, create an account and after you log in, head over to “Miles Transactions” under the menu options.

Once there, you will see the option to book a star alliance award ticket. Here are some test results below:

Here is an example of a business saver fare as well:

Once you find your desired route and availability, go ahead and transfer your Capital One points over to TK miles. Transfers are instant so you won’t have to wait. Once the miles show up in your account, you can book your tickets. Do note, if you are trying to book a ticket for someone else, you need to call TK’s customer service and have a reservations agent book the ticket for you. Be prepared to provide the passenger’s details (including passport number).

Challenges/Oddities

I have occasionally noticed United releases promotional saver fares that do not show up on TK and in those cases your best bet it to use UA miles which will generally always be more than 7500 for economy and 12500 for business.