United Airlines has added the ability to search for award space using its interactive map search tool. It’s a great way to quickly ascertain a broad overview of pricing in the destination or region you are looking to visit or help you plan a trip based upon where the cheapest pricing is available.
Award Space Now Visible On United Airlines’ Interactive Map Search Tool
Last year, United Airlines introduced its interactive map for revenue flights. Powered by Google Flight Search, it allowed for filters including budget and travel interests.
Travel interest filters include:
- Beaches
- Beer & breweries
- Culture
- Food & drink
- Golf
- Hiking
- Outdoors
- Skiing & snowboarding
- Snorkeling & scuba
- America, who knew?
I was curious about the last one and filtered by “America, who knew?”. Destinations included:
- Albuquerque (ABQ)
- Bozeman (BZN)
- Charlotte (CLT)
- Chicago (ORD)
- Cleveland (CLE)
- Jackson Hole (JAC)
- Orlando (MCO)
- Portland, Oregon (PDX)
A United spokesperson told me:
“After a long period of not traveling for many of our customers, we understand many members are sitting on accounts with lots of miles and we want to help them find memorable ways to use those miles. United is expanding travel options for MileagePlus members to benefit how, where and when members use miles this summer and beyond.”
The tool is only valid for United or United Express-operated flights. While still a helpful tool, I’d love to see the tool expand to include MileagePlus partners as well. It would also be great to be able to filter by cabin class of service. The current tool only supports economy class (“cheapest”) searches (except in the rare cases where the price of business class is less than the price of economy class, which does occasionally happen).
Specifically, I’d love to be able to input a destination, choose nonstop flights only, and quickly see nonstop premium space for the next 12 months…that would truly be a powerful tool.
Still, the new tool helped me see the cheapest fares (I always search by one-way, but you can search by one-way or round-trip) to Latin America and to Europe, which I like to keep an eye on as I eye future family travel (Europe) and work toward visiting every country in the world.
CONCLUSION
United’s interactive airfare search tool now includes both revenue and award space. Use this tool to see how far your miles will take you, but don’t stop there – remember, it will not show partner award space, which is often the smartest way to use your miles.
You can check out the map here.
Very cool! Going to go use it now!