There’s an almost-secret feature to redeeming United MileagePlus miles: the Excursionist Perk. This handy little benefit can help travelers get more for their miles when booking multi-city award itineraries. It essentially gives travelers a free segment (plus taxes and fees) when booking more than two segments on certain itineraries.
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What is the United Excursionist Perk?
United’s Excursionist perk is helpful when you’re booking a multi-city itinerary that would normally require three one-way awards. On qualifying multi-city itineraries, United makes one of those flights free by using one of the cities as a free stopover. By free, we mean it won’t require additional miles, but it does require payment of any taxes or fees.
It can definitely reduce the expense of a complicated itinerary with more than one stop and add a great deal of value to the program for these specific types of trips.
The one big caveat is that it’s only for long trips that cross MileagePlus regions. It doesn’t work for short-haul journeys wholly within a single region. It must be used in conjunction with a long-haul flight award.
How does the Excursionist Perk work?
The official United MileagePlus rules about the Excursionist Perk are as follows:
- The trip must start and end in the same region (No starting your trip in the U.S. and ending it in Australia)
- The free flight must also start and end in the same region (You can’t get a free flight from Europe to Africa or Asia with it)
- The trip must start in a different region than the free flight (If you start your trip in the United States, the free flight must be somewhere else)
- The free flight must be in the same or lower award tier or cabin than the flight before it. (This prevents you from booking a free Excursionist perk flight in business class unless both the flight before and after it are also in business class.
Examples of Excursionist trips
A good use of the Excursionist perk is on inter-island hops in Hawaii. United doesn’t fly between the Hawaiian Islands, but they allow award redemption on Hawaiian Airlines. Hawaiian flights can also be used with the Excursionist perk.
For example, you can start your journey in San Francisco (SFO), spend a few days in Honolulu (HNL), and then go on to Kauai (LIH) at no additional cost in miles before returning to San Francisco. You’ll save 12,500 MileagePlus miles for an economy ticket, or around $70 on Hawaiian’s average cash fare.
If you want to go further afield than Hawaii, you can redeem miles to fly on United’s Island Hopper service in Micronesia. Book from Los Angeles (LAX) to Pohnpei (PNI) in the Federated States of Micronesia, then onward to Koror (ROR) in Palau. Finally, you can return to the U.S. via Guam (GUM) and Tokyo.
This trip will set you back 45,000 miles. You’ll save 15,000 miles that you’d otherwise have redeemed from Pohnpei to Koror or an average one-way fare of around $850.
Another good use of the perk is in Africa. Here, you can take advantage of a cheap business-class award on Star Alliance partner Ethiopian to Nairobi (NBO). Then, continue onward from Nairobi to Cape Town (CPT) on Ethiopian’s 787 Dreamliner in business class for the more than seven-hour flight. Finally, you’ll return from Cape Town to the United States.
That business class award from Nairobi to Cape Town normally runs 90,000 miles, but you’ll be getting it for free (plus taxes). The cash fare? Just over $2,000.
Who can use the United Excursionist Perk?
Any MileagePlus member can use the Excursionist Perk when redeeming miles.
United Excursionist Perk region definitions
The region definitions can be found here. A few notes:
Hawaii is a separate region from the Mainland U.S./Alaska and Canada. So the only use of the perk for tickets in Hawaii is inter-island.
Japan is its own region, meaning that the only use of the perk for trips involving Japan is domestic flights within Japan.
Some regions, like the Caribbean and Oceania, are large and have plenty of destinations to choose from. But the flight options between them are extremely limited, except for United’s Island Hopper in Micronesia and a handful of Silver Airways flights to Caribbean destinations from San Juan.
Europe, South Asia, and Central and Southern Africa are some of the largest regions with the most options for mileage redemptions. So these are some of the richest to look for Excursionist Perk awards.
How to use the United Excursionist Perk
- On the United website, select “advanced search” and click on the “Multi-City” tab. On the United mobile app, go to the “Book Flight” tab and click on the “Multiple” option at the top of the page.
- Enter your three segments. You can choose more, but only one will be free.
- Select your first flight. You’ll see a one-way mileage amount for that flight.
- Next, select your Excursionist Perk flight. You’ll see a zero amount for the miles, along with the taxes and fees. In this example, we’ve chosen an economy flight for the first segment, so the business segments on the second flight won’t be free.
- Pick your return flight. Remember, if you’ve chosen your free Excursionist flight in business class, your return must also be in business.
How to get more value from the Excursionist perk
To get the most value from the excursionist perk, it makes sense to pick one-way segments that are otherwise expensive (like our examples from Nairobi to Cape Town).
Booking business class awards when they’re available can also be significantly advantageous (remember the long-haul business class seat on Ethiopian Airlines we’re getting for free?).
It can also help to check Google Flights or another flight booking engine to see what flights operate between cities in the region you’re traveling to. You can typically sort by Star Alliance flights (most Star Alliance carriers are bookable with the Excursionist Perk).
For example, Star Alliance generally has poor coverage in Southern South America. But if you happen to fly from Buenos Aires (EZE) to São Paulo (GRU), Star Alliance carriers SWISS and Ethiopian fly between the two cities (as continuing flights from their hubs). Those flights are available to use with the Excursionist perk.
It’s also helpful to remember that you don’t need to start and end your journey in the same city, just the same region. For example, you can fly from Paris (CDG) to Johannesburg (JNB), take the Excursionist perk to Dar es Salaam (DAR), and then continue to Istanbul (IST) (which United considers Europe – the same region as Paris).
The routing rules for these awards are incredibly flexible. While the first and last segments must begin and end in the same region, there is no rule that the flights must be contiguous with the Excursionist Perk.
So it’s possible to book a one-way flight from Los Angeles (LAX) to San Francisco (SFO), then book a separate flight to use months later on the Excursionist perk on a far-flung routing in another region (say, from Majuro in the Marshall Islands to Guam, or from Durban, South Africa, to Lagos, Nigeria). The flights don’t need to be connected (so the San Francisco to Majuro flight doesn’t need to be within this itinerary to qualify for the Excursionist Perk). As long as you fly both the first and last segment (perhaps on a short-haul route you fly frequently), that middle Excursionist segment will be free.
However, we don’t recommend doing this. Airlines are in complete control of the terms of their programs, and they can rescind many of the redemption benefits with little or no warning. It’s exactly this sort of “extreme couponing” that gets their attention and spurs those conversations, so our recommendation is to stick to using the perk more or less as United has advertised it—as a “freebie” middle segment within a single inter-regional trip.
Limitations of the Excursionist Perk
Aside from United’s stated rules, the only other limitation that needs mentioning is that while the Excursionist perk is good for connecting flights, the entire journey, including the connecting city, must be within a single region.
For example, if you book a trip from Houston (IAH) to Lima (LIM) and then onward to Cartagena (CTG), you can use the Excursionist Perk on Avianca flights via Bogotá (BOG). Copa Airlines flights from Lima to Cartagena via Panama City (PTY) are also available for mileage redemption, but they’re not going to be free with the Excursionist Perk because while Colombia is in the same region as Peru, Panama isn’t.
Summary
The United Excursionist Perk can help maximize your mileage redemptions when you’re booking those multi-trip international itineraries. The savings can be especially good in the premium cabins on United’s partner carriers in certain large regions. The perk is also easy to shop, so get creative and find the best ways to make use of your free ticket the next time you’re traveling to more than one destination outside your country of origin.
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