I’ve written about United’s Excursionist Perk many times. Along with free changes or cancellations until the time of departure, the perk adds a ton of value to United miles, despite United often charging more miles than other Star Alliance carriers.
It allows a free one-way flight when booking select round-trip awards. To book it, the trip must start and end in the same region and the free flight must be within one region, though not necessarily within the start or ending region of the rest of the trip. The trip must start in a different region than the free flight.
The official intention would be to book something like this, with a free flight from London to Zurich on a round-trip business class award for 160K United miles.
You can do that by using the multi-city search function, though I always search for the individual legs on a one-way basis first to find award space.
The segment would cost 0 miles in coach if you book in coach for the preceding segment, or in business if you booked business for the preceding segment
In reality, a lot more is possible.
For example, a flight within Africa costs 35K miles in coach or 90K miles in business class:
But it’s not hard to get it for 0 miles. Just sandwich it in between any 2 other flights, such as 2 domestic flights in coach to get it for 0 miles in coach:
Or make the preceding leg in first class to get it for 0 miles in business class:
Sometimes though, United.com will error out when trying to search for a multi-leg itinerary, like this search for Newark-Sydney, Sydney-Queenstown, and Auckland-Newark:
In that case, just book the Newark-Sydney as a one-way, and then change the itinerary to the multi-leg itinerary. Or book Newark-Sydney and Auckland-Newark and change the itinerary to the multi-leg itinerary.
By changing it after booking, you’ll get the 0 mile extra flight without hitting the booking error:
That’s a nice savings off the regular price:
There are endless opportunities for the Excursionist Perk. Which have you used?
Want to earn United miles?
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Do you take advantage of the United Excursionist Perks?
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17 Comments On "United Excursionist Perk Booking Error? Try This Workaround To Up Your United Mileage Game!"
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Do you have to fly the round trip or can you just fly the excursionist leg
You would need to fly the first leg, but not the leg after the perk.
You can also change the leg after the perk.
Does the excursionist leg earn PQP?
If it’s a United flight, yes.
Can you cancel out the roundtrip after booking and just fly the free flight? Also can it be found on any united flights or only partners?
No.
United or partners.
Great article if you knew what excursionist deal is on United. I was hoping your links would open a United site to learn more. But no such luck. Last time I read anything on here because it only promotes itself.
Literally the 2nd link in the post. 2nd paragraph.
Cheers.
Some people could use a little self reflection instead of self projection.
Does this work phl to den and how?
I funnily enough have a very similar itinerary booked from Newark to Brisbane Australia and back from Auckland to Newark. I booked it as two one-way award tickets as I was unable to find any option to add the extortionist perk. I obviously need to get from Brisbane to Oakland and it should be free. How would I go about booking it? My flight has already been booked with miles
If the outbound or return are still available, just modify either one way to include it and a perk leg.
The system will allow you to do that even though it two separate reservations?
If still available, just change the existing one-way into a round-trip with a perk flight.
Got it.
Thanks you so much for the reply. I can’t seem to figure out how to add the extortionist perk. It won’t show up and seems to be bugged. I did read your article
It seems spell check turned excursionist into extortionist.