United Excursionist - Asia Hopper

​
​In October 2016, United changed its lucrative award stopover rules and replaced it with the 'Excursionist Perk'. Fortunately, we were able to take advantage of the old stopover rules and pieced together a  Round-the-World trip right before United made the change.

While it's unfortunate that all good things must come to an end, the Excursionist perk is still quite a valuable perk for award redemption with United miles. After all, it still gives you a FREE stopover, which is not an option for many other airlines.
​

When I was planning for our Malaysia trip this year, I knew I wanted to use our United miles for this trip. Being someone who's always looking for ways to make the most of our hard-earned points and miles, I started looking for routes and options to utilize the Excursionist perk. 
​​
And just in case you want to know how I plan for our trips...
​

Call me crazy, but this is the level of effort I put in for trip planning. I can do this all day every day. =P
​

Here's our final itinerary and routes using United's Excursionist perk:

• Huntsville → Chicago → Seoul (long layover) → Taipei  [35,000 miles]
• Hong Kong → Singapore → KL  [0 miles] - Free flight/stopover with excursionist perk
• KL → Bangkok → Tokyo (long layover) → Denver → Huntsville  [40,000 miles]

TOTAL = 75,000 United miles per person

Note:

• To bridge the open jaw between Taipei and Hong Kong, we used British Airways Avios to book a one-way flight on Cathay Pacific for 4,500 Avios miles
• The long layovers are intentionally planned so that we can spend a day revisiting Seoul and Tokyo
• ​Our original flight from KL to Huntsville was supposed to be KL-SIN-SFO-IAD-HSV. However, thanks to a flight schedule change, we managed to change our flights for free to a different route with a long layover in Tokyo

With this itinerary, we will see 5 Asian cities in one trip for a grand total of 75,000 United miles + 4,500 Avios miles + $125 in taxes and fees. =)