My Last Hurrah as a United Premier 1K: A Weekend in Dubai
With my United Premier 1K status set to end at the end of January 2015, I wanted to make the most of it before it expired. That meant I had some Global Premier Upgrades to burn! United 1K members receive six Global Premier Upgrades (and two regional premier upgrades) that are good for an upgrade from economy class to business class or business class to first class on any route that United flies.
The caveat to these Global Premier Upgrades is that the economy fare must be booked into a certain, minimum fare class in order to have the upgrade be valid. On United flights, this booking class is known as a W class fare. A W class fare is an economy fare that typically is sold for substantially more than the lowest, discount economy fare.
However, if you’re vigilant and know how to hunt for it, some good W class fares are out there.
I’d been itching to get back to Dubai for quite some time to see a good friend and former roommate of mine who moved to Dubai form Washington a few years ago. Two years ago, I tried to meet up with him while on a trip to Dubai, but engine problems on the Dreamliner and the resulting 24-hour delay forced me to miss meeting up in Dubai that time around.
The Flight Deal alerted me to some cheap fares to Dubai from Boston, so I figured I’d look into them to see how the W class fares looked. Turns out, they looked quite good – only about $100 more than the cheapest economy fares!
Score!
Since the good fare was out of Boston with a connection in Washington-Dulles, that necessitated a positioning trip to Boston, from Washington. Does that make any sense?
Considering it saved upwards of $800, I thought so.
Though there was no confirmable upgrade space immediately available, the seat maps for both the Washington to Dubai and Dubai to Washington flights were wide open. So I booked the trip from Boston for myself and applied my Global Premier Upgrades. My buddy booked his flights from Dallas and would meet me at Dulles for the long flight to Dubai — I also used my upgrades on his tickets. To our delight, both of our upgrades cleared both ways by August!
To complete my itinerary, I purchased a cheap, $59 one-way flight from Washington-National to Boston. I would plan to spend a few hours in Boston before hopping a flight to Dulles.
So essentially, I would be flying from Washington-National to Washington-Dulles VIA Boston.
Because that’s perfectly normal.
At $59, I guess it’s cheaper than a cab from DC out to Dulles…
- Overview
- United Business First Washington to Dubai
- Three Days in Dubai – Ten Highlights
- United Business First Dubai to Washington
