20% off Saver Awards to Europe via United: Must book by Nov 15, Travel Jan 15 – Mar 13

Yesterday, I received an interesting email from United Airlines about a 20% off on saver award bookings to Europe. It’s rare to see airlines wanting to discount award bookings, as they’re not receiving additional income from these bookings since you’re burning your miles instead of your cash. But since most airlines have been predicting low bookings for the first quarter of 2013, I’m not that surprised to see United wanting to increase its passenger count for January to March.

In either case, this is an excellent opportunity to take that trip to Europe that you’ve been saving up with your miles already. Here are the details:

• Must book via United.com using your United Miles.
• Must book between:November 6, 2012, and November 15, 2012. Only valid for Saver awards.
• Must fly the Saver Awards must be redeemed for travel between January 15, 2013, and March 13, 2013.
• Full details available at the United Promo Page here.

With this promotion a roundtrip economy saver ticket from SFO to London (or virtually anywhere in Europe, pending availabilities) is only 48k United Miles (normally 60k) and business class is only 100k miles! That’s a great deal if you have the miles and don’t have the cash available for the flight.

On the flip side, since first quarter projections are down for the airlines, it also means that cash prices are at an all-time low as well! Roundtrip economy tickets from SFO to London are priced at around $877 right now, which is significantly lower than the normal season when they are over $1k.

Some might actually argue that this isn’t the right time to burn miles because the value you get for burning miles during the promotion period comes close to 2 cents a mile (about how much I value United miles) because of the low cash prices. I will that comparison decision ultimately up to you. I think you know best your situation in terms of factors such as: your financial situation, where you want to put your money towards, whether or not you want elite status, and if you were simply going to burn the miles anyway to get to Europe or not.

Either way, this is still a good deal! And as of the time I’m writing this, there looks like there are plenty of saver awards available!