United Excursionist Perk: Travel more for fewer miles

One valuable feature of the United MileagePlus program is the Excursionist Perk, which allows you to add a one-way flight to a round-trip award ticket without using extra miles. The rules for this perk are not well defined, but it is an extremely valuable tool for award travel.

Understanding and using the Excursionist Perk may be challenging for beginners and even some advanced award travelers. It requires time and effort, but it may allow you to redeem United miles for fantastic award itineraries at a low cost — and see more of the world for fewer miles. Here’s everything you need to know to take advantage of this unusual perk.

Related: How to maximize stopovers and open jaws for award travel

What is the United Excursionist Perk?

At its core, the Excursionist Perk is meant to give a free one-way segment to travelers on round-trip itineraries between two different regions as defined by the MileagePlus program. The United website is incredibly vague when defining the Excursionist Perk, which leaves ample room for creative minds to stretch the bounds of this perk. Here are the rules published by United for the Excursionist Perk:

• Your trip starts and ends in the same MileagePlus-defined region.
• The free Excursionist Perk flight starts and ends in the same region.
• Your trip starts in a different region than the free Excursionist Perk flight.
• The free Excursionist Perk flight must be in the same (or a lower) award tier or cabin than the flight before it.

To paraphrase: The first route within a single MileagePlus-defined region that’s different from the region in which your itinerary begins and ends is free, as long as it’s in the same class (or lower) as the preceding leg.

For an example of the simplest (and likely intended) use of the Excursionist Perk, consider a round-trip economy-class award flight between Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) and London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR), which in this case costs 55,200 miles and $204 in taxes and fees.

By invoking the Excursionist Perk, you can get a free segment within the region you’re visiting (as long as it’s a different region than where you’re starting). This means you could book the following itinerary for the same number of miles as a simple round-trip award (though you’ll still have to pay taxes and fees on the free middle segment):

• Newark to Heathrow
• Heathrow to Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER)
• Berlin to Newark

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Here’s the itinerary priced out using United’s multicity search function.

You pay no additional miles for the middle segment, but you’ll also get to see Berlin and conveniently return home directly from there. You’ll even save a few miles because award flights from Berlin are slightly cheaper than from London, and you’ll save some cash by avoiding the United Kingdom’s high departure taxes on your ticket.

When you book the London to Berlin segment, you’ll notice United charges zero miles for it.

The process is pretty straightforward, and at face value, United could win customers over with this uncommon benefit. However, the value you can get out of the Excursionist Perk depends on the MileagePlus-defined region you visit. Europe is a great one, since you could plan a stopover at one of the dozens of countries in that region. Japan, on the other hand, is classified as its own region, so the only Excursionist flights you’ll have to choose from will be from one Japanese city to another.

How to book United Excursionist itineraries

You can (and should) book United Excursionist itineraries online. All you need to do to use the Excursionist Perk is use the “Advanced search” tool on the United homepage.

On the next page, select the “Multi-city” option and plug in the dates and destinations you want to book. You must check the box to show the price in miles, as the Excursionist Perk doesn’t apply to paid tickets.

If your itinerary follows the Excursionist logic, it will price correctly. There’s no extra button to select or discount code to enter; the free Excursionist leg will automatically appear for zero miles (plus taxes and fees). You can combine United flights with partner airlines, and there’s no minimum or maximum stay requirement for the stopover.

Related: The best sweet spots you can book with United MileagePlus

United Excursionist examples

Below are four examples of Excursionist itineraries in which we apply the perk’s base logic to real-world award itineraries. These are just examples to help you understand the Excursionist Perk; there are plenty of other options to explore once you get the hang of it.

The East Asian Excursionist hopper

Starting in South Korea, you can see various cities and countries on a single ticket. For example, you could fly between the following airports:

• Seoul’s Incheon International Airport (ICN) to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK)
• BKK to Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport (MNL)
• MNL to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TPE)

Since South Korea and Taiwan are both in the same region (North Asia) and Thailand and the Philippines are in a different region (South Asia), the middle leg from BKK to MNL qualifies for the Excursionist Perk.

If you’re already visiting South Korea, you could use the Excursionist Perk to see three more countries for as little as 35,000 miles and $51 before you head home from Taiwan.

Related: How to get maximum value from the United MileagePlus program

The Ecuadorian and Galapagos Excursionist turtle

If seeing the Galapagos turtles is near the top of your to-do list, you might also want to visit other destinations in the region. With this itinerary, you can cover Ecuador’s two major cities and the Galapagos Islands for a minimal outlay of miles:

• Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) to Mariscal Sucre Quito International Airport (UIO)
• Jose Joaquin de Olmedo International Airport (GYE) in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to the Galapagos’ Seymour Airport (GPS) on Baltra
• GPS to IAH via UIO

For this itinerary, you start in Houston (or anywhere in the U.S.), visit both Guayaquil and Quito, Ecuador, for as long as you want, then visit the turtles (and other wildlife) in the Galapagos before flying back to the U.S. The GYE-GPS segment will price at 0 miles — you’ll only be subject to $18 in taxes and fees.

This whole itinerary will set you back 63,000 miles (if you find saver availability) and $125. The only other step you’re responsible for is getting from Quito to Guayaquil, an easy proposition.

Related: 4 reasons someone in your family needs a United credit card

Dynamic pricing equals dynamic value for the United Excursionist

The consensus is that dynamic pricing is a terrible development for award travelers seeking outsize value for their miles. However, there are times when it can work to your advantage. One such way is with the Excursionist Perk.

Consider this scenario: You’re based in California and already have a trip booked to Thailand and Indonesia. You need a one-way flight from Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) to Bangkok, which normally would set you back at least 17,500 United miles in economy.

However, rather than jumping to book that option, consider the following:

• San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
• CGK to BKK
• LAX to SFO

SFO-LAX is available from 6,800 miles each way. So, if you nested your one-way CGK-BKK flight between trips to Los Angeles, you could get the whole itinerary for just 13,600 miles, saving you a few thousand miles — since the CGK-BKK leg is $0 plus $18 in taxes and fees.

All you’d need to do is go home from Los Angeles the first weekend and then down to Los Angeles the second weekend (potentially using an alternate form of transportation). You would thus get a round-trip flight from SFO to LAX and your desired CGK-BKK flight for fewer miles than if you booked the CGK-BKK flight alone.

This is one creative way to use the Excursionist Perk to save yourself even more miles. Just be aware that you must fly the first leg; if you don’t, the rest of your itinerary will be canceled.

The independent Excursionist

You can take this theory even further if you like to plan and are willing to have three or more trips at a time on the books. Let’s say you’re based in Boston and you want to plan three separate trips: a February ski trip to Denver, an April getaway to Africa and an early-fall jaunt to New Orleans. With a little more effort, you may be able to save some miles by booking parts of these trips together and using the Excursionist Perk.

In this example, you’d fly the following itinerary (but spaced out as far apart as you need):

• Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) to Denver International Airport (DEN)
• Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport (JNB) to Kotoka International Airport (ACC) in Accra, Ghana
• BOS to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY)

The itinerary begins and ends in the same region (mainland U.S., Alaska and Canada), with the middle segment wholly within another region (Central and Southern Africa) — and is thus eligible for the Excursionist Perk.

In this case, the whole itinerary costs 23,400 miles and $52.80.

Purchasing the Excursionist leg by itself would actually cost more miles than the above multicity booking.

In this case, you’re effectively getting three flights for less than the price of one.

Of course, you’ll still have to book the other legs of these three trips separately, which requires more time and effort. And like the SFO-LAX example above, you must take the BOS-DEN flight first; otherwise, the rest of the itinerary will be canceled. But this shows how you can potentially save miles by reframing how you think about the Excursionist Perk.

Related: United Premier status: How to earn it — and is it worth it?

• After multiple searches, you may need to clear your cookies and start over on United.com. The search engine can start showing errors and no results after several queries.
• During the multisegment search, the seven-day and 30-day options may error out and say nothing is available even when flights have award space. In this case, you must change your search dates in the multicity search function to find available dates.
• There don’t seem to be any maximum segment or maximum permitted mileage limitations on United Excursionist itineraries.
• Don’t forget about open jaws, which are possible when using the United Excursionist Perk. If you can travel on your own to get to the next city where your ticket picks up, you’ve added yet another destination to visit for no extra miles.
• You can also mix classes, as long as the Excursionist Perk flight is in the same (or a lower) cabin than the flight before it. For example, if you find a business-class flight from the U.S. to Europe, you can then book a free intra-Europe flight in business class before flying back to the U.S. — even if you can only find economy award availability on that last leg.
• Study the regions of the United MileagePlus award chart. Large regions typically hold the most potential value, as those longer interregional segments will be free. Booking the cheapest intraregional routes (e.g., Japan to Japan) means you still get the more expensive Excursionist leg free. It doesn’t matter if the Excursionist leg costs twice as much as the intraregional flights (see the dynamic pricing example above).
• Don’t call United. One TPGer spoke with five agents on United’s Premier 1K line, and only one knew about the United Excursionist Perk (and not by name). Your agent may have no idea what you’re trying to do, and if you get an ill-informed one, you could be on hold for hours and still end up with bad information. We recommend only using United.com when researching and booking Excursionist itineraries.

Finally, you may consider adding a cobranded United credit card to your wallet if you’re serious about booking these itineraries. Cards like the United℠ Explorer Card can provide discounted award availability on United-operated flights, which can noticeably impact the final price you pay.

Related: The best credit cards for United Airlines flyers