What's the best UNITED fare ORD to MCO? Those "Award" tickets can be tricky to use!

[goofy4wdw59]

I posted this on the Transporation Board, but thought it should go on the Budget board too. For those from the Chicagoland area--
In the past, I didn't find the best airfares at United, but, maybe with recent events, things may change? Today, I found what I think is a good deal for United airfare from ORD (O'Hare) to MCO (Orlando) -- $221.50 nonstop.
If one checked regularly, (I didn't) maybe United offered a good sale now and then. What rates have you found in the past, and, did you fly United?
The reason I'm interested in United flights--We've had a United Mileage Plus VISA card for years--charged everything (paying off most/all each month) trying to accumulate flyer miles. Now, after some years, we have enough for 4 "award" tickets (25,000 each). We stopped using this card awhile back when we realized that United didn't offer the best deals to Orlando. We switched to a card that accumulates miles that can be used for several airlines of your choice, etc.
Anyway, I would like to use these award miles up as we've had them for almost two years! They haven't been easy to use for several reasons--
#Saver tickets are very limited--you must pick your dates as soon as possible (I think you can do this a year out). It's sometimes difficult to make this commitment a year out--especially as later changes, etc are costly.
#Also, even with many months of advance checking, getting 4 "award" tickets on the same flight isn't easy--we haven't found 4 on the same flight yet for the dates that we needed.
#Another reason--ATA and Southwest out of Midway/Chicago offer much better "nonstop" airfare for vacationing families. The last couple of times we've flown, we purchased from ATA & Southwest.
The best way for us to use our "Saver" tickets is to split them up--pay cash for a couple of tickets. It's not much of a "deal" if you're paying a high cash price!--might as well go for 4 sale tickets on ATA!
So...finally, after checking United airfare today, I used two of our "Saver" tickets (available for our flights!) and paid cash for the other tickets. I think today's find of $221.50 (nonstop) is a good rate for United. Just wondering what others have found for United fares?
What have you done to redeem your "Saver" tickets?

 

[marriahlyn]

I booked my tickets 2 weeks ago for travel April 5-12 on United from Indianapolis. I am flying into tampa. I went to priceline with my ticket request of $115 and lowestfare.com offered me a price of $153 per ticket including all taxes etc. on United. Total for 2 tickets was $306.

Now I have to say that they are some really screwy flights. I am flying from Indianpolis to Dullis in DC then to Tampa. On the way back, I'm flying Tampa to Chicago to Indianapolis. I didn't care as I was going all budget and they were cheap. I think United is trying to keep up with the rest of the airlines cheaper fares so they don't go under.

 

[marriahlyn]

Oh by the way, I think it's horrible that if you try and book your flights way ahead of time, you have to pay a lot more. You'd think the further out you were, the cheaper your tickets NOT!!

I also flew on United in November from South Bend, IN to LaGuardia......my tickets purchased 7 days in advance were under $200.

I live the same distance from Indianapolis and Chicago so I tried all 3 airports. I couldn't find many deals out of Chicago so I went with Indy.

I am wishing I had a United frequent flier card as I would be raking up some miles.

 

[Took]

Have to agree about using freq. flyer tickets--we had a BEAR of a time getting 3 tickets (2 on NW and 1 on American). We had to fly out of peoria and into tampa to get the flights. I was checking for freq. flyer tickets several times a day for over a month, starting in Jan., for our May trip--never could get even ONE ticket into MCO out of the central IL area. Very frustrating.

Took

 

[Tay N Evie's Mom]

Did you ask them to check on Delta for you also? We had the same situation-DH had 150,000 FF miles and I couldn't get any flights to match. UAL can also book through Delta using FF miles. UAL accessed Delta's flights and booked us and emailed me the itinerary. I then called Delta to change our seat assignments (pull up the flights on Delta's web site to see what seats are available). The only down side to Delta is they don't have direct flights to MCO, we are connecting in Cincinnati going and Atlanta coming home (we live in Chicagoland too). I found I had my choice of flights going to MCO, but couldn't get a flight home-so I had them check flights home first then worked my way backwards to the number of days we wanted to stay in Orlando.

 

[nuke]

I've seen airfares as low as $130 round trip from Chicago to Orlando in the fall. They are usually around $200-$250 round trip.

Saver tickets on UA are hard to find. Sometimes if you check again within a month or two of travel there will be seats available.

But who knows how long UA is going to be around.

 

[sncbird]

We flew United non-stop from ORD to MCO at the end of Nov. last year for $166.50 a person. We have flights booked on American non-stop ORD to MCO for June for $168.50 a person.

 

[travelcoupons]

I'd use up my frequent flyer awards on United ASAP.......

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