The Original Thread

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PointSeeker07

Level 2 Member
Hoping for a lifeboat, or maybe some airlift. I am trying to book 2 award seats for May or Sept to Paris for my wife and I. We would prefer an award on first or business from any US city. I mostly have BA Avios, some AA miles, USAir miles, and of course Amex MR, SPG, Chase UR. I have been logging several hours each day trying to come up with an itinerary but haven't had any luck. I probably don't know all the routing tricks/sweet spots that many of you know. If someone could help me out I would be soo grateful.
 
KennyBSAT

KennyBSAT

Moderator
Staff member
@PointSeeker07 Have you called AA to ask about availability on TN (Air Tahiti Nui) LAX-CDG?

Otherwise a very quick search comes up with CLT-MAD-ORY 9/11/15 US748 and IB3406, both in business. You could hold the US flight and a flight to CLT if needed, and call to add the flight to Paris.

There are 2 J seats IAH-IST-CDG 9/5, 9/12 and 9/19. 70K UA miles or book with AC miles and no surcharges.

You can also return on TK via IST, should be 105K AC miles per person RT and you can stopover in IST if you like. Search for segments from IST to IAH or ORD. IST-CDG and CDG-IST are wide open.

UA has LHR-ORD 9/15 and DUB-EWR 9/23 and 9/25 in J on UA metal, so you can add short coach flights within Europe to connect to those and keep the price at 57,500 UA miles. Or position with a LCC to DUB (Not LHR with thier departure taxes!)
 
Deltahater

Deltahater

Tequila, Miles and Suites
@PointSeeker07 Keep in mind that BA charges horrendous fuel surcharges on internatinal flights, so Avios are not good for TATL. They are awesome though for positioning in the USA. If money is an issue, avoid CDG as a departure city. They have high taxes. BRU is much, much cheaper.

Also, you may want to invest in expertflyer. $100 a year I think. But you can enter the flights you want and they will send you an alert when your seats become available. No need to check every day
 
NEPIC

NEPIC

Level 2 Member
It sounds like you should absolutely be able to make his happen given the miles you have!

Paris can be tricky to get to at times directly on United, US or AA, but AF goes through periods where they can be quite generous with award space. And they have a number of US destinations. You really do need to search point-to-point on the AF website for this though, because you can't rely on Delta connections coming up very frequently. So try searching AF direct to CDG on their website (need an account).

You can also try some secondary routes that LH or TK operate and searching these on United. For example, BOS-MUC, BOS-IST, ATL-FRA, PHL-FRA. It seems in general that award space to the West Coast is very hard to come by, so focus on the East Coast.

Try getting to BRU instead. It's a short train ride away and if booked far enough in advance not too pricey. Brussels Airlines won't show up on United though, so you will need to use ANA, Aeroplan or Lifemiles.

Also, if you have enough AA and SPG points, you could look at Jet on their flights from YYZ or EWR to BRU. Though you have to call AA to get availability.

It may be that you are also at the point in time where it's not far enough out to get the initial award seats airlines release, and not close enough in for airlines to start releasing seats as they forecast they won't be able to see them all. Some airlines have a habit of releasing 3 months out, some will reliably release a few weeks out. So you may need to be a little patient and see how things look closer to the time.
 
ninjasurfer99

ninjasurfer99

Level 2 Member
Great Stuff - If I get an answer on the cutoff for AA award changes I'll post right away. As for internet - There's still a very good chance that we don't have it a majority of the time in Indo which was a lot of the reason for stressing over the flights. Still, comparatively I feel great about having flights now once realizing the difficulties of award booking. In the end (with your guys help) it wasn't too bad, I just have to do things to understand sometimes. And award booking isn't too conducive to my "fly by the seat of my pants" style of travel.

I'm still committed 100% to trying to get that leg home in F. Might be switching to an earlier flight or something for a better shot at it (Cheers, @NEPIC ). We have two IC certs from the into the nights promo - we could get back toward DPS and put our last two nights at the IC, Bali where we'll have internet to book. Of course now I'm thinking one of those should be used in Hong Kong... but either way, we can loop around to wifi if we want it that bad and if not it'll be because we're having too much fun so I'm good with that too!
 
NEPIC

NEPIC

Level 2 Member
ninjasurfer99 said:
Great Stuff - If I get an answer on the cutoff for AA award changes I'll post right away. As for internet - There's still a very good chance that we don't have it a majority of the time in Indo which was a lot of the reason for stressing over the flights. Still, comparatively I feel great about having flights now once realizing the difficulties of award booking. In the end (with your guys help) it wasn't too bad, I just have to do things to understand sometimes. And award booking isn't too conducive to my "fly by the seat of my pants" style of travel.

I'm still committed 100% to trying to get that leg home in F. Might be switching to an earlier flight or something for a better shot at it (Cheers, @NEPIC ). We have two IC certs from the into the nights promo - we could get back toward DPS and put our last two nights at the IC, Bali where we'll have internet to book. Of course now I'm thinking one of those should be used in Hong Kong... but either way, we can loop around to wifi if we want it that bad and if not it'll be because we're having too much fun so I'm good with that too!
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There's definitely something to be said for relaxing in Bali and not worrying about your seat back home! We spent one long weekend in Brussels not having a ticket (at all) back to the US, and even though LH opened up space as we thought it would, it's still a bunch of stress waiting, hoping, AND then having to Skype call United! So yes, there comes a time when sitting at the beach and enjoying a drink is the preferable plan!
 
SCC

SCC

Level 2 Member
KennyBSAT said:
Another possibility if you can find the entire trip on AS metal is DFW-PDX(stopover)-YVR(destination)-SEA(stopover)-DFW at 25K AS miles roundtrip. The problem there is that award availability on AS flights away from the West coast is slim.

The good news is that the AS card gives the miles right away with no spending required. If the dates work, you could do DFW-PDX 6/12 and PDX-YVR and YVR-SEA basically any days you want, for 12,500 AS miles and 4500 Avios, and return SEA-DAL for 7500-12000 Southwest points OR return nonstop on AA 6/20, 26 or 27 for 10000 Avios.

If she wants one card and simplicity for this one trip, I guess I'd recommend (shudders) Sapphire Preferred.The entire trip hitting all 3 cities is, worst case with flexible dates, 25K UA miles and 9K Avios.
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Testing it out I was able to find a one way from DFW to PDX in July for 12,500 miles and one from PDX to YVR a few days later for 12,500 miles, but when I tried to book it as a multi-city ticket it priced at 20,000. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?
 
smittytabb

smittytabb

Moderator
Staff member
NEPIC said:
No experience on Transavia...but I think a good state of mind going in is to prepare to hold you ankles. And it can't possibly be worse than Ryan Air! Right?

My advice on the Bali return is to book what you can now DPS-HKG-NYC-(WAS) as one AA award. Book Y/J on the DPS-HGK leg and J on the HKG-NYC leg. If F opens up, you can upgrade the award for just the mileage (no change fee). CX J is about as good as it gets if F doesn't open up, and you will some peace of mind for the next few weeks.

The only reason to book a separate leg DPS-HKG with Avios is if you want a stopover in HKG.

Nick
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I've flown Transavia. They are fine. You want to pack light if possible as you pay for luggage both to check and in the cabin. At least that was my experience. They are now the budget side of AF, so things could have changed as I flew them about a year and a half ago. They are a budget airline but a step up from Ryan for sure.

In terms of timing of Award changes cutoff for AA, it has been my experience that it is before the flight is flown. I am EXP, so it may be a YMMV type of thing. I had booked a flight for one of my children from Santiago, Chile to the U.S. She contacted me from the airport just minutes before the flight took off to tell me she had Visa issues and she could not board the flight. I was able to rebook another flight a few days later with no problem at all. And indeed I ended up booking that same flight multiple times until the thing was straightened out.
 
KennyBSAT

KennyBSAT

Moderator
Staff member
SCC said:
Testing it out I was able to find a one way from DFW to PDX in July for 12,500 miles and one from PDX to YVR a few days later for 12,500 miles, but when I tried to book it as a multi-city ticket it priced at 20,000. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?
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The DFW-PDX flight isn't on AA, is it? Flights have to be all on AS to get a free stopover within North America. If it's all AS, it should qualify for the free stopover, and I'd call and see if they can price it correctly.
 
B

BuddyFunJet

Level 2 Member
KennyBSAT said:
I can't find an official policy nor a relevant datapoint. I'd hazard a guess it's possible until 24 hours before departure, as anything closer wouldn't give them time to reissue the ticket. @ninjasurfer99 please let us know the timing of the change I hope you'll get to make!
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It's been a while but I have called in for an award ticket about a hour before the flight. There were irrops on WN and I jumped to AA while I was already at the airport. I am PLT on AA so that might have helped. I did pay extra for the phone booking and I think I paid a bit for the airport to do something but under the circumstances, I was just glad they could do it.

If possible, I'd call AA and ask to be sure.
 
P

PointSeeker07

Level 2 Member
KennyBSAT said:
@PointSeeker07 Have you called AA to ask about availability on TN (Air Tahiti Nui) LAX-CDG?

Otherwise a very quick search comes up with CLT-MAD-ORY 9/11/15 US748 and IB3406, both in business. You could hold the US flight and a flight to CLT if needed, and call to add the flight to Paris.

There are 2 J seats IAH-IST-CDG 9/5, 9/12 and 9/19. 70K UA miles or book with AC miles and no surcharges.

You can also return on TK via IST, should be 105K AC miles per person RT and you can stopover in IST if you like. Search for segments from IST to IAH or ORD. IST-CDG and CDG-IST are wide open.

UA has LHR-ORD 9/15 and DUB-EWR 9/23 and 9/25 in J on UA metal, so you can add short coach flights within Europe to connect to those and keep the price at 57,500 UA miles. Or position with a LCC to DUB (Not LHR with thier departure taxes!)
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I have not called AA to ask about TN, Unfortunately I am newer to the whole flying using points so I didn't even know that was an option. Is there a big difference between flying into CDG or flying into ORY? I plan on staying at the hyatt paris vendome. Could you explain "AC miles" I am not sure what miles they are.

Thanks for the route suggestions. I will look to see if I can book any of them now.

Deltahater said:
@PointSeeker07 Keep in mind that BA charges horrendous fuel surcharges on internatinal flights, so Avios are not good for TATL.

Also, you may want to invest in expertflyer.
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I agree on BA. I first tried to price it out and it was 150k and $2k per person. Ridiculous. I tried experflyer but I think I need to learn more about routings to really get some use out of it. During my 5day trial I didn't come up with anything.

NEPIC said:
You can also try some secondary routes that LH or TK operate and searching these on United. For example, BOS-MUC, BOS-IST, ATL-FRA, PHL-FRA. It seems in general that award space to the West Coast is very hard to come by, so focus on the East Coast.

Also, if you have enough AA and SPG points, you could look at Jet on their flights from YYZ or EWR to BRU. Though you have to call AA to get availability.
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Are there main airports on the East Coast I should look at when trying to route to Europe? I know of ORD, JFK, IAD. I guess ill try to sign up for Aeroplan so I can search BRU routings, thanks for the tip. What is AA Jet? I have not heard of that before
 
NEPIC

NEPIC

Level 2 Member
PointSeeker07 said:
...

Are there main airports on the East Coast I should look at when trying to route to Europe? I know of ORD, JFK, IAD. I guess ill try to sign up for Aeroplan so I can search BRU routings, thanks for the tip. What is AA Jet? I have not heard of that before
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For LH flights to FRA/MUC, check CLT, DTW, PHL, BOS, ATL, DFW, MCO and TPA as non-hub cities. MIA is an option too, but LH seems to be able to fill these flights pretty well.

TK flies to IAH, IAD, ORD, JFK, YYZ and YUL.

LX sometimes has the odd bit of availability from YUL and BOS.

The Star Alliance route map is a nice place to see all the potential routings, and means you don't have to worry about my forgetting an obvious route!

Jet = Jet Airways, and Indian carrier that flies BRU-YYZ/YUL that has a frequent flier agreement with AA. From looking at availability once before, it seemed pretty good - I suspect given you can't search their space online and they are not a OW member.

AC=Air Canada/Aeroplan miles.
 
NEPIC

NEPIC

Level 2 Member
SanDiego1K said:
TK currently flies to LAX.

You can add SFO to that list as of April 13, 2015.

http://www.turkishairlines.com/en-int/corporate/news/news/turkish-airlines-launches-a-new-route-to-san-francisco

But I might have lost the plot here, as I'm not sure of the person's origination for the trip.
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Nice! Actually a decent amount of availability SFO-IST in September too. I remember when TK started IAH they released plenty of seats, but (generally) that seems to have dried up when I ever I had looked for Europe flights.
 
D

dlin

Level 2 Member
I'm in Berlin right now and am booked on an air Berlin business flight back to jfk from dusseldorf on 12/24. Ideally, I would get on the direct business flight from txl to jfk on the 24th but no luck in availability so far. At this point am I SOL? I was hoping air Berlin would release last minute reward seats...
 
D

Donna

New Member
Hi!
I have a roundtrip already on the books leaving me in IST in April of 2015. Now I need to get home to IAD. I'd like to plan a cool round trip - can I stopover in BKK? then return to Europe or the British Isles in August or September to finish out the round trip? I'm getting an error when I try to book the multi-city and I can't tell if it's because I'm breaking a region rule or breaking a number of connections rule. Can someone advise some destination options to make this work?

Donna
 
SCC

SCC

Level 2 Member
KennyBSAT said:
The DFW-PDX flight isn't on AA, is it? Flights have to be all on AS to get a free stopover within North America. If it's all AS, it should qualify for the free stopover, and I'd call and see if they can price it correctly.
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Yep, all on AS metal. Guess I'll try calling.
 
NEPIC

NEPIC

Level 2 Member
dlin said:
I'm in Berlin right now and am booked on an air Berlin business flight back to jfk from dusseldorf on 12/24. Ideally, I would get on the direct business flight from txl to jfk on the 24th but no luck in availability so far. At this point am I SOL? I was hoping air Berlin would release last minute reward seats...
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I have no experience with AB and last minute availability but will suggest that even though the flight appears wide open in J (according to EF) that coach could be significantly overbooked. So while it looks like they are being stingy with award seats it may be an operational necessity. You may be surprised how significantly some carriers overbook Y this time of year. ;)

ETA: though I see they do have Y award space available...so maybe they are just being stingy!
 
Brandon

Brandon

Level 2 Member
Planning a trip coming up in a month. First time flying international in F. Plan is:

JFK - Dubai - Amman (90k AS for Emirates F)
Beirut - Abu Dhabi - IAD (90k AA for Etihad F - BEY-AUH is in J)

Good choice? I was looking forward to flying the new Etihad 787, but it was delayed again and I can't push this trip back any further so I'm just going to miss it. I'll be using Avios to fly to NYC from DC - rather fly the A380 on Emirates for the shower... Any advice is welcomed.
 
Maverick17

Maverick17

Level 2 Member
Sounds like a good trip. The AS miles allow a stopover, so you could spend a few days in DXB if you wanted. I'm not a F guy, so I won't comment on the airline choice, but getting excellent value with a top product on a trip you wanted to take.
 
Matt

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
Donna said:
Hi!
I have a roundtrip already on the books leaving me in IST in April of 2015. Now I need to get home to IAD. I'd like to plan a cool round trip - can I stopover in BKK? then return to Europe or the British Isles in August or September to finish out the round trip? I'm getting an error when I try to book the multi-city and I can't tell if it's because I'm breaking a region rule or breaking a number of connections rule. Can someone advise some destination options to make this work?

Donna
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Moved to Award Booking help thread.
 
Maverick17

Maverick17

Level 2 Member
Donna said:
Hi!
I have a roundtrip already on the books leaving me in IST in April of 2015. Now I need to get home to IAD. I'd like to plan a cool round trip - can I stopover in BKK? then return to Europe or the British Isles in August or September to finish out the round trip? I'm getting an error when I try to book the multi-city and I can't tell if it's because I'm breaking a region rule or breaking a number of connections rule. Can someone advise some destination options to make this work?

Donna
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Hi @Donna, so I'm just a little confused by saying you need to get home to one place, then that you want to finish out the round trip in another place. So I think you're saying you want to go generally IST-BKK-Britain-IAD. Or is it more like you want to go from IST-BKK-IAD-Britain? Or something else? Sorry for not understanding, maybe everyone else got it. But if it's a little clearer might be able to brainstorm your options better among the group. Also helpful to let us know what kind of miles/points you have or are wanting to use for the trip.
 
KennyBSAT

KennyBSAT

Moderator
Staff member
Donna said:
Hi!
I have a roundtrip already on the books leaving me in IST in April of 2015. Now I need to get home to IAD. I'd like to plan a cool round trip - can I stopover in BKK? then return to Europe or the British Isles in August or September to finish out the round trip? I'm getting an error when I try to book the multi-city and I can't tell if it's because I'm breaking a region rule or breaking a number of connections rule. Can someone advise some destination options to make this work?

Donna
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Nearly everything we know about UA routing rules has been learned by trial and error. If IST-BKK(destination)-IAD(stopover)-LHR or something is similar IS a legal routing, it shouldn't be hard to put together. I'd find segments by searching one-ways and call to book it after booking as much as you can of the trip online. And then cancel within 24 hours if you don't get what you want after 3 calls.
 
NEPIC

NEPIC

Level 2 Member
Afam-DFW said:
It's been a while but I have called in for an award ticket about a hour before the flight. There were irrops on WN and I jumped to AA while I was already at the airport. I am PLT on AA so that might have helped. I did pay extra for the phone booking and I think I paid a bit for the airport to do something but under the circumstances, I was just glad they could do it.

If possible, I'd call AA and ask to be sure.
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As a data point from another blog I happened to check today, Mr Schlappig apparently managed to change an AA award 55 minutes before departure... so I guess there's a great deal of flexibility there if you want to take the chance!
 
Brandon

Brandon

Level 2 Member
Maverick17 said:
Sounds like a good trip. The AS miles allow a stopover, so you could spend a few days in DXB if you wanted. I'm not a F guy, so I won't comment on the airline choice, but getting excellent value with a top product on a trip you wanted to take.
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Yes, I was planning on taking advantage of the stop over to stay in Dubai for about 2 nights. I have two hilton free weekend certificates that expire soon and plan to use them there. I've been going back and forth between a lot of their properties in Dubai...

Now that EY sale, I grabbed a RT from DC to Abu Dhabi for $218 instead of burning these points and changing my original game plan altogether. Debating to cancel the paid Y to go back to burning for F...
 
Maverick17

Maverick17

Level 2 Member
Brandon said:
Now that EY sale, I grabbed a RT from DC to Abu Dhabi for $218 instead of burning these points and changing my original game plan altogether. Debating to cancel the paid Y to go back to burning for F...
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I looked long and hard. Y seats and needing to position just didn't make it worthwhile in my case. But if you're already going to that area anyway, pretty great value and hard to pass up.
 
H

hsinaz

Level 2 Member
Here is something I spent a whole day on but I think I got only half way through. This is my first attempt using Skypesos.

I need 4 seats in economy. I am in PHX but I can start/end in LAX. 2 weeks trip in June '15. One week in AMS (stop over) and another in ZAG (destination).

I was able to find BOS-AMS (June 3) and AMS-ZAG (June 10) at saver levels, but nothing coming back around June 17-20, and I am sure b/c I dont know the tricks. I can see availability from LHR-LAX on VS but want to avoid taxes*4 and still have to find something from ZAG to LHR on ST.

Please someone help get me that delta stopover before 12/31 !!!! :)
 
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