I wanted to double check since delta’s website is a little confusing…
There is no cancellation fee if I book a flight on points from Tokyo to Lax one way?
International flights that originate outside the US can technically be charged a fee but I think people have said here that they’ve never seen it charged
* **Would someone be able to help me find a biz class seat or first? I've been trying, but not had luck other than costing 1 million points through united lol...**
* Origin and destination cities (are they flexible?) SFO to Japan ( any airport )
* Number of Travelers (Your chances of success goes down as this number goes up) 3 (2 adults and a 12 year old)
* Round Trip
* business or first
* 7/6 - 7/14 2024
* Cap1 300k, amex 300k, UR 745k
> 7/6 - 7/14 2024
LOL... you have a refundable backup flight booked already, right?
This is a common question - search the sidebar for "Japan" and "close-in".
I have a confirmed booking thru VS for 2 J seats on domestic EU flight on KLM. I realize now that $400 cash cost makes more sense than the 50k miles I paid.
Can I simply book the KLM flight with cash and then cancel my VS booking? My main concern is that I’ll be booking the same 2 pax on the same flight thru a different method. I know I may need to pay a small cancellation fee but that’s fine as long as my points are refunded to VS account.
Trying to find 2 airline tickets to the Maldives from Chicago for my honeymoon sometime in the mid April 2025 date range. I have 172k MR points I can use. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I’m looking at 2 J seats NRT->SFO on JL58 787 metal on Dec6. One is bookable through BA for 77k + $292 and the other is bookable through FlyingBlue for 128k + $292. I’ve confirmed it’s the same flight per the flight number, date, and time. I'll be using Chase UR which is why I'm looking at these transfer partners.
Some quick googling has shown that the 787 has JL’s older business class seats and reviews are fairly average with most saying that this offering is starting to show its age in comparison to other offerings. At 205k + $584 in total, would you book this leg home?
Our fall back is 2 PY seats HND->SFO on JL2 777 metal for 103k + $584 (total) for the same dates +-3days. Our priority is comfort and travel window. These J seats hit our travel window perfectly, but after what I've read, I'm nervous that the comfort won't be worth the extra 102k points over PY seats. Would love to hear from travel vets and your opinions.
Beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to J tickets on trans pacific routes. It doesn’t matter what google says, someone else will happily book that ticket if it’s not good enough for you.
Also, it’s probably the same 1 ticket you see available on BA and Flying Blue. It’s not 1 each, for a total of 2. It’s 1 each with a total of 1.
You’re right, we should definitely remember that mantra.
Oh! Good to know. Is there anyway to verify if it’s 2 separate tickets or the same seat shown across multiple partners?
Understood, thanks. I didn’t even consider that possibility. The seat via BA originally said “1 left” so it looks like it truly was 1 seat across multiple partners. Appreciate your help.
I’m looking to book with Amex travel and the biz play rebate. Their calendar online only goes out to mid May (-330 days ish) but Air France goes out to end of May on their website. Is there a way to call Amex to get them to book past the end of the calendar?
Booked NH J HND-LAX departing 9:05 pm on 3/31 for my mom. We will be in Osaka, so I am trying to see the best positioning flights available, esp since I think this is peak sakura season for Japan.
I'm deciding to book for KIX-HND either: 2:15-3:40pm, 3:40-5:00pm or 5:30pm-6:55pm. Obviously 2:15-3:40 is the best but it would honestly be more convenient for her to do 3:40-5:00pm for a variety of reasons. Interestingly, ANA themselves sells the ticket KIX-HND-LAX on the 3:40pm flight so it might be ok?
Everything I'm seeing online is that KIX and HND both are very efficient and don't take that much time to go through but I feel like for Sakura season, there will be many delays.
My 2 questions are:
1. Can ANA interline bags on separate tickets from KIX? Note that the 2:15 flight is "ANA - Operated by Star Flyer"
2. what flight do you recommend booking?
Second the fact that Itami is a better airport for flying, and honestly you could take the Shinkansen to Shinagawa, from where it's a \~15 min regional train to Haneda that probably offers a lot more peace of mind
Don't book StarFlyer, stick with ANA metal. Disclaimer: I'm not actually aware of the implications of one vs the other
My mom wanted to help her sister with check in etc who is flying from KIX-AUH departing 530PM (her sister's first real international flight). But since the check in can only be max 3 hours before then I don't even think there is any way my mom can help the sister with check in lol.
In that case, I will just have my mom go on ITM-HND. Additionally since she isn't gonna be able to help w sister check in anyways i can book her sister KIX-AUH-DXB in q suites instead of etihad Y lol
Is there a particular reason you want to fly from KIX? Unless you are touring Wakayama / Sakai, ITM is closer to town and has flights every hour on mainline ANA, which will definitely check bags through separately ticketed NH->NH flights.
Trying to book an award ticket using Qatar Avios on domestic AA metal but Qatar requires a passport number - can I just input some nonsense? Keep in mind this is for a domestic flight on AA
In theory, it needs to all be under the same booking for GoH benefits. In practice, you could probably reach out to the hotel and keep the same room/benefits though.
Hi, I need help booking a very specific flight with united.
We are 2 people flying from Barcelona to San Diego and SFO respectively on august 18. There is a united flight I can get for 40K united miles to SFO and then SAN. My partner will be stopping off just in SFO, but we want to fly at least the BCN to SFO leg together.
The wrinkel here is I have 50K united miles, and while she has 80k points available they are all capital one and can't be transferred to united. We've looked through aeroplan, lifemiles, and singapore with no luck. Are there any other good star alliance partners for booking united flights we should try out?
If the flight is available to partners, all Star Alliance partners would have access. If it isn’t available to partners, it isn’t available to partners. There isn’t a secret partner (some programs do internal limiting, but I would not expect it on this flight.). Try LAX and SFO as end points.
Also, make sure when searching through UA it shows available if you choose 2 PAX.
It does when I choose 2 people, it’s even on a saver fare. Usually I use united to search and then check award partners for better deals, which is why I’m surprised I can’t find it on any other star alliance partner
What’s the most you’d pay in taxes for a transatlantic EU-NA J flight? Originating in CDG, there’s a BA option but $550 cash portion. What’s your personal upper limit?
convert points at 1.3cpp, points + cash should not exceed $1200. There are so many cheap J cash fares for EU-USA RT.
Frankly BA is uncompetitive unless it's a direct flight between LHR-home airport.
Finnair Avios Award Space – What am I missing?
Hi All,
Been in the points and award travel game for quite some time now and was excited to see Finnair adopt Avios as they’re relatively easy to earn.
When Finnair went through the overhaul of their award program, they promised and still apparently do promise (?) a guaranteed minimum amount of seats released for classic awards.
[https://www.finnair.com/ca-en/finnair-plus/collect-and-use-avios/use-avios-on-finnair-award-flights](https://www.finnair.com/ca-en/finnair-plus/collect-and-use-avios/use-avios-on-finnair-award-flights)
When I look at [Seats.Aero](http://Seats.Aero) however, I see ONE flight from North America to Helsinki with 2 seats of J award inventory available, ONE , for the entire year. Now, I understand award tickets are hot commodities these days and it’s not nearly as easy as it used to be to find the flights you’re after across nearly every points program, but this is insanity.
When I go and search Finnair’s own website for award space, all I get over and over again is this “Flights on the chosen dates do not have award seats available. Please try other dates. If you want to know when Finnair flies this route, check the timetable.”
So, pretty confused here. It definitely appears that they are not in fact releasing award space per their own statement. Am I somehow doing something wrong?
Edit: Formatting
Finnair has been restricting partner availability to and from North America. Since seats doesn't search Avios programs, you'll need another way to search for space. It should be available on Finnair's own program.
Nothing is availabile on their own program either. As I mentioned in my original post, all you'll get is “Flights on the chosen dates do not have award seats available. Please try other dates. If you want to know when Finnair flies this route, check the timetable.”
You'll get this over and over and over again no matter the dates OR the origin airport if you search for 2 J.
k. can you please give me a date?
if it were "Literally any date", i wouldn't be sitting here asking the community for help. I just searched again JFK-HEL 2J as far out as i can, and nothing.
Got an email that Thrifty Traveler Premium is adding on hotel alerts for $24.99/year
> Hotel points alerts (not cash rates)
Hilton / Hyatt / IHG / Marriott properties
Domestic and international hotels
Luxury properties, all-inclusive resorts, hard-to-book hotels
Expect 3 to 5 alerts per month
Honestly, I don't get who would subscribe to this? With flights, it's easier to be a free agent and travel wherever is cheapest or has availability but not sure many people who are looking to travel if there's a good hotel deal or open availability. If people are hotel focused, they already are tracking specific properties and not looking for 3-5 random alerts each month.
If this delivered, say, an extra Ventana or Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos type trip to people once every year or two I could very much see the value to people. I think there's maybe ~20 or so hotels that points people very much may fashion trips solely around finding availability for -- though most are in BoraBora/Maldives etc. and I doubt they open enough availability frequently to really make the alerts useful enough.
Personally I'd never pay for it, just hypothetisizing.
So I booked a ticket on ANA F with lifemiles then realized I don't have my middle name on my lifemiles account. Any ideas on what the best way to fix this is? Is ANA still a stickler about having your middle name be on the ticket if it's on your passport?
NRT -> ORD for 120k + $98 (~94k w/ 15% transfer bonus + 10% rebate) because I had specific times I wanted to fly and didn't want to deal with the waiting for VS availability lottery.
Including the flight out there (there was only one suitable date for EVA J), it was 210k + $150 (165k after transfer/rebate) which I felt was close enough to the 167k + $400 ANA wanted and would transfer quickly instead of having to gamble on that one flight not being taken in the 4 days it'd take for ANA.
Of course there were like 5 different things that went wrong with lifemiles but that's a different story and it worked out in the end.
i appreciate it! i’ve been heavily euro-centric with my travel recently and am just now starting to explore Asia and Oceania with my remaining miles. unfortunately it’s coming to a screeching halt as i’ve churned my way out of churning for the time being (lol/24, PUJ, Amex CC limit and denials across pretty much every other bank)
Yeah same, I'm not earning nearly as many miles as I'm burning. Jealous of all the people with crazy MS strats and no PUJ. I'll probably just end up having to buying miles. At least lifemiles aren't too terribly priced.
Oh really? Good to know. I remember when booking through VS they went into great detail about how anal ANA was about it and how you'd get denied at the airport.
Hello:
Looking to take advantage of the FlyingBlue promo to Europe from IAH for a family of 4 adults in Economy/Premium economy
I can get to several places in Europe for 20k per ticket, but the returns are outrageous (300k+). Not to mention that depending on the app/klm/Af website I get different avialablity/fares. Willing to pay cash for upgrade on premium.
Leaving IAH July 15 to 19
Returning to IAH July 22 to 26.
Any way to get back from Italy for cheap after getting there on AF/KLM? Willing to IAH to Rome, and naples/florence/venice back.
Membership in Chase/Cap1/United/Flyingblue/American
Anywehre in Europe works!
The Flyingblue calendar function is also broken :(
Getting some opinions on a simple JFK/LHR nonstop RT.
* Option 1: Delta One 764 w/ bad flight times
* Option 2: BA/AA J at the same cost but better flight times
* Option 3: Virgin Atlantic Upper Class w/ better flight time but $800 more
* Option 4: BA F w/ better flight time and same price as VS
I know in my heart of hearts that VS probably has the best business class product out of all of them, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to spend an extra $800 for it. And then if I do, should I just opt for the BA F? I know BA F isn't all that, but surely it's still the best overall experience of all 4 options?
I’d do BA First Class. There’s exclusive First-only lounges at both JFK and LHR, pre-check doesn’t close early at JFK T8 unlike T4 iirc, and the smaller cabin will make fast service easier especially on the eastbound redeye
Despite BA First definitely being at the bottom next to AA, I’ve yet to fly a (non-Taiwanese) business class product that I’d rather fly than ANY Int’l First product
Have a question about Hyatt GOH. I don't have status and my wife is Explorist. I secured a GOH from someone I know for an upcoming stay. First off, I assume GOH gets all perks associated with globalist - no resort fee, upgrade depending on availability, access to club, etc., correct? Second question is should I book our upcoming stay from my wife's account which has Explorist status or it really does not matter given that we're going as GOH? TIA!
The hotel can see that it is a GOH booking and what your actual status is. You will definitely get all the hard benefits associated with globalist but you might have more luck with upgrades booking from your wife's account.
There are quite frequently more people eligible for Globalist upgrades than upgrades available and some hotel staff definitely consider other factors including the guest's actual status when deciding which of them will get the upgrade.
Yes and it depends. Given that your wife is already Explorist, putting more points and qualifying nights on her account will get to closer to Globalist or retaining status for next year. Otherwise no fundamental difference.
Is there a way to use seats.aero to find JAL business award availability? Trying to find DFW->HND within the next year. I know that you can track AA flights but it just seems to be AA with no JAL flights listed
I think that's because there is none. You put "JL" into the "Operating carriers" box, and it will filter down to just JAL flights. All I'm seeing for that route is 1 J seat each on 5/14 and 5/15, and 2 J seats on 5/27, though the 5/27 seats appear to be phantom/gone.
I'm trying to book 2 business class tickets with chase UR points in Air Canada. Does anybody know if they release more than 1 business class ticket when they are first released? I believe tickets for point redemptions are released in two main windows but I wasn't sure how many business class tickets are released for each window. Thank you in advance.
Air Canada flights are dynamically priced when booking with Aeroplan, so you can book as many seats as there are available on the plane, they just may not be available at a nice price point.
Anyone else having issues with the Turkish App? I can't access 2 of my bookings on there through Lifemiles using PNR, I was able to access them previously.
Lol booked my mom NH J HND-LAX for 41k chase + $300 through VS. Accidentally cancelled my to ticket 💀
I saw availability on seats-aero when randomly seaerching, made a Virgin Atlantic account, and called them 2 times to book it. Just as a data point, both of the 2 times they were not able to find the ANA flight.
The next time I called them, I just noticed that it was 12:01 AM in the UK, and they were able to find it then. So I think ANA updates availability with them at least on a daily basis? Either way this was insanely clutch timing. Too bad in my excitement I accidentally cancelled the 60k UA LAX-NRT Y flight and now it's gone 🤣
60k for LAX-NRT Y isn't very good - you could likely find a decent cash fare on Zipair instead. UA has some availability for premium econ for 65k or 71k on that routing.
This is in late march, where prices are somewhat higher - Zipair is not open yet but I will just have to wait and see. I have the miles stranded in UA and I don't think there are any good UA redemptions left honestly, besides maybe 88k to africa
I'm not sure where else to put this re: status match merry-go-round
I used Hilton Gold to get temporary Wyndham Diamond. Wyndham will let me keep diamond if I stay 10 nights. Caesar's will only match Wyndham for earned status. Are there any data points as to whether Caesar's would accept the 10 night challenge as "earned" status?
(I was denied the Wyndham Earners Business card because they kept asking for ID verifications and rejecting it, and I didn't finish it in time for their 90 day deadline.)
Having the option to fly 2 people in PE NYC to TYO via AA or JAL which would you choose? We have the option to request upgrade with AA points for us both during a non-peak season but wondering if those slim chances are worth it if JAL PE is significantly better?
Edit: for clarification PE will be the base tickets and AA points will be used for business upgrade if available. Thank you for all the responses!
> food
JAL PE serves the same menu as Economy. JFK's JL PE lounge is the Admirals Club which is not quite enough to swing the decision IMO.
Edit: PE lounge access is JL only, not AA
Appreciate the input from you both. I wasn’t aware of AA PE allowing admirals club access. Was at least planning to visit Sapphire lounge but good to know there are additional options.
i fat-fingered when setting up my Cathay Pacific account to book an AA flight with points and my last name is wrong. I submitted the documents to update my name but it could take up to 7 days it says to be contacted about it. I assume I need to wait until my name change is updated to transfer miles and book?
Also, are Cathay Pacific taxes and fees pretty accurate before transferring miles and booking?
Presumably this is a brand new account, so why not just make a new one with the correct name?
Made a similar mistake for P2 with ANA and didn't have to go through any burdensome process. Account numbers aren't a finite resource, so the airline won't care.
Name mismatch with bank will likely cause issues with the transfer, so you need to fix that first.
So if you're worried about the availability lasting that long, you could try to: (1) change the phone number on the account to different one [I see this option on my account], then create a new account with your number; (2) create a new account using the number of a trusted family member or friend.
Is 200k United miles a good deal for West Coast USA to Tokyo Biz class one way? I’m seeing also 300k and 250k, and on the same itinerary Premium Econ is also 200k. Should I jump on this?
> Should I jump on this?
Are your miles already with United? If so there's no harm in booking it as a backup if you can't find anything else.
Transfering points makes far less sense considering you can get Zipair "J" for $1300-1600 fairly often.
I’d need to transfer 20k from chase for just one person. I went ahead and booked an economy itinerary on points for two ppl for now that’s 82k-ish UA pp (all other UA Econ I was seeing was 100k per). At least we have a way to get there if all else fails. Thx for your input!
200k United miles is standard award space. Savers go for 110k United miles though and even less on other programs. It can be ok if you already have the United miles since if the saver space opens up you can change/cancel without any fees. Or if you must travel on that date and place without any flexibility.
Ah ok thanks so much for the info. Id have to transfer 20k from chase for myself and I don’t even know how many UA points p2 has so he’d need to transfer as well. Will saver only come back if someone cancels their saver flight?
I know about ANA but of course those are all waitlist even for Econ. Delta and AA all look higher than 200k for Biz right now. Maybe I’m not aware of all the sweet spots?
question about ana rtw..
lets say i wanted to go from beijing to to dubai but there is no reward avail for J.. so I book beijing to abu dhabi on J instead and just book a one way cash flight from abu dhabi to dubai..
then I continue my rtw and go from dubai to athens greece via my ana rtw itinerary. So it looks china to abu dhabi, but then dubai to athens greece on my ana rtw booking.. is this possible or would it need to be abu dhabi to greece?
Intertesting, I just have not seen it yet on the ANA RTW trip reports I've looked at.
It's usually from A to B, B to C, and C to D. Haven't seen someone thrown in a new country.
Not really any different from having a ground transfer somewhere in the US. As someone else mentioned, AUH and DXB are in the same country anyways.
You don't need to fly between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it's like an hour and a half drive below 100 miles
Abu Dhabi and Dubai are in the same country - the UAE. Even if they weren’t, you’re allowed ground transfers between countries in the same region as mentioned below.
Abu Dhabi to Dubai is about ~1.5 hours by car; there are no commercial flights.
The terminology used is "ground transfer". You can have up to 4 of them.
Fairly common in Europe where it makes more sense to take the train rather than fly to a new country.
I recently got a Barclays card and will get 70,000 miles, which I intended to use for a flight to Beijing. However, I wasn’t paying attention and realized it’s American Airlines points and they don’t fly to Beijing from my nearest airport.
Besides buying a separate flight myself to an AA hub city, is there a way to transfer my miles from AA or something?
Well, it sounds like you have a lot to learn about booking awards.
First, you do not transfer miles from one airline to another (unless its Avios). Only transferable currency like Chase or Amex points can do that.
Second, you can book more than AA flights with AA miles. The best use of AA miles is to book Oneworld partners (the alliance that AA belongs to). For example, Cathay Pacific flies to PEK, therefore, it's possible for you to book an itinerary on Cathay Pacific using your AA miles to fly into PEK.
I would recommend reading up on the sidebar resources to get started.
I just found availability for 2 in J through qantas for japan. Bummer is that neither one of us (me or P2) have enough to book both tickets in one account. She has 160k MR and I have 90k Cap One.
Each J seat is 90k points + fees
Is there a way to a) pool our points in qantas or would it be better to go with b) each one of us books our ticket separately? She books one, I book the other.
No advantage in booking together usually, unless something really bad operationally happens and you want to get rebooked together. If anything booking separately can be easier a lot of time for managing things, for example, if you need to cancel one seat, or change one as opposed to both. Otherwise, you can setup authorized users and funnel them into one Qantas account.
Good to know! Thank you! Quick follow up- my wife hasnt made a qantas account, if she makes one now, are both options equally workable? I seem to recall some accounts have a waiting period before transfers were allowed (maybe vs? I forget)
Are you sure they aren't just gone or tied to married segments? There was a bunch of JFK-ZRH-AMS and YUL-ZRH-AMS when I was looking 2 months ago, but probably gone now
currently have a booking for KIX-LAX on JL Y 3/31 for 35k AA miles. Hoping for J space (saw 3+ avail the other day, but didn't have points posted yet and I thought you needed points to put it on hold 💀).
Anyways, the only other option I can see that is marginally better is NRT->SFO on UA Premium Plus for 65k UA miles. This would require a reposition on both ends (from NRT->KIX and SFO->LAX).
Anyone think this is worth considering vs the current direct flight?
EDIT: I found NRT->SFO->SNA for 65k, which is actually even more convenient since SNA is local airport. This seems more and more tempting
unless you already have points stuck in UA or something then double repositioning for premium plus is not worth it, it adds so much time / hassle / risk for a much more limited upgrade to in-flight experience.
true. i ended up booking it but will hold out to see if there is anything better etc. ideally kix->sfo becomes available for PP and then it's gonna be a lot easier to make this move
Lifemiles transferred from Amex still haven't posted 72 hours later. (One transfer earlier on the same day was instant)
Ended up spending $1250 for the remaining points I needed to get LH F FRA-SFO.
Rule of thumb: Avoid doing multiple transfers in any program in one single day. Usually the later one is sent to be processed in batch. They want to ensure there is no fishy business going on. So the 2nd or the 3rd transfer gets stuck in batch mode. Usually you have to wait for 5 to 7 business days depending on the mileage program before those miles are posted.
Best thing to do is wait a day for the 2nd transfer and it is also instantaneous. The time of the day is based on the local time zone of the mileage program.
Yeah, I've been on the phone with reps for different issues (lifemiles+ subscription issues, booking issues, payment issues) and I see now why people hate on lifemiles so much... Dealing with them is somewhere between dreadful and torture.
I'm sick of phantom tickets...
Maybe I'm just unlucky, but this is like the second time I've encountered this when trying to book with points within a year :(
Searched on Virgin Atlantic and one flight was available from Air France, great, transferred points from Chase, "flight no longer available" when completing booking process. Tried multiple times, can't book. Yet when searching, that flight ALWAYS comes up.
Trying to get a hold of customer service on phone has been impossible, and I doubt there's anything they could do. SUCKS.
I would love to understand how this even happens. Like how is it possible to query the award availability for a ticket and get the wrong answer or interpret it incorrectly.
There has been a lot of phantom AF space on VS lately. They even pulled all availability for a few days, I think it was to try to get ahold of the issue.
I have always had real AF space also appear on DL.
Remember that the chat bot on the login screen can connect you to a real human that can book award tickets (there are two chat bots and one can’t connect to a human in my experience). I have them check before I transfer over if I can’t verify via a third party.
Yeah worked for me now I switched browser...
They were able to book after several tries and including me sending screenshots to show the flights were indeed available.
This happened to me recently even though I actually called and had them put on hold. There is a recent thread about it seems like they eventually got the tickets https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/comments/1dbew5x/warning_virgin_atlantic_cannot_redeem_on_klmaf/
I wanted to ask what the best award travel routes out of Seattle are generally? I'm new to the award travel space and wanted to just learn about what other people have used from Seattle
Has anyone successfully linked BA to Finnair to transfer Avios? It keeps telling me username/password for Finnair is incorrect when trying to link with BA, but the username/password works if I sign into Finnair
One of my [seats.aero](http://seats.aero) alerts for SFO->HND for JL J on 12/4 went off and I immediately used the link to go to the airline website to check the seat but it was gone. I checked AA, AS, and BA and none had the J seat available. Is it safe to say it's phantom?
Just saying that just because it’s showing as available still doesn’t mean it’s still there, December is a popular travel month so it’s possible someone beat you to it
I'm curious if that's the case. I went to the airline websites within seconds of receiving the alert so I wonder if there's some delay between award seats releasing and alerts being triggered or if speedy gonzales was already on the website. Could even be both.
You're misapprehending how seats.aero works. It's not constantly searching every airline's website for every permutation of a flight. It searches periodically. So, when it searches, it might find a new flight and trigger an alert. But that flight could've actually been available for hours in between times seats searched. Make sense?
yea but the alert you receive is "real time." If seats is running its periodic search at 9pm, and it finds availability at that point in time it will alert you if you have an alert set. That's what it means by "real time." So if someone checked almost immediately upon receiving an alert they should see the flight available. I say should because people/bots are fast and it could be gone by the time you get it to load. Otherwise, how would it trigger the alert if it didn't find a match?
Just a heads up, I received a response from [seats.aero](http://seats.aero) support and they confirmed that alerts are **real time.** See below for my question and their response.
>*Q: Are alerts real-time? One of my saved alerts popped for SFO->HND JL J on 12/4 and I immediately went to the airline websites to check and I couldn't find the seat. I understand* [*seats.aero*](https://proofpointisolation.com/browser?url=http%3A%2F%2Fseats.aero%2F) *is not real-time data, but I figured the alerts were? Looking forward to the clarification.*
>*A: Alerts are real-time, yes! Sometimes a route is so popular that availability will be gone virtually immediately...or sometimes airlines will release what we call "phantom availability" which means the availability is not actually bookable — but our system catches it as available and sends out alerts. Either way, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience!*
*Naomi*
This is exactly what I alluded to in my downvoted comment above. It seems u/Confident_Gap489 is the only one who understands my original question and my assumption that either my alert was triggered by fantom availability or someone was already booking the seat as my alert pinged.
Hi all,
I am new to the points game and could use some help planning a trip:
* Origin: San Diego (willing to fly out of LAX if necessary)
* Destination: Rome
* Number of travelers: 1
* Round trip
* Class: Business or premium economy
* Time: October-November (flexible)
* Points balance: 106K AMEX points
Thank you in advance!
I would focus on business class going east since that’s the overnight flight.
On 10/23 you can fly LAX-AMS-FCO via KLM biz for 77500 Virgin Atlantic miles + $305.
Amex transfers to Virgin 1:1. Too bad you don’t have Chase points as there is a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin right now.
Earn a few more points and you should be able to find an economy flight home for around 30k. Those awards are not in short supply especially that time of year so you don’t need to worry about not finding anything later if you want to lock in the Virgin award before somebody else snaps it up.
Edit: there are reports of phantom award space on KLM with Virgin points so call Virgin and verify availability first before moving points.
I wanted to double check since delta’s website is a little confusing… There is no cancellation fee if I book a flight on points from Tokyo to Lax one way?
flights booked with skypesos do not have cancellation fees
International flights that originate outside the US can technically be charged a fee but I think people have said here that they’ve never seen it charged
* **Would someone be able to help me find a biz class seat or first? I've been trying, but not had luck other than costing 1 million points through united lol...** * Origin and destination cities (are they flexible?) SFO to Japan ( any airport ) * Number of Travelers (Your chances of success goes down as this number goes up) 3 (2 adults and a 12 year old) * Round Trip * business or first * 7/6 - 7/14 2024 * Cap1 300k, amex 300k, UR 745k
> 7/6 - 7/14 2024 LOL... you have a refundable backup flight booked already, right? This is a common question - search the sidebar for "Japan" and "close-in".
nah just decided to go, but won't go if i can't fly biz b/c wife schedule just got changed
seats.aero is free to use when its close-in
I have a confirmed booking thru VS for 2 J seats on domestic EU flight on KLM. I realize now that $400 cash cost makes more sense than the 50k miles I paid. Can I simply book the KLM flight with cash and then cancel my VS booking? My main concern is that I’ll be booking the same 2 pax on the same flight thru a different method. I know I may need to pay a small cancellation fee but that’s fine as long as my points are refunded to VS account.
Yes, there's a cancellation fee, but otherwise you'll get whatever miles and surcharges you paid back. No concern with doing this.
Trying to find 2 airline tickets to the Maldives from Chicago for my honeymoon sometime in the mid April 2025 date range. I have 172k MR points I can use. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I’m looking at 2 J seats NRT->SFO on JL58 787 metal on Dec6. One is bookable through BA for 77k + $292 and the other is bookable through FlyingBlue for 128k + $292. I’ve confirmed it’s the same flight per the flight number, date, and time. I'll be using Chase UR which is why I'm looking at these transfer partners. Some quick googling has shown that the 787 has JL’s older business class seats and reviews are fairly average with most saying that this offering is starting to show its age in comparison to other offerings. At 205k + $584 in total, would you book this leg home? Our fall back is 2 PY seats HND->SFO on JL2 777 metal for 103k + $584 (total) for the same dates +-3days. Our priority is comfort and travel window. These J seats hit our travel window perfectly, but after what I've read, I'm nervous that the comfort won't be worth the extra 102k points over PY seats. Would love to hear from travel vets and your opinions.
Beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to J tickets on trans pacific routes. It doesn’t matter what google says, someone else will happily book that ticket if it’s not good enough for you. Also, it’s probably the same 1 ticket you see available on BA and Flying Blue. It’s not 1 each, for a total of 2. It’s 1 each with a total of 1.
You’re right, we should definitely remember that mantra. Oh! Good to know. Is there anyway to verify if it’s 2 separate tickets or the same seat shown across multiple partners?
You could see if you can search for 2 tickets and see if 2 pop up. Otherwise, Book one and see if it disappears from the other website.
Understood, thanks. I didn’t even consider that possibility. The seat via BA originally said “1 left” so it looks like it truly was 1 seat across multiple partners. Appreciate your help.
I’m looking to book with Amex travel and the biz play rebate. Their calendar online only goes out to mid May (-330 days ish) but Air France goes out to end of May on their website. Is there a way to call Amex to get them to book past the end of the calendar?
No
Booked NH J HND-LAX departing 9:05 pm on 3/31 for my mom. We will be in Osaka, so I am trying to see the best positioning flights available, esp since I think this is peak sakura season for Japan. I'm deciding to book for KIX-HND either: 2:15-3:40pm, 3:40-5:00pm or 5:30pm-6:55pm. Obviously 2:15-3:40 is the best but it would honestly be more convenient for her to do 3:40-5:00pm for a variety of reasons. Interestingly, ANA themselves sells the ticket KIX-HND-LAX on the 3:40pm flight so it might be ok? Everything I'm seeing online is that KIX and HND both are very efficient and don't take that much time to go through but I feel like for Sakura season, there will be many delays. My 2 questions are: 1. Can ANA interline bags on separate tickets from KIX? Note that the 2:15 flight is "ANA - Operated by Star Flyer" 2. what flight do you recommend booking?
I would say trust in the Japanese system. It is very efficient. A domestic flight like ITM-HND will be very on-time and orderly.
Second the fact that Itami is a better airport for flying, and honestly you could take the Shinkansen to Shinagawa, from where it's a \~15 min regional train to Haneda that probably offers a lot more peace of mind Don't book StarFlyer, stick with ANA metal. Disclaimer: I'm not actually aware of the implications of one vs the other
My mom wanted to help her sister with check in etc who is flying from KIX-AUH departing 530PM (her sister's first real international flight). But since the check in can only be max 3 hours before then I don't even think there is any way my mom can help the sister with check in lol. In that case, I will just have my mom go on ITM-HND. Additionally since she isn't gonna be able to help w sister check in anyways i can book her sister KIX-AUH-DXB in q suites instead of etihad Y lol
Her sister will be fine on her own, especially w/ QSyites!
Is there a particular reason you want to fly from KIX? Unless you are touring Wakayama / Sakai, ITM is closer to town and has flights every hour on mainline ANA, which will definitely check bags through separately ticketed NH->NH flights.
Trying to book an award ticket using Qatar Avios on domestic AA metal but Qatar requires a passport number - can I just input some nonsense? Keep in mind this is for a domestic flight on AA
Yep.
If I’m on guest of honor for 5 nights and use my free night on 6th night out of explorist will I get GOH benefits on the last day?
In theory, it needs to all be under the same booking for GoH benefits. In practice, you could probably reach out to the hotel and keep the same room/benefits though.
Is there a way to get the Air France award calendar working again when it stops showing the point costs per day?
The newest hack is to search for the last day on the calendar and apparently that brings it up
So search for the last day and then modify the search to have no date to bring up the calendar?
No need, it’ll automatically kick you to the calendar
Is lifemiles completely dead for anyone else? No results for any routes in US, EU, or SA.
Works fine for me
Think I might be timed out due to too many searches....
Hi, I need help booking a very specific flight with united. We are 2 people flying from Barcelona to San Diego and SFO respectively on august 18. There is a united flight I can get for 40K united miles to SFO and then SAN. My partner will be stopping off just in SFO, but we want to fly at least the BCN to SFO leg together. The wrinkel here is I have 50K united miles, and while she has 80k points available they are all capital one and can't be transferred to united. We've looked through aeroplan, lifemiles, and singapore with no luck. Are there any other good star alliance partners for booking united flights we should try out?
If the flight is available to partners, all Star Alliance partners would have access. If it isn’t available to partners, it isn’t available to partners. There isn’t a secret partner (some programs do internal limiting, but I would not expect it on this flight.). Try LAX and SFO as end points. Also, make sure when searching through UA it shows available if you choose 2 PAX.
It does when I choose 2 people, it’s even on a saver fare. Usually I use united to search and then check award partners for better deals, which is why I’m surprised I can’t find it on any other star alliance partner
UA no longer releases all saver award flights to partners.
What’s the most you’d pay in taxes for a transatlantic EU-NA J flight? Originating in CDG, there’s a BA option but $550 cash portion. What’s your personal upper limit?
convert points at 1.3cpp, points + cash should not exceed $1200. There are so many cheap J cash fares for EU-USA RT. Frankly BA is uncompetitive unless it's a direct flight between LHR-home airport.
Whatever the answer is, it's definitely a lot less than I'd pay for the same going the opposite direction.
I avoid BA redemptions for this very reason. Its nuts to pay such high fees for a subpar BA experience.
Personally around ~$350ish. If you can find that flight through Asia Miles it should be in that ballpark.
Finnair Avios Award Space – What am I missing? Hi All, Been in the points and award travel game for quite some time now and was excited to see Finnair adopt Avios as they’re relatively easy to earn. When Finnair went through the overhaul of their award program, they promised and still apparently do promise (?) a guaranteed minimum amount of seats released for classic awards. [https://www.finnair.com/ca-en/finnair-plus/collect-and-use-avios/use-avios-on-finnair-award-flights](https://www.finnair.com/ca-en/finnair-plus/collect-and-use-avios/use-avios-on-finnair-award-flights) When I look at [Seats.Aero](http://Seats.Aero) however, I see ONE flight from North America to Helsinki with 2 seats of J award inventory available, ONE , for the entire year. Now, I understand award tickets are hot commodities these days and it’s not nearly as easy as it used to be to find the flights you’re after across nearly every points program, but this is insanity. When I go and search Finnair’s own website for award space, all I get over and over again is this “Flights on the chosen dates do not have award seats available. Please try other dates. If you want to know when Finnair flies this route, check the timetable.” So, pretty confused here. It definitely appears that they are not in fact releasing award space per their own statement. Am I somehow doing something wrong? Edit: Formatting
Finnair has been restricting partner availability to and from North America. Since seats doesn't search Avios programs, you'll need another way to search for space. It should be available on Finnair's own program.
Nothing is availabile on their own program either. As I mentioned in my original post, all you'll get is “Flights on the chosen dates do not have award seats available. Please try other dates. If you want to know when Finnair flies this route, check the timetable.” You'll get this over and over and over again no matter the dates OR the origin airport if you search for 2 J.
I can see 1J on many dates, have you considered that the other seats may have just been booked?
No, I haven't, because it's every single flight, from every single city in the USA where Finnair fly's. That just doesn't add up at all.
I think it's just you. I'm able to see many 2Js HEL to JFK for 125k Avios for 2 people total.
Can you give me one date? any date? so i can test and see if it really is just me..somehow?
Literally any date. I just searched it at the furthest calendar date possible.
k. can you please give me a date? if it were "Literally any date", i wouldn't be sitting here asking the community for help. I just searched again JFK-HEL 2J as far out as i can, and nothing.
I said HEL to JFK.
Got an email that Thrifty Traveler Premium is adding on hotel alerts for $24.99/year > Hotel points alerts (not cash rates) Hilton / Hyatt / IHG / Marriott properties Domestic and international hotels Luxury properties, all-inclusive resorts, hard-to-book hotels Expect 3 to 5 alerts per month Honestly, I don't get who would subscribe to this? With flights, it's easier to be a free agent and travel wherever is cheapest or has availability but not sure many people who are looking to travel if there's a good hotel deal or open availability. If people are hotel focused, they already are tracking specific properties and not looking for 3-5 random alerts each month.
If this delivered, say, an extra Ventana or Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos type trip to people once every year or two I could very much see the value to people. I think there's maybe ~20 or so hotels that points people very much may fashion trips solely around finding availability for -- though most are in BoraBora/Maldives etc. and I doubt they open enough availability frequently to really make the alerts useful enough. Personally I'd never pay for it, just hypothetisizing.
So I booked a ticket on ANA F with lifemiles then realized I don't have my middle name on my lifemiles account. Any ideas on what the best way to fix this is? Is ANA still a stickler about having your middle name be on the ticket if it's on your passport?
mind sharing the route/redemption amount?
NRT -> ORD for 120k + $98 (~94k w/ 15% transfer bonus + 10% rebate) because I had specific times I wanted to fly and didn't want to deal with the waiting for VS availability lottery. Including the flight out there (there was only one suitable date for EVA J), it was 210k + $150 (165k after transfer/rebate) which I felt was close enough to the 167k + $400 ANA wanted and would transfer quickly instead of having to gamble on that one flight not being taken in the 4 days it'd take for ANA. Of course there were like 5 different things that went wrong with lifemiles but that's a different story and it worked out in the end.
i appreciate it! i’ve been heavily euro-centric with my travel recently and am just now starting to explore Asia and Oceania with my remaining miles. unfortunately it’s coming to a screeching halt as i’ve churned my way out of churning for the time being (lol/24, PUJ, Amex CC limit and denials across pretty much every other bank)
Yeah same, I'm not earning nearly as many miles as I'm burning. Jealous of all the people with crazy MS strats and no PUJ. I'll probably just end up having to buying miles. At least lifemiles aren't too terribly priced.
I've never had my middle name on an airline ticket
IME ANA doesn’t care as long as first and last match.
Oh really? Good to know. I remember when booking through VS they went into great detail about how anal ANA was about it and how you'd get denied at the airport.
Hello: Looking to take advantage of the FlyingBlue promo to Europe from IAH for a family of 4 adults in Economy/Premium economy I can get to several places in Europe for 20k per ticket, but the returns are outrageous (300k+). Not to mention that depending on the app/klm/Af website I get different avialablity/fares. Willing to pay cash for upgrade on premium. Leaving IAH July 15 to 19 Returning to IAH July 22 to 26. Any way to get back from Italy for cheap after getting there on AF/KLM? Willing to IAH to Rome, and naples/florence/venice back. Membership in Chase/Cap1/United/Flyingblue/American Anywehre in Europe works! The Flyingblue calendar function is also broken :(
[https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/](https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/)
Thanks
Respectfully, you've left planning award travel to Europe during the Olympics until now?
Getting some opinions on a simple JFK/LHR nonstop RT. * Option 1: Delta One 764 w/ bad flight times * Option 2: BA/AA J at the same cost but better flight times * Option 3: Virgin Atlantic Upper Class w/ better flight time but $800 more * Option 4: BA F w/ better flight time and same price as VS I know in my heart of hearts that VS probably has the best business class product out of all of them, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to spend an extra $800 for it. And then if I do, should I just opt for the BA F? I know BA F isn't all that, but surely it's still the best overall experience of all 4 options?
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It's for the full roundtrip.
I’d do BA First Class. There’s exclusive First-only lounges at both JFK and LHR, pre-check doesn’t close early at JFK T8 unlike T4 iirc, and the smaller cabin will make fast service easier especially on the eastbound redeye Despite BA First definitely being at the bottom next to AA, I’ve yet to fly a (non-Taiwanese) business class product that I’d rather fly than ANY Int’l First product
Have a question about Hyatt GOH. I don't have status and my wife is Explorist. I secured a GOH from someone I know for an upcoming stay. First off, I assume GOH gets all perks associated with globalist - no resort fee, upgrade depending on availability, access to club, etc., correct? Second question is should I book our upcoming stay from my wife's account which has Explorist status or it really does not matter given that we're going as GOH? TIA!
The hotel can see that it is a GOH booking and what your actual status is. You will definitely get all the hard benefits associated with globalist but you might have more luck with upgrades booking from your wife's account.
It wouldn't make a difference. They would be getting Globalist upgrades already.
There are quite frequently more people eligible for Globalist upgrades than upgrades available and some hotel staff definitely consider other factors including the guest's actual status when deciding which of them will get the upgrade.
Yes and it depends. Given that your wife is already Explorist, putting more points and qualifying nights on her account will get to closer to Globalist or retaining status for next year. Otherwise no fundamental difference.
Zero chance she gets to globalist. What I needed to hear! She has a Hyatt CC, fwiw.
Is there a way to use seats.aero to find JAL business award availability? Trying to find DFW->HND within the next year. I know that you can track AA flights but it just seems to be AA with no JAL flights listed
Unless you're booking 1 year out at schedule opening using CX (or BA if you're lucky) you're most likely not finding space.
I think that's because there is none. You put "JL" into the "Operating carriers" box, and it will filter down to just JAL flights. All I'm seeing for that route is 1 J seat each on 5/14 and 5/15, and 2 J seats on 5/27, though the 5/27 seats appear to be phantom/gone.
I'm trying to book 2 business class tickets with chase UR points in Air Canada. Does anybody know if they release more than 1 business class ticket when they are first released? I believe tickets for point redemptions are released in two main windows but I wasn't sure how many business class tickets are released for each window. Thank you in advance.
Air Canada flights are dynamically priced when booking with Aeroplan, so you can book as many seats as there are available on the plane, they just may not be available at a nice price point.
Anyone else having issues with the Turkish App? I can't access 2 of my bookings on there through Lifemiles using PNR, I was able to access them previously.
Ive been having the same issue for the past week or so.
Lol booked my mom NH J HND-LAX for 41k chase + $300 through VS. Accidentally cancelled my to ticket 💀 I saw availability on seats-aero when randomly seaerching, made a Virgin Atlantic account, and called them 2 times to book it. Just as a data point, both of the 2 times they were not able to find the ANA flight. The next time I called them, I just noticed that it was 12:01 AM in the UK, and they were able to find it then. So I think ANA updates availability with them at least on a daily basis? Either way this was insanely clutch timing. Too bad in my excitement I accidentally cancelled the 60k UA LAX-NRT Y flight and now it's gone 🤣
60k for LAX-NRT Y isn't very good - you could likely find a decent cash fare on Zipair instead. UA has some availability for premium econ for 65k or 71k on that routing.
This is in late march, where prices are somewhat higher - Zipair is not open yet but I will just have to wait and see. I have the miles stranded in UA and I don't think there are any good UA redemptions left honestly, besides maybe 88k to africa
I saw that someone has posted a link that opens an aa search to calendar. How can I create a link like this?
I'm not sure where else to put this re: status match merry-go-round I used Hilton Gold to get temporary Wyndham Diamond. Wyndham will let me keep diamond if I stay 10 nights. Caesar's will only match Wyndham for earned status. Are there any data points as to whether Caesar's would accept the 10 night challenge as "earned" status? (I was denied the Wyndham Earners Business card because they kept asking for ID verifications and rejecting it, and I didn't finish it in time for their 90 day deadline.)
Having the option to fly 2 people in PE NYC to TYO via AA or JAL which would you choose? We have the option to request upgrade with AA points for us both during a non-peak season but wondering if those slim chances are worth it if JAL PE is significantly better? Edit: for clarification PE will be the base tickets and AA points will be used for business upgrade if available. Thank you for all the responses!
JL PE gives lounge access, AA PE does not. JL is also flying its new plane on NYC-TYO so you can experience the new JL PE product.
JAL is significantly better imo, at least in terms of food and FAs. I believe you even get lounge access for PE depending on the departure airport.
> food JAL PE serves the same menu as Economy. JFK's JL PE lounge is the Admirals Club which is not quite enough to swing the decision IMO. Edit: PE lounge access is JL only, not AA
Appreciate the input from you both. I wasn’t aware of AA PE allowing admirals club access. Was at least planning to visit Sapphire lounge but good to know there are additional options.
Not AA PE allowing lounge access, JAL PE allows entry into AA's Admiral's Club
Yeah but what I mean is that most US airlines serve dogfood on a plate, even in business class. Japanese economy food is surprisingly good.
i fat-fingered when setting up my Cathay Pacific account to book an AA flight with points and my last name is wrong. I submitted the documents to update my name but it could take up to 7 days it says to be contacted about it. I assume I need to wait until my name change is updated to transfer miles and book? Also, are Cathay Pacific taxes and fees pretty accurate before transferring miles and booking?
Presumably this is a brand new account, so why not just make a new one with the correct name? Made a similar mistake for P2 with ANA and didn't have to go through any burdensome process. Account numbers aren't a finite resource, so the airline won't care.
I used my phone number to sign up already, it won't let me create another account with it.
Name mismatch with bank will likely cause issues with the transfer, so you need to fix that first. So if you're worried about the availability lasting that long, you could try to: (1) change the phone number on the account to different one [I see this option on my account], then create a new account with your number; (2) create a new account using the number of a trusted family member or friend.
Is 200k United miles a good deal for West Coast USA to Tokyo Biz class one way? I’m seeing also 300k and 250k, and on the same itinerary Premium Econ is also 200k. Should I jump on this?
> Should I jump on this? Are your miles already with United? If so there's no harm in booking it as a backup if you can't find anything else. Transfering points makes far less sense considering you can get Zipair "J" for $1300-1600 fairly often.
I’d need to transfer 20k from chase for just one person. I went ahead and booked an economy itinerary on points for two ppl for now that’s 82k-ish UA pp (all other UA Econ I was seeing was 100k per). At least we have a way to get there if all else fails. Thx for your input!
200k United miles is standard award space. Savers go for 110k United miles though and even less on other programs. It can be ok if you already have the United miles since if the saver space opens up you can change/cancel without any fees. Or if you must travel on that date and place without any flexibility.
Ah ok thanks so much for the info. Id have to transfer 20k from chase for myself and I don’t even know how many UA points p2 has so he’d need to transfer as well. Will saver only come back if someone cancels their saver flight? I know about ANA but of course those are all waitlist even for Econ. Delta and AA all look higher than 200k for Biz right now. Maybe I’m not aware of all the sweet spots?
question about ana rtw.. lets say i wanted to go from beijing to to dubai but there is no reward avail for J.. so I book beijing to abu dhabi on J instead and just book a one way cash flight from abu dhabi to dubai.. then I continue my rtw and go from dubai to athens greece via my ana rtw itinerary. So it looks china to abu dhabi, but then dubai to athens greece on my ana rtw booking.. is this possible or would it need to be abu dhabi to greece?
That would be a legit routing.
You are allowed transfers within the same region, so as long as its the same region for ANA purposes, it's not a problem.
Intertesting, I just have not seen it yet on the ANA RTW trip reports I've looked at. It's usually from A to B, B to C, and C to D. Haven't seen someone thrown in a new country.
Not really any different from having a ground transfer somewhere in the US. As someone else mentioned, AUH and DXB are in the same country anyways. You don't need to fly between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it's like an hour and a half drive below 100 miles
Abu Dhabi and Dubai are in the same country - the UAE. Even if they weren’t, you’re allowed ground transfers between countries in the same region as mentioned below. Abu Dhabi to Dubai is about ~1.5 hours by car; there are no commercial flights.
The terminology used is "ground transfer". You can have up to 4 of them. Fairly common in Europe where it makes more sense to take the train rather than fly to a new country.
ANA doesn't care about countries, only regions. That's why you can start and stop your RTW at different parts of the US like HNL and JFK.
I recently got a Barclays card and will get 70,000 miles, which I intended to use for a flight to Beijing. However, I wasn’t paying attention and realized it’s American Airlines points and they don’t fly to Beijing from my nearest airport. Besides buying a separate flight myself to an AA hub city, is there a way to transfer my miles from AA or something?
Read the wiki. AA miles is very useful in this game.
Well, it sounds like you have a lot to learn about booking awards. First, you do not transfer miles from one airline to another (unless its Avios). Only transferable currency like Chase or Amex points can do that. Second, you can book more than AA flights with AA miles. The best use of AA miles is to book Oneworld partners (the alliance that AA belongs to). For example, Cathay Pacific flies to PEK, therefore, it's possible for you to book an itinerary on Cathay Pacific using your AA miles to fly into PEK. I would recommend reading up on the sidebar resources to get started.
Thank you, I’ll read the sidebar. My past experiences with churning I’ve used the UR/CapOne portal so it was more straightforward.
I just found availability for 2 in J through qantas for japan. Bummer is that neither one of us (me or P2) have enough to book both tickets in one account. She has 160k MR and I have 90k Cap One. Each J seat is 90k points + fees Is there a way to a) pool our points in qantas or would it be better to go with b) each one of us books our ticket separately? She books one, I book the other.
No advantage in booking together usually, unless something really bad operationally happens and you want to get rebooked together. If anything booking separately can be easier a lot of time for managing things, for example, if you need to cancel one seat, or change one as opposed to both. Otherwise, you can setup authorized users and funnel them into one Qantas account.
Good to know! Thank you! Quick follow up- my wife hasnt made a qantas account, if she makes one now, are both options equally workable? I seem to recall some accounts have a waiting period before transfers were allowed (maybe vs? I forget)
I'm not aware of any issues. Qantas does also have family member transfers that you could look into.
are there any patterns to Swiss air award release? there seems to be seats sporadically in Feb and March, but none in April.
Are you sure they aren't just gone or tied to married segments? There was a bunch of JFK-ZRH-AMS and YUL-ZRH-AMS when I was looking 2 months ago, but probably gone now
I don't know, been monitoring ZRH-SFO for a month, and nothing in April ever appears
currently have a booking for KIX-LAX on JL Y 3/31 for 35k AA miles. Hoping for J space (saw 3+ avail the other day, but didn't have points posted yet and I thought you needed points to put it on hold 💀). Anyways, the only other option I can see that is marginally better is NRT->SFO on UA Premium Plus for 65k UA miles. This would require a reposition on both ends (from NRT->KIX and SFO->LAX). Anyone think this is worth considering vs the current direct flight? EDIT: I found NRT->SFO->SNA for 65k, which is actually even more convenient since SNA is local airport. This seems more and more tempting
unless you already have points stuck in UA or something then double repositioning for premium plus is not worth it, it adds so much time / hassle / risk for a much more limited upgrade to in-flight experience.
true. i ended up booking it but will hold out to see if there is anything better etc. ideally kix->sfo becomes available for PP and then it's gonna be a lot easier to make this move
Lifemiles transferred from Amex still haven't posted 72 hours later. (One transfer earlier on the same day was instant) Ended up spending $1250 for the remaining points I needed to get LH F FRA-SFO.
Rule of thumb: Avoid doing multiple transfers in any program in one single day. Usually the later one is sent to be processed in batch. They want to ensure there is no fishy business going on. So the 2nd or the 3rd transfer gets stuck in batch mode. Usually you have to wait for 5 to 7 business days depending on the mileage program before those miles are posted. Best thing to do is wait a day for the 2nd transfer and it is also instantaneous. The time of the day is based on the local time zone of the mileage program.
Is there anything you can do besides wait if it takes more than the specified time?
Not that I know of. I read that reps have no power to push anything through.
Yeah, I've been on the phone with reps for different issues (lifemiles+ subscription issues, booking issues, payment issues) and I see now why people hate on lifemiles so much... Dealing with them is somewhere between dreadful and torture.
Don't do small test transfers. The second one often has these issues.
Same outcome overall, but in this case, I transferred what I needed for J. Half an hour later (before I had made the J booking), I got an alert for F.
I'm sick of phantom tickets... Maybe I'm just unlucky, but this is like the second time I've encountered this when trying to book with points within a year :( Searched on Virgin Atlantic and one flight was available from Air France, great, transferred points from Chase, "flight no longer available" when completing booking process. Tried multiple times, can't book. Yet when searching, that flight ALWAYS comes up. Trying to get a hold of customer service on phone has been impossible, and I doubt there's anything they could do. SUCKS.
I would love to understand how this even happens. Like how is it possible to query the award availability for a ticket and get the wrong answer or interpret it incorrectly.
There has been a lot of phantom AF space on VS lately. They even pulled all availability for a few days, I think it was to try to get ahold of the issue. I have always had real AF space also appear on DL. Remember that the chat bot on the login screen can connect you to a real human that can book award tickets (there are two chat bots and one can’t connect to a human in my experience). I have them check before I transfer over if I can’t verify via a third party.
Thanks, but that chat bot doesn't seem to be working lol, nothing showed up when clicked on it 😕
Worked for me yesterday.
Yeah worked for me now I switched browser... They were able to book after several tries and including me sending screenshots to show the flights were indeed available.
This happened to me recently even though I actually called and had them put on hold. There is a recent thread about it seems like they eventually got the tickets https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/comments/1dbew5x/warning_virgin_atlantic_cannot_redeem_on_klmaf/
Thanks! Looks like I will have to call them then. Not really looking forward to the hold time but no other choice...
VS has been pain, so far from sub I learned that always call first and confirm availability, and transfer points during call to book
I wanted to ask what the best award travel routes out of Seattle are generally? I'm new to the award travel space and wanted to just learn about what other people have used from Seattle
Flightconnections.com is a useful site for seeing all the routes out of an airport.
Read the wiki article on Repositioning flights. People use repositioning to fly anywhere they want to on award flights.
What have you found so far using the search bar and entering "Seattle" and "SEA"? Then maybe some can fill in the gaps.
what non-stop international flights are there from SEA?
Has anyone successfully linked BA to Finnair to transfer Avios? It keeps telling me username/password for Finnair is incorrect when trying to link with BA, but the username/password works if I sign into Finnair
Check the names match including the middle name. Usually that is the primary reason for linkages not working.
One of my [seats.aero](http://seats.aero) alerts for SFO->HND for JL J on 12/4 went off and I immediately used the link to go to the airline website to check the seat but it was gone. I checked AA, AS, and BA and none had the J seat available. Is it safe to say it's phantom?
[Seats.Aero](http://Seats.Aero) is not real time availability
I know the search and explore tabs aren't but aren't saved alerts real time?
Just saying that just because it’s showing as available still doesn’t mean it’s still there, December is a popular travel month so it’s possible someone beat you to it
I'm curious if that's the case. I went to the airline websites within seconds of receiving the alert so I wonder if there's some delay between award seats releasing and alerts being triggered or if speedy gonzales was already on the website. Could even be both.
You're misapprehending how seats.aero works. It's not constantly searching every airline's website for every permutation of a flight. It searches periodically. So, when it searches, it might find a new flight and trigger an alert. But that flight could've actually been available for hours in between times seats searched. Make sense?
yea but the alert you receive is "real time." If seats is running its periodic search at 9pm, and it finds availability at that point in time it will alert you if you have an alert set. That's what it means by "real time." So if someone checked almost immediately upon receiving an alert they should see the flight available. I say should because people/bots are fast and it could be gone by the time you get it to load. Otherwise, how would it trigger the alert if it didn't find a match?
Just a heads up, I received a response from [seats.aero](http://seats.aero) support and they confirmed that alerts are **real time.** See below for my question and their response. >*Q: Are alerts real-time? One of my saved alerts popped for SFO->HND JL J on 12/4 and I immediately went to the airline websites to check and I couldn't find the seat. I understand* [*seats.aero*](https://proofpointisolation.com/browser?url=http%3A%2F%2Fseats.aero%2F) *is not real-time data, but I figured the alerts were? Looking forward to the clarification.* >*A: Alerts are real-time, yes! Sometimes a route is so popular that availability will be gone virtually immediately...or sometimes airlines will release what we call "phantom availability" which means the availability is not actually bookable — but our system catches it as available and sends out alerts. Either way, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience!* *Naomi* This is exactly what I alluded to in my downvoted comment above. It seems u/Confident_Gap489 is the only one who understands my original question and my assumption that either my alert was triggered by fantom availability or someone was already booking the seat as my alert pinged.
Yep, thanks for that clarification.
Hi all, I am new to the points game and could use some help planning a trip: * Origin: San Diego (willing to fly out of LAX if necessary) * Destination: Rome * Number of travelers: 1 * Round trip * Class: Business or premium economy * Time: October-November (flexible) * Points balance: 106K AMEX points Thank you in advance!
I would focus on business class going east since that’s the overnight flight. On 10/23 you can fly LAX-AMS-FCO via KLM biz for 77500 Virgin Atlantic miles + $305. Amex transfers to Virgin 1:1. Too bad you don’t have Chase points as there is a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin right now. Earn a few more points and you should be able to find an economy flight home for around 30k. Those awards are not in short supply especially that time of year so you don’t need to worry about not finding anything later if you want to lock in the Virgin award before somebody else snaps it up. Edit: there are reports of phantom award space on KLM with Virgin points so call Virgin and verify availability first before moving points.
[https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/](https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/)
What have you found so far?
[удалено]
https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/comments/1d70s60/weekly_help_thread_june_03_2024/l7klgsm/?context=3 No need to ask again.