spiegelcjs

I am posting this on the main board because I cannot find the thread, if there is one on award travel.

I know that you cannot book award seats more than 331 days in advance. In fact I just found out you cannot book any tickets further than 331 days ahead. Anyway this is the big question:

When you book the outbound 331 days in advance you cannot book the return at the same time and cannot book an open return. This is with United. Others may be different. If you wait until the 331 days before your return, than the possibility of getting the outbound is a problem. I have called the airline several different times and talked with several agents and the story is the same: wait until 331 days before your return. WE are planing on about 21 days for this trip. We are trying to go in the middle of June to take advantage of the lower rates at the lodges. Any comments on this would also be welcome.
Does anyone on this board have any suggestions.

Thanks

Patty

I'm not that familiar with UA. I know their standard award hold is only 72 hours, but I thought that they also had some provision for booking the outbound at 331 days and return later. Have you tried searching the Mileage Plus board at flyertalk.com? You may have to register first to search. I would start with a search using the words "award hold 331 days". I believe I've read a few threads there that mention this specific issue.

Where are you going? Good luck!

Patty

Here's one thread I found. Try using different wording variations in your search and you should find a few others - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ferrerid=18562

Ericka

Spiegelcjs -

What the UA agents are telling you is true (and unfortunate). There is no way to hold the outbound flight for any length of time longer than 3 days. You'll want to wait until the return flights are in the system, be as flexible with your dates as possible and then call and call and call until you get what you need. My husband is a UA 1K and I can tell you that it always works out one way or another. Just be persistent.

Jed

2 years ago, wanting to go to NZ for 3 weeks, using USAir FF points for BC, I called 331 days before and reserved the seats, but told them that this was contingent on getting the return in 3 weeks. I did not give any miles, they kept the reservation for 3 weeks, and when I called again, the seats were available, and at that time I paid with the FF miles.

Sorry you can't get anyone at UA to agree with your plan.

bat

Unfortunately US Air does not seem to be willing to do that anymore. They are now saying only a 3 day hold.

Patty

bat,
Will US let you ticket and add the return later without a fee? That's the procedure with DL now since they've gone to 2 day award holds. They're requiring you to ticket one way and call back for the return at which time the reissue fee is waived. However, that doesn't guarantee that there will be seats available or a schedule to your liking.

BTW I was able to change my DAR-AMS-YVR-LAX return to DAR-AMS-JFK-LAX over the weekend. I'm quite happy about that. Saves us from having an 8 hour layover in AMS (I know we'd be too tired to try to see anything) and having to go through Canadian and US immigration

Ericka

You can have UA issue the tickets with your chosen outbound flight and any return flight that is currently in the system. Then, when the return flight that you really want comes into the system, you can call back and have them change the ticket (for a fee if you are not 1k). The problem with this is that they actually have to CANCEL the whole itinerary and rebook because of the date change. I DON'T recommend this because once the outbound trip is cancelled, there is no guarantee the seats will come back into the system or that you will be the first to snatch them, especially if they are on a partner airline. I did this once and lost all of my flights - talk about learning the hard way!

Are you planning to fly coach, biz or first? If you are planning to fly coach, don't worry about it. They release those seats more readily than the biz and first.

bat

Patty:
DL is more generous that USAir--at least based on what I am currently being told. At first I was told I could not book a one way at all but then an agent said I would have to book, give the miles (same # as roundtrip), and then when I added the return there would be a $100 change fee. But Ericka's comments have me worried about that strategy.)

[USAir is a mess right now because of the Am West merger--if I had read flyertalk a couple of months ago I might have focused on a diff airline--but we had a base of ff miles with it, whereas I had wiped out DL with the Feb Africa trip.]

Congrats on the itinerary change. What do you do--keep checking the NWA website for availability?

Ericka, since you don't recommend the change ticket stategy, what do you do?

Patty

I've been checking the NW site on and off since I ticketed our reservations. I also had some flights (2 LAX-ATL ones and 1 AMS-ATL-LAX) waitlisted at the time of ticketing. I noticed on Monday that one of my waitlisted LAX-ATL flights was showing award availability but hadn't automatically cleared, so contacted DL. Prior to calling, I also checked to see if there were any better return flights but there were none. The AMS-JFK-LAX routing literally became available while I was on the phone with DL, and I got it changed thanks to a very proactive agent (more details in my updated we might be going to back Africa thread). So it was purely by luck that I got those flights

Good luck with US!

Ericka

I think the trick with any of these airlines is to ask an agent the following..."If I change the return flight after the itinerary is TICKETED, is it really a change in the system, or do you have to cancel and reissue?" If it is a cancel and reissue, those seats go back into the system and they may never come back. However, if it really is just a change, then this would be a really good strategy. Maybe even worth the price of the change fee.

What we did this last time was once we were within 3/4 days of the return date being in the system, we put the outbound and a random return flight on HOLD. Then when our real return date came into the system, we were able to change the held itinerary and ticket everything on the spot.

Still, I have a tendancy to get worked up about this stuff for no reason - as long as you are booking 10 - 11 months in advance, you should still be able to get a good itinerary. At least, that is the case with the Star Alliance.

Lots of luck to everyone!

Patty

bat,
I think each airline treats this differently. With DL, tickets can be reissued without losing the segments you want to keep. I think the key question to ask is whether whatever transaction you're contemplating will cause your seat with go back into inventory. Perhaps it's a matter of ticketing a dummy return now and changing it later. I don't know the specific of US well enough. I would ask 3 or 4 different agents and see if you can get any uniform answers

And since award inventory fluctuates constantly, I don't think that it's absolutely critical to book at the first possible moment though if you can you should certainly try. I generally can't plan that far in advance so typically book between 3-6 months. This most recent itinerary at 7+ months is probably the farthest out I've ever booked an award. OTOH I tend to do an obsessive amount of research which helps.

I have an unrelated question for you - do you remember what time the KLM check-in desk at DAR opened and whether the Tanzanite lounge was air conditioned?