michelleNYC

My apologies if this question seems a bit ignorant. My fiance cashed in his points for a free European ticket on Continental via Chase. Unfortunately, he cannot use the ticket (before it expires at the end of November) but they are allowing him to transfer it to my name. Ok... so, I decided that I would go to Berlin to visit a girlfriend of mine but there are no direct flights to Berlin on Continental -- only to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, etc. You must trasfer in these cities via flights operated by other airlines but still within the Star Alliance. Continental will no allow me to use the ticket for flights which are not direct and, thus, operated by another airline. Does this make sense? What I would then need to do is get to Frankfurt and then pay for a flight to Berlin? Yes? Never had to deal with this before therefore your help is very much appreciated. Thanks!!

tcreath

I'm not too familiar with award tickets or Germany (having only visited Munich) but it would probably be easier to get to Berlin from Frankfurt via train. According to the German rail website, there is an ICE train that takes 4 hours 20 minutes to get from Frankfurt to Berlin. That would probably be easier than flying. Here is the website if you want to take a look:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

Jocelyn_P

To get from Frankfurt to Berlin, you can also check
www.whichbudget.com

It's sort of like an expedia for budget European carriers.

mclaurie

"You must trasfer in these cities via flights operated by other airlines but still within the Star Alliance." "Continental will no allow me to use the ticket for flights which are not direct and, thus, operated by another airline."

Does this make sense?

Not to me. I don't know what you're talking about. If this is a Continental airlines reward, they should have a partner that can get you to Berlin. Who's in this Star alliance?

I agree worst case scenario you can either train from Frankfurt or wherever is close to Berlin or try one of the low cost airlines listed on whichbudget.com or skyscanner.net. but I would check whether one of their "star alliance" carriers flies from here to Berlin.

KT

I'm not a Continental FF, but based on every other airline I've used for FF travel, no it doesn't make sense. They should allow you to book travel that includes a flight operated by a Star Alliance partner if that flight is a codeshare with Continental. For example, KLM operates flights from Amsterdam to Berlin that are codeshares with Continental.

Patrick

This may be the sticking point: Once on AA I cashed in miles and was booking my trip the maximum 11 months ahead. Because they could only hold one segment at a time, and then I'd have to call back the appropriate number of days to book the next segment, they wrote up the ticket as if I was traveling totally on American. When I tried to add a segment from London to Naples, Italy, it seems they couldn't do it. Normally it would be allowed, using British Air, but because they had already started the ticket coded for American only, they would not let me add that BA segment. I never made it clear at the beginning that I wanted to add in that part on another airline.
So, since this ticket was already issued and perhaps was already issued as one that uses Continental only, it may be that they won't let you re-code the ticket to allow Alliance partners, even though if you had done that originally it would have been allowed? Do you follow that?

KT

I do believe Patrick is onto something. I somehow missed the part about changing from an already issued ticket. Airlines do have different rules for that than for booking from scratch.

rkkwan

First, we should be talking about Skyteam, not Star Alliance. CO is part of Skyteam, which whose European members include KLM, Air France, Alitalia and Czech CSA.

I don't know why they won't you connect on a partner airline, but others are correct that your closest CO destination will be Frankfurt. [CO's Berlin flights won't start until July 05.]

Also, call CO again, and ask them again about not able to fly on a partner airline. The first agent you talked to might have been wrong.

michelleNYC

Ok... I finally received an answer. The Chase certificate has a certain code on it which specifies that the awards ticket may ONLY be used on Continental flights -- not code shares, nothing. Oh well. I found a good flight from Frankfurt to Berlin for $200. The train trip was just too long. Well, thank you all for your assistance and responses. I learned something new today.