FF availability - comes and goes?
 

Can anybody tell me the reasoning behind why some flights can be available one day for FF miles and gone the next? I waited, evidently one day too long, and the flight we were looking for using Delta SkySaver (25,000) points is now only open for SkyChoice (50,000). AUUGHHHHHH!!!!!!

ccolor.....No, there will be no one here who can explain.Can the airlines? No once again.Try here one minute, gone the next.

I think that ff flights are completely available until one tries to book them. And then they are either closed; or available only for a higher mileage award!

I've tried many times & always without success.

Different airline, but one evening I checked availability for going to GC - clicked on every week for the next year. Then, the minute when flights opened up (the 330 days thing) I called immediately. Nothing available.

I had also checked using Premium points and behold, there were all kinds of dates avaialable.

Bottom line, I don't think there are just regular FF seats available for flights to certain areas. Anyone know for sure?

PS Got my flight using double the points.

Forgot to explain - when I checked dates for an entire year - it said Sold Out on every date.

I feel your pain. I had over 100K miles and wanted to go to Hawaii in first class by buying an economy ticket and using 30K miles for the upgrade.
I thought it was easy until I called and got really frustrated. The best option the agent gave me was to be gone for 15 days - not an option for me.

I had known about a site expertflyer.com that allows you to search for fares using airline codes. In my case, I was looking for flights with available seats on an A code - Ex: A5 means that there are 5 seats available to use your miles for an upgrade. Anyway, this helped me search for the flights I wanted and provided flexible dates, etc. Just to give you an idea, I purchased my ticket on May 31st for a flight to Hawaii at the end of August and the process was a lot easier.

If you want to use your miles, consider getting a subscription to expertflyer - only $10/mth - you can cancel later.
Or post your preferred travel dates and location and I can search for you.

good luck

There are only a limited amount of Skysaver seats. A likely explanation is that between the time you saw the Skysaver option and the following day, someone else reserved those seats. Next time, if you see Skysaver seats on flights you want, you should put it on hold immediately.

You should keep checking back. Perhaps whoever reserved the seats didn't want them afterall and they'll go back into inventory.

Some flights never have any FF seats on them, some have several. Several articles in travel sections of Boston Globe and NY Times recently about how much more difficult it has been to redeem miles - charts showing number of accumulated miles versus how many FF tickets redeemed per year - wish I could remember dates of article - but it was not an encouraging picture.

Also mentioned that more seats require FF miles over 25,000 for domestic - so in response to your question, I suspect FF availability goes but it does not come back. I try to view miles as unearned potential, not a guarantee that I can ever use it.

gail,
I'm don't know if I understood your comment correctly, but as far as Delta award inventory goes (as well as inventory on many DL partners), availability does fluctuate often - both increase and decrease, not just decrease ;)

I generally need to change my award reservations once or twice before departure so monitor availability frequently. I ticketed a November LAX-ATL flight back in April. At the time my only morning choice was a 6:00am flight, so I waitlisted the 7:20am and 8:20am. A couple of weeks ago, the 7:20am cleared and I changed to that one. Today I checked and the 8:20am also has Skysaver availability though I think I'm just going to keep what I have.

I've also been checking December JFK-LAX availability for several weeks and while I was on hold with Delta getting my waitlisted flight reissued, the JFK-LAX flight I needed became available.

AFAIK all airlines integrate their yield management software with award seat release. They will do an initial release at T-330 days (or whatever timeframe they use) then add or subtract additional award inventory depending on how well the flight is selling, and in what fare categories ("buckets.") It means that you can check back and not see the same inventory from one day to the next, although most people need to commit sooner rather than later.

ExpertFlyer is great, but not all airlines make their award inventories "visible" to EF. I can't see many of Delta's award inventories, for example.

Question for Patty. Are you doing this online? Can you hold Sky Saver flights without actually purchasing them? Also, how do you upgrade from coach to first class using skymiles (on line or do you have to call)? Can you upgrade to first class on any flights or only the ones listed for SkySaver flights?

Since the majority of my itineraries involve a combination of airlines, I reserve by phone. But if it's a Delta only itinerary, you should be able to put it on hold online. To upgrade using miles, you need to purchase an upgradeable economy ticket (this can cost substantially more than the lowest coach fare available). Upgrade space comes from different fare classes than award space and you can't check it on delta.com. The best thing to do is call Delta to check upgrade availability and ask them for the cost of an upgradeable ticket.

And yes, just like award inventory, upgrade inventory is limited and not available on every flight.

Patty:

Thanks for the informational answers. You've played this game before, haven't you? <grin>

We have a couple months to go so I'll wait it out and see if the flight opens up again - if not, we'll bite the bullet and get one with SkyChoice points and just purchase the other.

Just an update to anybody that cares. The flights I missed earlier this month just came open again and we were able to snag them with SkySaver miles instead of SkyChoice.

Now instead of "walkin' to New Orleans" we're gonna fly!!!!

(And I learned a valuable lesson about putting off getting tickets when I see a good deal)

Lucky you! Thanks for the update.

Congrats!