All You Need to Know About Star Alliance Award Bookings Using US Miles
The 60 Second Summary for the Uninitiated:
You can use your US Airways miles to redeem on Star Alliance carriers. You cannot do this online. You will usually save yourself significant frustration and have a more enjoyable trip if you invest time early on to carefully research the available carriers servicing the destination you wish to travel to.
Use any combination of the ANA tool, Air Canada website, Continental website, ExpertFlyer (paid service) or KVS Availability Tool (paid donation) to view award availability. Once you've pieced together an itinerary, call US Airways Dividend Miles Service Center (or your elite line #) to book it. There should be no phone booking fee, but there is an award processing fee. Plan carefully and note that a change or cancellation of the award will result in hefty fees unless you are a Chairman's Preferred member.
To get started, you will need:
- Patience
- Flexibility
- An ANA Frequent Flyer account (free)
- Time to research options (1-2 hours)
- Time to book the ticket(s) (up to 1-2 hours)
Important Links:
Important Notes:- An award booking can contain a maximum of ten segments.*
- Awards are booked in classes O, I, and X. O is used for first class, I for business class, and X for coach/economy class.
- One stopover (subject to conditions) is permitted on an award, or ONE open-jaw.* (This rule changed from two-stopovers to one stopover in Summer 2010.)
- Mileage is charged based on the most "expensive" transited region.*
- Stopovers must be at the inbound carrier's hub airport. For example to stopover in London, you must arrive into London on BD.*
- MPM and routing restrictions are loosely enforced.
- You cannot combine Star Alliance and non-Star Alliance carriers on one booking.
- US will charge a fee to cancel an itinerary and redeposit the miles, and it's expensive - $150 to $250, waived for Chairman's members only.
- US will charge a mandatory award processing fee on all award travel ($25-$50).
- A quick ticketing fee of $75 is charged for awards booked within 14 days of travel. Chairman's and Platinum members are exempted from this fee.
- Agents will occassionally make use of the Star Alliance website to review routings.
- After any complex itinerary is built, it will be sent to the rate desk. This process can take from 5-30 minutes or more.
- US will allow itineraries to be placed on hold, subject to the TTL restrictions of the carriers included on the res. Plan on between 24-72 hours, except for itineraries including SQ-operated segments, which must be ticketed immediately.
- Although not permitted by rule, multiple individuals have been offered RTW itineraries for the price of the region-to-region travel.
- Agents are generally very friendly but not well trained. One may allow/disallow something that another would/would not. If you are dissatisfied with a response you receive, politely hang up and call back later. Once notes are added to your PNR, you will almost certainly not get what you are looking for.
* = Although these are supposed to be "rules", there are reports of exceptions to these items.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Can I mix miles from multiple accounts?
No, but you can purchase miles to "top-up" an account, up to 50k miles per year per account (excluding promotions like 100% buy bonuses).
Can I use my miles to book a ticket for someone else?
Yes. Any fees for the issuance of the ticket are based on your status, not the status of the recipient.
Can I put an award on hold without the required number of miles?
Yes.
(Reported okay via PM - no link - as of 14 Oct. 2011 by kudzu - thanks!)
Can I make changes to an award after it's ticketed?
Yes, but only before travel begins. Almost all changes will result in fees (some significant).
Can I cancel an award after it's ticketed?
Yes (as long as travel hasn't commenced), but you won't get the miles or fees back*. (* = Chairman's members receive free mileage re-deposit - all others must pay a fee. Taxes will be refunded to all members.)
Can I mix airlines on an award?
Yes, as many as you wish, but only Star Alliance members (no partners like Virgin, QATAR, etc.). Star Alliance partners sometimes codeshare with other non-Star Alliance partners - these codeshare flights cannot be included on an itinerary. For example, Singapore Airlines has a wholly-owned subsidiary called SilkAir. Even though Singapore Airlines owns them, they are not part of the Star Alliance and you cannot use your miles to book flights on them.
Can I mix classes of service on an award (e.g. first class and coach)?
Yes, but you'll pay the higher mileage cost. Note - most carriers consider a two-class cabin to have coach and business, however some (e.g. US Airways, United [pre-merger], and Air China) consider a two-class cabin to have coach and first class. Be certain you are not charged the higher mileage for first if the aircraft only has two cabins.
I'm booked in [First, Business] but one of my flights is in [Business, Coach] - can I change it to the higher class?
Yes, before travel commences, you can change the class of service on a segment if a seat becomes available. There should be no cost to do this. Note that you must have paid the higher mileage rate when you originally ticketed the award.
(reported okay as of 27 Oct. 2011 by mercflight and confirmed by ArizonaGuy - thanks!)
Can I book one-way awards?
Yes, but there is no discount in terms of mileage cost - you'll pay the full round-trip mileage cost.
What if a flight on my award ticket is cancelled or changed?
Contact US Airways, ideally after you've researched your options using one of the tools referenced above.
What exactly does 'temporarily unavailable' mean on the award chart?
Your guess is as good as ours, since it has said that for several years now.
What about co-terminals (different airports in the same city or metropolitan area) - can I fly in from DCA and out from IAD?
Yes, and it should not count as an extra segment.
(reported okay as of 24 Oct. 2011 by dcpatti - thanks!)
Planning and Research:
A round-trip award booking is made up of multiple "segments". Each "segment" connects two cities together. It is best to piece together your itinerary segment by segment, and you may find it easier to start with the longest (or "hardest" to find) segments first.
For example, if you wish to fly from Tampa, Florida (TPA), to Cape Town, South Africa (CPT), the longest segment is probably going to be Europe->South Africa, and thus it would be best to find availability on this segment before all others. Yes, there are US->South Africa flights, but in such limited frequency that you would probably be better off searching via Europe (not to mention you can add a stopover there if you wish).
This is also the point at which it helps to really get to know the Star Alliance website so you understand which carriers fly to which cities so that you can maximize your routing options.
To get to CPT specifically, you will either fly direct from LHR, SIN, FRA, or IST (note some of these are non-stop and some are "direct" with a stop in JNB). To keep things simple, we'll exclude SIN and SQ from this example. Since there are relatively few flights to CPT direct, you would also want to consider a connecting flight from JNB (Johannesburg). European options to JNB include LHR, FRA, MUC, ZRH, IST, and CAI in Egypt.
So the first flight you may wish to search for would be LHR-CPT, FRA-CPT, or IST-CPT, or LHR-JNB, FRA-JNB, MUC-JNB, ZRH-JNB, IST-JNB, or CAI-JNB. Once you've found availability on that flight, then you'd look for something in the US to your European gateway city. From Tampa, logical connections at Star Alliance hubs might include CLT, IAD, PHL, ORD, EWR.
You "simply" repeat this process until you've got a whole trip pieced together. From Tampa to Cape Town, a likely routing might be TPA-CLT-MUC-JNB-CPT. The most direct routing would probably be TPA-EWR-LHR-CPT, but seats on the LHR-CPT segment can be difficult to find. The idea is to give yourself plenty of options for each segment, always keeping in mind that you can have a maximum of five segments for each leg of your trip (the outbound and the return).