mtkeller

1) How we got here

(If you have no interest in reading about the process I went through in using my SkyMiles for this trip, just jump to part 2.)

From autumn 2010 through summer 2012, I had the opportunity to work in London on a research fellowship immediately after completing my PhD. I'd never had much of a travel bug before taking that position, but since, I've become miles/points obsessed as a way to provide great travel opportunities for myself. In December 2011, I used miles to go to Australia for a conference in Melbourne and then spent a couple of weeks avoiding the dreary British winter. When planning that trip, I had toyed with doing a week in Oz and a week in NZ, but I quickly realized that would do neither country justice. Since I had a number of Aussie and Kiwi mates in London from playing tag rugby (Oztag), I wanted to be sure to explore both countries in a suitable manner. As an academic, I have a lot of flexibility about the length of vacations, as long as they're taken during the (northern) summer months. Thus, once I knew I'd be at the University of Nebraska for 2012–13, I started dreaming about using my SkyMiles for a trip to NZ in their autumn. I also had recently acquired a pile of AAdvantage miles through Citi card bonuses and figured AKL-SYD-HKG in J for the trans-Tasman sector and F on the A380 from SYD to HKG would be a brilliant use of 45K AAdvantage miles.

The initial booking happened in August 2012. The first plan was to time everything around the limited summer dates when KE isn't blacked out by DL, since I had enjoyed flying FRA-ICN-MEL with KE and had a hankering to catch a ride on their A380, which I'd missed out on when they delayed its introduction to FRA. This was during the dark period in which DL.dumb did not show KE inventory, KE flights had moderate fuel surcharges collected (~$200 each way US-Australasia), and VA flights incurred hefty surcharges ($350 each way US-Australasia), so I figured it was worth a try to go via ICN to AKL. I found space from OMA to LAX via SLC in a mix of F and Y. (One segment was enhanced elite availability in Y, which was fun to get the agent to figure out.) A bit of agent roulette got me seats in J on KE LAX-ICN-AKL with an overnight in ICN. I added this to a NRT-ATL (low business on the upper deck of the updated 747) that I had on hold from the website and ATL-OMA (with an overnight "SkyRest™" in ATL as Thomas Hudson on the DL forum here has christened them). Things started getting interesting when I wanted to actually get from Hong Kong to Tokyo. DL, of course, had no space at the low level in either class of service. ExpertFlyer showed space on several HKG-PVG flights operated by MU and then there was space 36 hours later on PVG-NRT with DL to connect to the NRT-ATL. The agent needed to try four MU flights before one actually came back with the space confirmed.

Once we had found all of the segments I wanted, it was time to pull the lever on Deltamatic and see what Jeff Robertson's pricing engine came up with. I lost the first pull, as it came up at 230K. At least the agent was competent enough to notice that it was breaking the outbound fare in ICN and charging me 110K for ICN-AKL. I needed to go somewhere (Really, I did! Not standard HUACA.), so I asked the agent to leave things on hold. Called back later that day and kept getting the 230K. Well, first it was something like 350K, but the agent pulled the lever again and got back to 230K. This time I dug in my heels and cited the exact KE fare whose routing should allow transiting ICN on the way to AKL. Agent would…not…budge. Kept throwing MPM at me. Decided to cut my losses and call back on a weekday. However, later that night I was looking at things online and realized that the hold date had been adjusted to the point where my hold was going to expire in a matter of hours instead of days. I clicked DL.dumb's "Redeem" button to pull the lever again and found that it priced at 135K (correct…75K outbound plus 60K return) plus…over $700 in taxes and fees (fuel surcharges). I knew that the YQ/YR was way too high, but I figured I'd rather get the mileage right at the outset and later appeal the surcharges, so I ticketed.

A couple weeks later, I'd completed my move to Nebraska and decided it was time to call DL to get some money back. Frontline agent started reading me the description of all the taxes and fees, so I had to explain that I had examined them all myself and had no issues with anything other than the YQ/YR that had been collected. The agent tried throwing some international origination surcharge nonsense at me, at which point I had to remind her that the trip was starting in the US. She decided to try a supervisor, and that supervisor gave me some line about operating carriers determining surcharges. I explained that I understood that, but since on the return most of my flights were on DL, there should not be so much collected. She couldn't tell which flights were triggering what charges, but she did agree that the amount seemed high. Thus, she called SkyMiles Support. That agent readily agreed that something didn't look right and called tariff assist to audit things. Apparently actual customers cannot speak to tariff assist, so this lovely agent kept coming back on the line to update me. Eventually they agreed that something was wrong. (It appears that the DL YQ/YR for HKG-OMA had been assessed rather than just the MU charges for HKG-PVG.) Their procedure is to refer things to the operating carriers to confirm the proper charges. They promised to get back to me when KE and MU responded. A week later, I got a call informing me that KE had confirmed their charges quickly but MU was being slow. A week after that, when I was just preparing to call in and try to check on things (hard when you don't have actual contact information for the people working on your case), the lovely SkyMiles support agent called me back and informed me that I was right and owed nearly $300 back. This was promptly refunded to my credit card.

Booking the QF flights with my AAdvantage miles was trivial, as it was after QF inventory started showing on AA.com.

The trip still had a few kinks I wanted to work out. Obviously the SkyRest™ in ATL was undesirable, there was one segment outbound in domestic Y, and I really wanted to get four nights in HKG so that I could use an AXON award at the Conrad. A couple weeks after the surcharge mess was sorted, I noticed that low J opened up for HKG-NRT on the day after I was scheduled to leave HKG on MU. Again, we had more pricing weirdness. The agent kept telling me I owed more miles. I asked how that could be, since I was taking fewer flights and a more direct routing. Eventually she figured out that it was the outbound that was costing more and acknowledged that made no sense when I was not changing it. She did get a bit huffy but decided to do things as an even exchange. I realized later that meant she wasn't having the taxes/fees recalculated, so the MU YQ/YR and PRC taxes were still on there. Tired of fighting these things over the phone, I sent in a message via web form. The next morning, I had a reissued ticket with a modest refund, as now I owed Japanese taxes because I had a stopover there instead of a connection at NRT.

Fast forward to later in the fall, and DL stops collecting YQ on VA flights. I also had started amassing enough Chase Ultimate Rewards points that I could fly KE F on the A380 rather than slumming it in J, so I figured maybe I could try out VA on this trip. I quickly pieced together OMA-MSP-LAX in low F and LAX-BNE in VA J on DL.dumb with a perfect connection time at LAX. I suspected there would be space on BNE-WLG based on the VA Velocity site, but DL.dumb won't show trans-Tasman inventory, so I had to call to check. I got an excellent agent (Chisholm/HIBRES, unsurprisingly) who quickly confirmed the space, was impressed with how prepared I was, and reissued the ticket for me. My taxes and fees are now down to $130.73 (from a start of $712.90), and I have a much smoother itinerary, no longer requiring leaving OMA at 0600 or an overnight in SEL. The only remaining issue was that blasted SkyRest™ in ATL. A couple of weeks before departure, DL opened some low Y (again, expanded PM inventory) to eradicate the SkyRest™. I figured it would be an easy upgrade for me, but I decided to keep an eye out for low F.

I booked a couple of domestic NZ flights (all Y) to help me get around the islands after consulting with a Kiwi friend of mine who had moved back to Wellington from London. Thus, my final flight list was:

OMA-MSP-LAX in DL F
LAX-BNE in VA J
BNE-WLG in VA Premium Economy (Initially ticketed as business, but they subsequently decided to only offer Premium Economy on trans-Tasman flights. It appears that one can not actually redeem SkyMiles for the forward cabin on these flights any more. No big loss, as it's below even EuroBiz.)
ZQN-CHC in NZ Y
CHC-WLG-ROT in NZ Y
ROT-AKL in NZ Y
AKL-SYD-HKG in QF J trans-Tasman and F on the A380 to HKG
HKG-NRT in DL J (777)
NRT-ATL in DL J (744)
ATL-OMA in DL Y