I was wondering what others' experience has been obtaining coach seat FF awards on USAir (excluding the usual blackout periods and holidays).

Since USAir pulled the F100 jets out of my hometown market and installed Dash 8s, coach award seats have been scarcer than hen's teeth. It has virtually wiped out access to awards even with many months of advance planning. What I am told when I call 8 months ahead is that no seats are available and probably have not yet been allocated. When I call 1 month ahead, of course nothing appears.

Just curious of what others have found within the past 4-5 years.

dljohn, give us some info:

Where do you live? Do you have Preferred status with US Airways? Is there another US Airways served airport near your home?

In general, when I make award reservations, like you, I call well in advance and try to be flexible with my times/dates. If they say there are no seats available I ask which flights do have seats available. As far as how many seats are allocated, it depends on the route, time of day, and day of the week... lots of variables.


[This message has been edited by geo1004 (edited 11-20-2000).]

For some reason, there always seems to be a problem getting award seats on Express segments. It probably is a technical thing, since these runs have average load factors well below the mainline. Usually a call to customer service will help, although lately they haven't been willing to do much.

I have not had trouble getting award seats, generally. However, when booking a number of award seats (the whole family), I usually select an airport with full service US Air jets, since the % of award seats is limited, and the Express planes have fewer seats <duh>.

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