I'm trying to use miles to book an awards tix to Asia. I've booked plenty of awards tix on other airlines and have never found customer service to be as unhelpful as they are at US Air. I realize that for the customer service people booking awards tickets isn't much fun since there are never enough seats to make people happy, but the folks at USAir are particularly uncreative in looking at booking routes and are extraordinarily oppositional to the whole process.

I'm generally a patient person but this experience is testing my limits. Any suggestions for getting better help?

Try again. I find the US-West folks to not be very creative or helpful, not for lack of wanting to try, but for lack of experience in booking *A. I even had a US-West rep. tell me I couldn't fly to Asia on miles. Just call back. Sometimes it helps if you can tell them (I know, it's ridiculous but do want to take the high road or do you want to get your award seat?) the various airlines and gateway/transit cities. When I did, I got SQ FC!

It's not foolproof but it helped me, try using ANA's award booking engine. You need to sign up for their FFP to use it, but you can plug in each segment you want to check for availablility. There may be some difference in availability between ANA and US but I've found most of the time it's pretty close.

Call early in the morning EST, faster help in my experience and I guess a quiter time for the agents. And, indeed, call back if they say nothing available

Do you have status with US? I used the CP line to book an award trip to asia for later this month. They spent almost an hour looking for various options with me.

Also, if you use multiple airlines it will provide more options. My trip involves US, AC, & ANA.

I do have status, Platinum, but cannot get a Platinum 800 number to call since the 06 cards haven't been mailed (I was CP on HP but now Plat on US)