bmi diamond club - Man-sfo / lax-man

First, many thanks for all previous help I've received on here.

Now, I'm hoping for some further advice regarding flight redemption. I've managed to get the ANA tool working OK and I'm trying to find flights for next April/May. The criteria is as follows (in an ideal world):

Mid-End April 2011 - MAN-SFO, business
Early - Mid May 2011 - LAX (or SAN) - MAN, business

We've got about 90k miles so we'll be redeeming 37.5k each + £210 +TAX. The problem I'm having is finding any flight availability. Would prefer business all the way so this seems to rule out most of the US carriers.

Any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated.

Friday 22nd Apr - 2 seats FRA-SFO on Lufthansa, ask the call centre to tag on a flight to FRA on the Thursday as the FRA-SFO is an early morning departure from FRA (or buy this yourself for £49pp from LH and avoid the UK APD.)

looking for returns... hmm.. drawn a blank there I'm afraid.

You could try asking the callcentre if there is any space on the Swiss flight from SFO-ZRH (all but Tuesdays). There are some reports that ANA is not properly reporting LX availability yet so you may be in luck.

Lots of availability for the connecting flights to ZRH or FRA so you should have no trouble here.

Friday 22nd Apr - 2 seats FRA-SFO on Lufthansa, ask the call centre to tag on a flight to FRA on the Thursday as the FRA-SFO is an early morning departure from FRA (or buy this yourself for £49pp from LH and avoid the UK APD.)

looking for returns... hmm.. drawn a blank there I'm afraid.

You could try asking the callcentre if there is any space on the Swiss flight from SFO-ZRH (all but Tuesdays). There are some reports that ANA is not properly reporting LX availability yet so you may be in luck.

Lots of availability for the connecting flights to ZRH or FRA so you should have no trouble here.

Many thanks for that. Funny enough, I made a call to the ICC today and was pleasantly surprised. Spoke to a really nice chap called Dhruv, who offered me the following:

19 April 11 - MAN-MUC-SFO
3 May 11 - LAX-FRA-MAN

Business class all the way, it's pretty much exactly what we want - may choose to add a few more days if there's flights available. Just need to work out our dates for sure and we're sorted. What I still don't understand is when I put these dates in the ANA search it shows no availability - so I've been spending ages looking for flights which now seems to have been a waste of time.

Help Please !!

Just been onto the ICC again and got offered LH flights from MAN-SFO, then return LAX-MAN on LX.

However, they are quoting nearly £460pp in taxes but after checking on Expedia, Lufthansa and Swiss websites, the taxes seem to be between £360 & £390pp. Is there anything you can do, or is that just the way it is ?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

According to ITA

MAN-SFO

LH YQ surcharge (YQ) £99.00
USDA APHIS Fee (XA) £3.10
US Immigration Fee (XY) £4.40
US Customs Fee (YC) £3.40
German Airport Security Tax (DE) £4.30
German Passenger Service Charge (RA) £13.10
US International Arrival Tax (US) £10.10
United Kingdom Air Passengers Duty (GB) £120.00
United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge (UB) £10.36

Total £267.77

LAX-MAN

Swiss Airport Passenger Security & Noise Charge (CH) £14.50
LX YR surcharge (YR) £100.20
US International Departure Tax (US) £10.10
US September 11th Security Fee (AY) £1.60
US Passenger Facility Charge (XF) £2.80

£128.92

That's £396.69 in my book.

Ask them to give you a full breakdown and see what they say.

Has anybody seen the new ITA interface? It's horrible

Has anybody seen the new ITA interface? It's horrible

Use this link:

http://matrix1.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch

According to ITA

MAN-SFO

LH YQ surcharge (YQ) £99.00
USDA APHIS Fee (XA) £3.10
US Immigration Fee (XY) £4.40
US Customs Fee (YC) £3.40
German Airport Security Tax (DE) £4.30
German Passenger Service Charge (RA) £13.10
US International Arrival Tax (US) £10.10
United Kingdom Air Passengers Duty (GB) £120.00
United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge (UB) £10.36

Total £267.77

LAX-MAN

Swiss Airport Passenger Security & Noise Charge (CH) £14.50
LX YR surcharge (YR) £100.20
US International Departure Tax (US) £10.10
US September 11th Security Fee (AY) £1.60
US Passenger Facility Charge (XF) £2.80

£128.92

That's £396.69 in my book.

Ask them to give you a full breakdown and see what they say.

Has anybody seen the new ITA interface? It's horrible

Thanks for that - they've reserved the flights until tomorrow anyway so I can call them back to query it. I know it's still a decent price for business class but when they gave me an 'idea' of the price of the taxes they said £378pp - when I go to book it jumps up by £80pp !

Wow, finally got our flights booked today:

14 April 11 - MAN-MUC-SFO
2 May 11 - LAX-FRA-MAN

LH business class, paid 37.5k miles + £210 + £398 tax per person (x2). Very happy with that.

Now, just a little bit more advice required - I've booked all the seats and managed to get the first row on the LAX-FRA leg (747). Just reading about these seats on Seatguru and they mention them feeling a bit 'cramped'. Does anyone have any comments about these seats ? Or even better, any photos that I could have a look at ?

Thanks in advance.