US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - FF account torching in progress

With a good number of miles banked up and with waning loyalty, I decided to book a F class award ticket for Christmas this year.

Holy #%#%#. Looked at the availability for F class for SAN flights during the period Dec. 19 - Dec. 24 and there are numerous flights that already show G0. Most every other flight shows no more than G5. Clearly, somebody else has the same idea.

So, if you're planning on torching some miles, I would recommend you do it sooner rather than later. And, I would venture to guess that upgrades using 800 mile certs will be next to impossible this coming Christmas.

Sounds like the perfect use for a Premium Coach award and upgrade it with NAU's (which will come out of I class instead of G class and is confirmable once the ticket is issued). The Premium Coach award will also give you much greater flexibility if you decide to change your times or dates of flights ...

Burn 'em while you got 'em! Anyone think US Air has any shot at the Freddie's next year?

Hey there, I'm a some-time lurker on the board who has been forced out of seclusion by U's crazy changes and my desire to burn my hundreds of thousands of miles (just booked 2 F award tickets to Cancun in October, and I must say that I got through to a sales rep quickly, was not put on hold, and she was very helpful).

In any event, I'm now very confused by the above post. I had thought that G inventory was the upgrade inventory for discounted tickets, and that D inventory, which you can't see on ITN, is the First award inventory. Can someone please explain? Thanks.


[This message has been edited by StuckWithU (edited 09-04-2002).]

[This message has been edited by StuckWithU (edited 09-04-2002).]

Premium Coach awards are booked in Y-class and are upgradeable to I-class first class inventory using NAU's or SWU's at the time of booking.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Beckles:
Premium Coach awards are booked in Y-class and are upgradeable to I-class first class inventory using NAU's or SWU's at the time of booking.</font>

Actually, it's not time of booking, but time of ticketing (which when you book over the phone is often several hours later).

You're correct. D is freebie ticket inventory. G is upgrade inventory (discount).

What is happening is that the G inventory decreases as the number of available seats in F class decreases.

Let me give you an example for an aircraft that I think I have a pretty good grasp on: the A-319.

The A-319 F section has 12 seats. From previous review, its quite clear that the available number of G seats available prior to departure is 9. The remaining 3 are held until the day of departure. For demonstration's sake, we'll say that 3 seats can be D seats.

So, the buckets look like this at first:
F7 A7 G7 I7 D3

Say, one person (God bless him/her) purchases a F class ticket.

The buckets remain:
F7 A7 G7 I7 D3

This is because at least 7 seats are available in the main buckets.

Then two people use 40,000 mile F class awards:

F7 A7 G6 I7 D1

Again, at least seven seats are available - excepting G which is now 6 owing to the fact that 3 first class seats are now full. Keeping in mind the other 3 that are held in reserver: 12 - 3 - 3 = 6.

Then somebody upgrades with a 20,000 mile award. This comes out of G.

F7 A7 G5 I7 D1

Because 4 first class seats have been taken, the G inventory begins to dip as only up to 9 seats can be upgraded prior to departure. Any F/D/G/A seat will lower the available G pool without necessarily being a G fare.

Then two more G upgrades:

F6 A6 G3 I6 D1

Now that 6 seats have been taken, the remaining inventory buckets begin to drop as there are only 6 seats left in first class.

Then, the last D award:

F5 A5 G2 I5 D0

Then, one more F class fare purchase.

F4 A4 G1 I4 D0

Then, a 40,000 premium upgrade.

F3 A3 G0 I3 D0

This is my understanding of the upgrade state of affairs.

Comments?
F


[This message has been edited by ITRADE (edited 09-04-2002).]

OK, that makes sense. Thanks for the help.

Is there any booking engine where one can see D inventory?

[This message has been edited by StuckWithU (edited 09-04-2002).]

ITRADE, everything you said is correct. I would add that the order of the fares is important too and is:

F I A G

There will never be more I's than F's (though they can be the same) or more A's than I's (though, again, they can be the same).

Typically each lower class will have one less seat, so the typical distriution looks like this:

F6 I5 A4 G3

Leading of course to G being 3 less, as ITRADE said. I will admit however, that this "typical" model has not been the case as much lately, especially on Transcons and Florida flights, a lot of times it will be like:

F6 I5 A4 G0

Anyway, because I is one of the highest FC fare buckets, it is typically easier to get an FC seat using miles by booking a Premium Coach then upgrading with certs (though you need to use certs then).

RE: G inventory to the west coast.

Good luck on a Friday night. I tried for a flight PIT-SFO later this month (booking about 3 weeks ago) and EVERY G seat was already gone.

As a result, I'll be connecting in CLT http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif.
(If anybody is up for drinks at CLT between 4 and 7pm on 9-27, let me know)

And, I think this might also be due to a massive increase in the use of US20 awards.

------------------
Saving the world, one clue at a time.

[This message has been edited by ClueByFour (edited 10-15-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Beckles:
ITRADE, everything you said is correct. I would add that the order of the fares is important too and is:

F I A G

SNIP

Leading of course to G being 3 less, as ITRADE said. I will admit however, that this "typical" model has not been the case as much lately, especially on Transcons and Florida flights, a lot of times it will be like:

F6 I5 A4 G0

Anyway, because I is one of the highest FC fare buckets, it is typically easier to get an FC seat using miles by booking a Premium Coach then upgrading with certs (though you need to use certs then).</font>

Thanks for the order correction. I was running off the top of my head which isn't very clear right now with the red-eye.

Your F6 I5 A4 G0 example - is that with an A319 or different craft? The 0 threshold for the A320 seems to be 4 and the threshold on the 757s/321s seems to be 6.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ITRADE:
Your F6 I5 A4 G0 example - is that with an A319 or different craft? The 0 threshold for the A320 seems to be 4 and the threshold on the 757s/321s seems to be 6.</font>

I think it has more to do with routes than aircraft type ... like I said Florida and Transcons are bad for having much less G than the other classes, where most other routes will only be 3 less ... but maybe I'm wrong and it is more a function of aircraft type (since those types you mention also happen to fly a lot of Florida and Transcon routes).

Even though the agent tells you all you need to pull up a "saved" itinerary is the starting date and flight, I HIGHLY recommend that you get a Record Locator number. I just spent 1 hour 18 minutes on the phone with a supervisor in PIT because the itinerary that I had saved for my parents was missing when I went to ticket it tonight. Unfortunately, the seats were gone too.

I highly commend (and will be writing a letter of praise) the supervisor for his efforts in trying to relocate the record, but unfortunately it didn't exist. He checked every date in October and even the same dates in September to try and figure out what happened. He said with the Record Locator you know that the agent taking the info has entered it completely.

Now, I am trying to convince my parents that a 6:20 AM flight isn't all that bad....

Burned some miles:

Upgraded from coach to first:

IND-PHL/PHL-SFL 09/13/02 (me)
PHL - SF0 09/13/02 (nephew, looking at stanford)
SFO - PHL 09/16/02 (nephew).
SFO - PIT - PIT - IND 09/16/02 (me)