MilesBuzz! - AWARD RESERVATIONS – online vs. 800 #

Why is it that when you want to make an award reservation using miles there is a discrepancy between making them online compared to calling the airlines 800 number in regards to date of availability.

Most airlines allow travelers to make award reservations somewhere around 329/330/331 days in advance. When you check award availability online it is always a few days behind then when you call the airlines 800 umber.

For example, today when you call United they are booking award tickets up through June 8, 2006, but when you try to book a ticket at www.united.com, you can only go up through June 6, 2006.

Are the airlines that hard up to get their $5 fee for making the award reservation by calling the 800 number?

I wonder why they do this???? :)

Jim

with a UA award recently, the c.s rep had more choices and connections available than were found on ua website - including ability to connect with *A carriers - the five bucks was more than worth it IMO to save me search time, as I found the UA search engine too time consuming anyway!

Why is it that when you want to make an award reservation using miles there is a discrepancy between making them online compared to calling the airlines 800 number in regards to date of availability.

Most airlines allow travelers to make award reservations somewhere around 329/330/331 days in advance. When you check award availability online it is always a few days behind then when you call the airlines 800 umber.

For example, today when you call United they are booking award tickets up through June 8, 2006, but when you try to book a ticket at www.united.com, you can only go up through June 6, 2006.

Are the airlines that hard up to get their $5 fee for making the award reservation by calling the 800 number?

I wonder why they do this???? :)

Jim

because it forces you once moreto have to call them, hence, paying the fee!
stinks.
I do whatever I can to avoid it, including drilling them for a while and then going online

Increasingly, with my SkyTeam miles, self-searching for award options segment by segment can work better than various SkyTeam airlines running a search themselves.

AA does a good job for me in OneWorld and generally UA and the other * Alliance programs do a good job for me too. However, DL, NW (and especially CO) generally do a much poorer job than "self-searching" when using DL, NW, CO, and/or KL anyway.

I don't think they are after the $5 fee. I am sure it costs them more than $5 in employee time. I think they charge the $5 to encourage people to book awards online.