Asiana Club - Award availability on OZ

Looking to travel to HKG from NYC next year, I obviously have several *A options. I am trying to see how difficult to book three C awards seats on OZ using UA miles. Does anyone have experience? TIA.

LAX

What OZ does it that they pre-decide how many award seats should be assigned to specific flight by looking at the statistics. For instance, 3 seats are avaliable from ICN to SYD in Y. May be this only applies to Asiana Club member. Don't know about UA members trying to redeem miles for OZ seats.

Looking to travel to HKG from NYC next year, I obviously have several *A options. I am trying to see how difficult to book three C awards seats on OZ using UA miles. Does anyone have experience? TIA.

LAX

I am not sure if you really want to fork out all the miles to fly in one of OZ's 747 NYC-ICN-HKG - while the service is usually great, the seat is just terrible compared to almost all other *A carriers. If you want to fly OZ, try to get on one of the flights operated by 777 with angled lie-flat seats, ie. SEA/SFO/LAX-ICN.

Now 747 pax versions are under upgrading work. Only one 747 pax is on the schedule for two months - Oct and Nov (or more, Dec schedule not available yet). I don't know what's the upgrading schedule, but new sleeper C seats will be available next year.

They are updating 744s?
If that's the case, I hope OZ installs new generation C and F seats. Slanted lie-flats found on 777 is already a generation behind. I would hope something like SQ C.

They are updating 744s?
If that's the case, I hope OZ installs new generation C and F seats. Slanted lie-flats found on 777 is already a generation behind. I would hope something like SQ C.

IMO SQ's C is actually a bit too much, NZ', VS' and also AC's new C is just fine.

I am using *A miles on them in C class with only a few weeks notice and really did not have any problems for the dates I wanted. Just book ahead and see what happens. Are you trying to spend a few days in Seoul? Is that why you want to fly OZ? If you do not want to spend time in Seoul, then I would look and see who has the availability. Finding one or two seats is pretty easy, getting that third is the tricky part.

My recommendation to you, if you do not specifically want to be in Seoul, is to call your *A carrier with your miles and keep calling until you get an agent that you know is working with you, you know the good ones alomost right away, and be flexible on the routings and airlines they give you. Then, make your choice, but I would start looking now as this summer with the olympic games, yes they are in Beijing, but flights are going to start filling up with revenue seats and once that happens, the frequent flyer seats might disappear quickly.

Good Luck,
Global Express

Now that with the fleet upgrade, I supposed the award seats are even harder to come by!

LAX

Just an update. I have been able to secure 2 award seats in C on dates that are acceptable (not the ideal dates) on JFK-ICN-HKG. I am surprised that only OZ had availability even though it's over 300 days out. I am hoping all of the B747s will be updated by then.

LAX

I would think that OZ and UA would be the easiest to upgrade on

Just updated in the fleet upgrade thread, but they completed refitting at least one 747-Pax and put into service in Dec 2007.

My experiences with OZ indicate they try to block award seats to a small pre-defined number until the last minute, but opens up the entire inventory 24~48 hours before the departure if the load in C is not high. Usually OZ C load is not that high and you can almost always get award seats at the last minute. However, if you need confirmed booking well in advance, probably booking early is the only option.

OZ doesn't discriminates UA like SQ does. As long as there are award seats that can be booked by OZ members, UA members seem to be able to book them as well. I did this in Dec 2007 for NGO-ICN-PEK-ICN. I had an alternative NH+OZ routing KIX-PEK-ICN also on award tix from UA, but switched that to OZ C award 48 hours before the departure as I was arriving into NGO and didn't want the train ride from NGO to KIX. Both routing involved an overnight in ICN or KIX anyway. This could work as UA do not charge any penalty for 1K.

Just an update. I have been able to secure 2 award seats in C on dates that are acceptable (not the ideal dates) on JFK-ICN-HKG. I am surprised that only OZ had availability even though it's over 300 days out. I am hoping all of the B747s will be updated by then.

LAX

When you said you secured 2 seats, did you actually issue the ticket? If no, how long can they keep the seat for you?

When you said you secured 2 seats, did you actually issue the ticket? If no, how long can they keep the seat for you?

This depends on your FFP not on OZ. For LH it used to be three weeks but now it is down to one week (for people with status). YMMV.

When you said you secured 2 seats, did you actually issue the ticket? If no, how long can they keep the seat for you?

I had it ticketed through UA, who was only able to hold it for 3 days.

LAX