Then identify its mega fortress hub (e.g. AA - DFW, DL - SLC). Find a small city served *only* by your carrier's affiliate airline. That'll likely be a small regional airport near that megahub. For example, only AA serves GGG.
Finally, look for a business class tix from a big business-traveler city (e.g. JFK) to your small city. JFK-GGG should work.
In most cases that will be enough. If it's not, pick travel dates on Monday where the outbound is less than 7 days out, which will force the outbound to price in J or F. The inbound should be further enough out to be in I, which will make the ticket non-refundable.
I found two tips to pass along from my recent redemption search:
1. Use Kayak.com for the initial search
Use Kayak as you normally would to locate your flight. You may select Business class and a preferred airline. On the results page you have multiple options to limit your search by date, time of day, nearby airports. One of these limiting factors is price. You may have to click on the arrow to expand it. Once you do you'll receive a little slide bar with prices. Just slide it to the left till you hit $2800 or so, sort your prices highest to lowest and, as my Aussie friends say, Bob's your uncle.
2. Expedia limits the displayed flights by time
Once you find your flight on Kayak it may be difficult to find it again on Expedia in order to ensure it's availability at ThankYou. Expedia does not display all options - as Kayak does - when you search. I found it helpful to match up my departure times in order for Expedia to show me the flight I'd already found on Kayak.
If the departure is 8:30 AM leaving and 7:30 PM returning set your departing time to 8AM and returning departure to 7PM and Expedia is more likely to reveal your flight. Alternatively setting the departure times to Morning or Afternoon also reveals many more flights.
Expedia is consumer friendly in showing the lowest fares but of course for our purpose that is counter-intuitive to our goals.
Hope this helps. Thanks for all the help of those that came to my aid.
ok - still confused about one thing... and i realise it's probably just my lack of experience booking tickets to more out of the way places...
using Continental: do flights that are branded Continental Express or Continental Connection (ie operated by ExpressJet, CommutAir, GulfStream, CapeAir etc) count for this $2700 non-refundable approach?
and is this true for the other major players - DL, AA etc.
thanks so much for bearing with such newbie basic questions...
Location: EWR-land -- You are in a little twisty maze of airline seats, all alike...
Programs: CO & NW forum moderator
Posts: 19,167
Quote:
Originally Posted by dickieducker
using Continental: do flights that are branded Continental Express or Continental Connection (ie operated by ExpressJet, CommutAir, GulfStream, CapeAir etc) count for this $2700 non-refundable approach?
Yes. They are CO-marketed flights.
Quote:
and is this true for the other major players - DL, AA etc.
Almost certainly.
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Is there a way on the Expedia site to find out which letter class of fare you are booking?
Clearly it shows, economy, business, first, and one assumes that if you do not check the "find refundable fares options" it should avoid showing you refundable fares.
However, I would like to verify that there are non-refundable class legs on my trip to ensure that I don't accidentally buy a fully refundable ticket.
Thanks!
It is in the Fare Rules that you need to click open once you build the itinerary.
hi!
i found a route thats close to the 2700.00 but there is no way to find out if it's refundable or not thats what expedia told me until the ticket is purchased this is what comes up when i click rules and restrictions
Fare rules and restrictions
We have not received rules or restriction information for this flight. In most cases, the following rules and restrictions may apply:
Most fares are non-refundable, but in many cases, the value of a ticket may be applied to a change in travel dates if the change is made prior to the departure date of the originally scheduled outbound flight.
Rules and restrictions are imposed by the airlines and are subject to change. Expedia must abide by these rules.
Any changes to your flight reservations may incur additional charges.
Airline tickets are non-transferable.
so it does not say that these flights are non-refundable only that in most cases
its with delta from mia to yyz all but 2 legs are in business the other 2 are in coach any help pleas
thanks
yidyb
hi!
i found a route thats close to the 2700.00 but there is no way to find out if it's refundable or not thats what expedia told me until the ticket is purchased this is what comes up when i click rules and restrictions
I would follow the advice already in the thread -- look at remote locations flying to and from a far away hub. Find a fare that gives you real fare rules. To bump up the $$, pick one flight soon (within the next week, if they have changed the rules to let you do that; at one time there was a 14 day window), and returning on a busy travel day, like memorial day.
I would add to the advice in the thread to avoid canada b/c of increased fee reasons, which you have to pay out of pocket.
OP says to "fight the fees" if they don't match the website. They *won't* match, ever. I investigated this once. Apparently part of the fees that are normally in the ticket are pulled out for the TY redemption. I forgot which part it was, but the agent was able to show me where the fees came from, and the numbers added up. IMO, you are already doing something weird and getting a great deal; raising a stink over paying the extra $25-50 on the ticket probably won't get you anything but irritated and additional hold time. It's just the way the program works.
Programs: AirTran Elite, Hilton Diamond, DL FO, UA 2P, Hertz Five Star Gold
Posts: 502
Quote:
Originally Posted by ingy
And why doesn't it work? Brunswick to a small west coast city via ATL. If you don't like Brunswwick, try HHH with flights starting after 3/1/2009. Not all legs need to be in Business, in fact most of mine only have one business leg.
So flights booked in First class or coach (if no first class cabin) are ok? My mistake...thought they literally meant business cabin or booked in business booking code (like any domestic DL flight number under 200).
hi!
i found a route thats close to the 2700.00 but there is no way to find out if it's refundable or not thats what expedia told me until the ticket is purchased this is what comes up when i click rules and restrictions
Fare rules and restrictions
We have not received rules or restriction information for this flight. In most cases, the following rules and restrictions may apply:
Most fares are non-refundable, but in many cases, the value of a ticket may be applied to a change in travel dates if the change is made prior to the departure date of the originally scheduled outbound flight.
Rules and restrictions are imposed by the airlines and are subject to change. Expedia must abide by these rules.
Any changes to your flight reservations may incur additional charges.
Airline tickets are non-transferable.
so it does not say that these flights are non-refundable only that in most cases
its with delta from mia to yyz all but 2 legs are in business the other 2 are in coach any help pleas
thanks
yidyb
No. You dont need to purchase the ticket to see the fare rules - it is on the page when you selected all your flights, there is a message about to make sure you know all the T&Cs, there is a CLICKABLE Fare Rule highlighted in the body of that message. It will even give you the Fare Code so you know what fare class the ticket is booked into. You dont need to call Expedia, and those CSRs usually only give you a canned answer.
You do all the legworks online then call TYN to redeem. At no point you talk to Expedia directly, though the TYN travel redemption is handled by Expedia, but you are dealing with TYN, not Expedia. Expedia is used as a tool because that is what TYN used, so what you see in Expedia should be what TYN rep sees as well.
You will pay all the tax and fees if your itinerary includes Canadian cities because the US 7.5% exercise tax would not be built in the ticket price like a domestic ticket - thus you could not "argue" with the TYN rep to try to have the 7.5% exercise tax included in the redemption value so you dont need to pay it out of pocket.
At the end though, what you pay out of pocket now, will be part of the ticket total value and you get it back when you cancel the ticket, except the $150 change fee.
Programs: Continental onepass, Delta Skymiles, AAdvantage, Lufthansa Miles & More
Posts: 346
Quote:
Originally Posted by friedablass
I did find refundable fares on CO, but I'm afraid to book them for fear of having them refunded to citi instead of a voucher. Unless there's a way to avoid that it's not a good option. If, however a refundable fare can be credited to a voucher, I want to know if it's better to have the base fare ay $2600 or at $2725 and 'pay' another 5k points - I couldn't find anything in between, but then again, I'm really new and unexperienced in this game so any help and advice is appreciated!
Also, is it better to book a couple of 90k/$2700 tickets and have a few smaller vouchers or go with an international ticket of 180k/$5400, 200k/$6000, or 240k/$7200 and have one large voucher?
Can someone please do me a favor and answer these questions for me? Is it safe to book a refundable CO ticket and receive an e-voucher upon cancellation?
ok - still confused about one thing... and i realise it's probably just my lack of experience booking tickets to more out of the way places...
using Continental: do flights that are branded Continental Express or Continental Connection (ie operated by ExpressJet, CommutAir, GulfStream, CapeAir etc) count for this $2700 non-refundable approach?
and is this true for the other major players - DL, AA etc.
thanks so much for bearing with such newbie basic questions...
Do flights operated by Shuttle America for United count as United for these purposes?
Thanks for putting "the process" all in one place. The only step missing from this analysis is getting the "fixed flight" option for your Thank You Points. I recall reading some threads that suggested I needed to get certain specific Citi credit cards that offer this option, and then link my other TY accounts. But I also recall reading somewhere that all I need is an Expedia account. Can someone steer me in the right direction on this? Thanks.
