Star Alliance Award Bookings Using SAS Miles
 

Can someone explain to me how to go about finding flights available for Star Alliance members who wish to use their saved miles? The checking of one flight at a time by SAS's helpdesk is far from ideal...

If you run a simple google search on "star alliance award flight search" you will find numerous explanations. In short, United, ANA, and Aeroplan (Air Canada) all provide this capability.

You might consider booking very far in advance because last year Mr. Nacho used his SAS points for a SQ flight - we needed 5 tickets and we booked 4 using our SQ miles and it was fine, plenty of availbility. Then when we called SAS to redeem the last ticket - they said they were only given 4 seats for that particular departure.

We booked the flight in March and it was for a flight in during x'mas - 9 months ahead.

Thanks for the replies. The google search term did indeed work very well and the best article found was this one:

How to Use the ANA Award Tool to Search Star Alliance Award Availability - http://thepointsguy.com/2011/06/how-...-availability/

Just be aware that what shows up as free in the search might not be available when you talk to the SAS booking agent! I saw several flight San Francisco-Tokyo that looked great, but for some reason, the SAS representative couldn't book them, for instance because my selected class was not available.

That's what the SAS staff told me about it as well. She said they got an allocation from SQ for award flights and their availability is not the same as other *A airlines.

When I tried to book Sq award, SAS told me they had economy and economy extra available. ! SQ doesn't have economy extra, so I'm still wondering in what seat I would have ended up if I booked. On another flight, she said economy, economy extra and business was available.

When was it, and for what flights?

It was the day in july when SQ *A award were wide open.
PVG - SIN on 77W. She proposed economy in X, or exonomy extra in P class for this flight.

Booking class P on SQ is First Class. The agent thought P was premium economy since SK use P for awards on Y+ on SK operated flights.

Normally "O" is first class, where does P come from?
Anyway, that makes sense. I spoke to two agents that both said they had exonomy extra available, so I would conclude that the SK agents aren't too skilled for *A award bookings.

Also, she said it was not permitted to fly PVG SIN MNL, it had to be PVG PEK MNL on air china. So I ended up booking this with UA miles.

Unfortunately it seems that the EuroBonus agents are really bad trained in ticketing StarAlliance award redemptions. One really needs to be a bit pushy, it always help to explain them step by step how to search. The agent shall not search in the SAS award system, but in the *system, it is two different systems. The SK system shows I = Business, P = Economy extra and X = Economy and quotes the awards accordingly. For some very strange reason the SK award system shows star alliance partner awards using the same codes, but with P = (revenue!) First instead of award space, when the agent gets to the ticketing process the system quotes a wrong price and says not able to process ticket. Usually the agent then thinks there is no space.

This link I have used to tell the agents the difference in the Star and the SK award system
http://www.starallianceemployees.com...ignment.1.html

Always ask the agent to use the StarAlliance award search system, search flights leg by leg and NOT as CPH-FRA-SIN as an example, search CPH-FRA and then FRA-SIN then the agent can melt it into one itinerary.
Always point out that the agent should look for O if you wants First class, I for Business Class and X for economy class if you want to fly StarAlliance.

Usually the agents are very happy to learn new things and appreciate that one can help them. Els ask to talk to a supervisor – even though I have talked to a supervisor before that even didn’t know the rules and told me it wasn’t possible to book First class on any partner. Told her to look at flysas.com and then she realized I were correct.

Anyways, booking StarAlliacne awards with SAS is a BIG challenge – NEVER accept a NO when you know that you are right. Ask for a supervisor or ask the agent to talk to his/her supervisor and then call you back and always ask politely for the name of the agent you are talking to.

Good luck booking StarAlliance awards in premium cabins to all of you

Beware of the married segment system though... CPH-SIN via FRA may have better availability than FRA-SIN, and vice versa. With LH once the booking is saved, it will marry the segments and undo the work.

Yes I forgot that, you are so right here. Dam it, this is not easy :)

What is most important is to explain to the agent that he/she should be looking for I, P or X when the flights is operated by SK and O, I and X when the flight is operated by *partners

Sry for bumping an old thread, but I couldn't find a better location for my questions.
1) What routing rules exist on Star Alliances award reservations?
2) Is a stopover allowed.
3) My understanding is that YQ aren't charged. Is this correct?
4) Any recent experiences with calling up to book flights.
5) Are holds allowed?
6) What's the infant fee on miles redemptions?

Thx ya'll