Award booking services - a list and some reviews

Thanks for the suggestion! I have added my e-mail address for anyone who prefers that method of contact.


I do frequent searches over a period of a few days after being contacted until I find a reasonable option which the client is satisfied with and book that. Once it is booked I generally do keep an eye on a few key flights with occasional searches to see if something better opens up.

If I don't find anything reasonable, I do not charge the client. Otherwise I would have no incentive to look for some of the more crazy routings!

^
I tried contacting Ben but got someone who was working with him (Ben was on the road) and unfortunately he wasn't too helpful and could only find me business class seats so I tried awardtravelconsulting and he was much more capable of finding the seats I wanted.

In the past I used Cranky Concierge who found the seats but I did the booking myself. Now I'm fairly knowledgeable to do this myself but sometimes you just don't have the time to do so and it is nice to have a resource willing and able to do it for you. awardtravelconsulting.com did a nice job for me in finding seats others said weren't available and I would definitely use them again.

Regarding Awardtravelingconsultant, I already know what my itinerary is and approximately what days I want. Would this cost me the $100 per person plus the additional $50 for having them call the Airline to book?

I need help to book for December 2012 to January 2013: LAX to SGN, PNH to LAX , first class and if nothing available, biz class

I have 190k U.S. Airways and 150k Delta . I have miles in United but need it for other trips.

Who is the best award booking services for this? And do I only pay if the booking is confirmed or do I pay for them trying?

What kind of information would any award booking services require from me? (eg- mileage number ....)

Thanks

Thanks for the kind words richinaz!

metoo, yes we charge a flat fee of $100/person on a single itinerary and a separate $50/itinerary to call in and book. This covers the cost of working with you to find award availability, ensuring that it works for you, and (with the $50 supplement) booking it for you.

I wouldn't recommend choosing anyone that takes money upfront. We (and based on my knowledge, I would say the majority of other legitimate award travel services) only charge when we book something.

If you would like us to handle everything from start to finish, we would need information such as:
full name as it appears on passport
date of birth
sex
mileage account number
address/phone/email on account
credit card information (for paying taxes and fees, only needed when we settle on an itinerary)

If you'd like, you can email us -from link below-and we'll get started ASAP.

We are not going to allow folks to run their booking businesses on this, or any other, FT threads. You may have a signature link to your business BUT no links are permitted in the body of your posts. See Rules here: http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php

Please conduct your business off-FT. We will delete all inappropriate posts/links.

Thanks,
Your MB mods

I guess my point is that a travel agent doesn't add any value to me for airlines and hotels - except perhaps if we're talking about boutiques or B&B's that the agent knows very well. In fact, I've had cases where I used a 3rd party agent and then had problems changing, canceling, viewing, or otherwise managing a reservation directly with an airline or hotel. The involvement of the TA actually injected problems into the situation.

My other point was that I would pay for something that a human travel agent can still bring to the table in 2011: ridiculously good local knowledge that can effectively "curate" the gigabytes of review information on the Internet and in guidebooks. So yes, I would let them handle all of those bookings and make commissions on that...

Later this year, I'll have a few days in each of Mumbai, Delhi, and Kathmandu. I know little about any of those cities or regions. I will probably sniff around, do some of my own research, but may end up finding a travel agent who really knows how to plan activities in each one. My hunch is that I'll book some things through the agent - drivers, guides, etc. - and they'll make commission that way.

It is not the itinerary of O/D that you have in mind would cost the service fee - most everyone who wants to travel has that in mind already. It is the matter of HOW do you get from LAX to SGN, on what airline(s) and the routing to get there, plus finding the award seats on those routing - it is THAT time-consuming work these services charge.

Do you know HOW you would get from LAX to SGN using the resources you have?

Do you have the time and tools to look for award seats on ALL possible routings to get from LAX to SGN?

Are you patient enough and not get frustrated easily when trying only a couple options and none working?

Same questions on the return PNH - LAX.

If you have definitive Yes to the above, then you can do this all by yourself. It is a very time-consuming task to find award seats on not-so-common destination.

If you are iffy enough and dont have time to muddle through all the possibilities, then the $100 is well worth to pay to have someone do this for you - it is hours of work if you dont have all the tools available to you, mind you.

Hint: Try a dummy booking on CO and see what comes up because Star A availability should "normally" be available to all member airlines.

Neither US nor DL offers one-way award, so you are stuck to book r/t with them on an open-jaw return. VN flies your route naturally but you have to call DL to book - that is on top of that VN's own website is not functional even for revenue tickets. Mainland China airlines may also can get the job done especially on the return leg though it all requires you to connect somewhere in China. OZ and TG are 2 other alternatives with connections.

You most likely have to search a route segment by segment in order to piece a route that has award seat available on all the segments. Note that I do not say "itinerary" but "route" - because there are many different routes that can get you to achieve the LAX-SGN, PNH-LAX "itinerary" in the sense you have in mind. Understand the difference between what you mean by "itinerary" and the actual "route" to fly for that itinerary, you are half-way there in the DIY department.

The above info is more than enough for you to get started on your own and if you still are not able to do it on your own, then in my opinion, the $100 charge is a worthwhile expense.

One more thing, because your trip is so far out, be prepared that there would be numerous schedule changes between booking and traveling. Therefore, the less segments involved, the better off down the road should the inevitable schedule changes happen.

OP udated with some links etc.

Forgot I even had a message in this forum.....

No award booking service for me...I checked the Continental Website a week ago, found the itinerary I wanted and called U.S. Airways CSR . I gave airlines and flight numbers, date and time for each segment and all was booked.

LAX to SFO
SFO to ICN
ICN to HAN (destination)

PNH to BKK
BKK to NRT
NRT to LAX

Over Xmas holidays , all on BIZ except for first leg (lax to sfo), 2 long international legs with refurbished seat so they are flat beds, all for 90k
Call all airlines involved (Asiana, Thai, United and All Nippon) to confirm and reserve seats. All done!

Seems like the services would be put to good use if using SkyMiles. They are super hard to redeem.

Gleff has helped me a number of times. His service is useful even for "experts".

This would be quite a trick to use *A miles or possibly BA miles to get an award ticket on the AF A380. AF is and AFAIK always has been in SkyTeam. Even using AA miles through its partner Alaska, I don't think you can book an AF flight using a DL codeshare to achieve this.

I have slowly been looking at a mini RTW using the tools available (KVS, etc). The big problem is that I need three award tics, in business. I know, not an easy thing especially since we do not want to fly separately.

I don't want to go into detail of our route but was wondering if any of these consulting firms have success with the 3+ seat senerios. I would certainly think it could be money well spent if they had the expertise to carry it out.

I can see if I can help if you shoot me the details.

MatthewLAX - www.awardexpert.com

I've helped many of you already on FT and I look forward to helping many more of you in the coming days, months, and years.