I wanted to share a thought. 9 months ago when I decided to ramp up my mileage collection, I thought I'd have to use one of these services because yes, the search process was daunting. However, since then I've learned an awful lot, and now feel competent to do it myself. You need to read FT and know the nuances, you need a search tool like Expert Flyer or KVS, and you need some patience.
I'm not at all putting down the use of paid help, if you don't care to go through the learning process it can definitely be worthwhile, and if you only book tickets occasionally and/or have miles on multiple alliances such that you'd have to learn the search-and-destroy, er sorry, search-and-book procedure for multiple alliances, it's likewise a better decision to pay than to learn yourself. I found the learning process informative.
Another thing is, I don't know how the paid services work, but I assume they limit you in terms of tradeoffs of time and routing. I just booked a trip for my wife. I assume you can tell an award service "I have miles on Skyteam and Star Alliance, I want to go on these dates, I have this much flexibility, and I want this class of service." When I booked the trip for my wife I had a huge number of tradeoffs. Book now on a decent routing or wait for an ideal one. Book with Star Alliance miles, which are the easiest to use, or Skyteam, which are the hardest, and save the *A miles for later. How much better is business class on the A380 than on the 777? Leave at 7AM and connect once, or leave at 11AM and connect twice? Not to mention that I didn't have enough USAir points to book a certain trip I had my eye on, but was expecting some to post shortly, and then just saw a promotion that allowed me to buy the last points I needed. If you can do it yourself, you will have a lot more flexibility.
Again, I am no way criticizing the decision to use a paid booking service.
Scott at milevalue.com just did a great job booking two business seats to Morocco for me. Within 24 hours he came up with several options that met my criteria. Then he booked the ones I selected, and re-booked when I changed my mind. There were many details that he brought to my attention, and he answered all my questions. He was friendly, professional and knowledgeable. I am so happy -- I could never have found these flights myself. His price was very reasonable and well worth it - $149 for two tickets on the same itinerary.
Programs: AA plat,VS/BA/SK gold, IC RA, Hyatt/HH diamond, Accor plat, CC gold
Posts: 3,279
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoGreen
Scott at milevalue.com just did a great job booking two business seats to Morocco for me. Within 24 hours he came up with several options that met my criteria. Then he booked the ones I selected, and re-booked when I changed my mind. There were many details that he brought to my attention, and he answered all my questions. He was friendly, professional and knowledgeable. I am so happy -- I could never have found these flights myself. His price was very reasonable and well worth it - $149 for two tickets on the same itinerary.
I hope I'm not violating any rules by posting this...
As noted above, I've learned quite a bit about bookings in the past few months.
I'm offering, free of charge, to help one or two people book award trips. Strongly prefer domestic or Europe, because those are what I'm most familiar with. Why would I do this? I just booked my wife's summer trip and she said "I'd like to learn what you do." So rather than pick a phony trip and pretend to look for it, I'd rather have a real case to work on.
Of course if you don't like what I come up with, you don't have to book it.
Offer only good for weekends she's here (she lives in another city) and for the next 7 weeks (until my KVS subscription runs out). But this weekend would be good.
Programs: AA plat,VS/BA/SK gold, IC RA, Hyatt/HH diamond, Accor plat, CC gold
Posts: 3,279
Quote:
Originally Posted by redtop43
I hope I'm not violating any rules by posting this...
As noted above, I've learned quite a bit about bookings in the past few months.
I'm offering, free of charge, to help one or two people book award trips. Strongly prefer domestic or Europe, because those are what I'm most familiar with. Why would I do this? I just booked my wife's summer trip and she said "I'd like to learn what you do." So rather than pick a phony trip and pretend to look for it, I'd rather have a real case to work on.
Of course if you don't like what I come up with, you don't have to book it.
Offer only good for weekends she's here (she lives in another city) and for the next 7 weeks (until my KVS subscription runs out). But this weekend would be good.
Scott at milevalue.com just did a great job booking two business seats to Morocco for me. Within 24 hours he came up with several options that met my criteria. Then he booked the ones I selected, and re-booked when I changed my mind. There were many details that he brought to my attention, and he answered all my questions. He was friendly, professional and knowledgeable. I am so happy -- I could never have found these flights myself. His price was very reasonable and well worth it - $149 for two tickets on the same itinerary.
Based on this above review, I gave Scott a try. I was looking for 2 tickets to Paris business class and he was able to nab them. He responded to my initial e-mail on the same day I sent the e-mail and, within a day, provided me with some good choices. I am a newbie so others may not need this service but the $149 for the 2 tickets, for me, was well worth the value. He basically walked my wife and me through the entire process and it was done fairly quickly and painlessly.
I recently found these guys and they helped me book a one way LH biz (747-8i and A380) to SIN. Somehow they were able to get me a one night >24 hours stopover in SIN on my way to Rangoon on SQ. I want a First class ticket and i know LH does not release F until a week or so before, so they are still monitoring availability for me.
Great guys, responded back within 24 hours like promised and was given a friends and family discount (if anyone would like it PM me and i will share)
I recently found these guys and they helped me book a one way LH biz (747-8i and A380) to SIN. Somehow they were able to get me a one night >24 hours stopover in SIN on my way to Rangoon on SQ. I want a First class ticket and i know LH does not release F until a week or so before, so they are still monitoring availability for me.
Great guys, responded back within 24 hours like promised and was given a friends and family discount (if anyone would like it PM me and i will share)
Well, I think for the first time I may need some expertise but it's confusing as to which service to choose to contact.
I have only Delta miles but plenty of them since they're so hard to use.
I've booked other tickets using miles for a first class award for my husband, while purchasing an upgradeable fare for myself, using one of my SWUs. And I'm not complaining about finding a low level award; I guess I no longer expect that with Delta.
Our Ideal Goal - Outbound: CMH - LIH on 2/8/13 in first and I don't care what cities we go through. It just needs to be in first because my husband is large, doesn't like to fly, so I need to get him in first. Return: 2/23/13 KOA - CMH and here I'd like to get in first on DL 836 (HNL-ATL) with the lie flat BE seats for the overnight return. He's never experienced the lie flat seats and I'd like for him to be able to do so on the return. If need be, we could come home a day or so later. I'm beginning to think I may have to give up on my return goal.
I am a Expert Flyer premium member but must admit that I've rarely used it because i've not found it to be very useful for Delta flights since it can't do awards any better than the Delta site.
__________________ Getting there isn't half the fun - it's all the fun.
I tried using Ben's service earlier this year. Very poor customer contact experience from an associate of his. No reply to my emails after the initial inquiry. I canceled my request and still received no reply or contact.
I like his blog, but the award booking service needs attention.
Quote:
Originally Posted by richinaz
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.
__________________ "I'm from Iowa. I only work in outer space."
I tried using Ben's service earlier this year. Very poor customer contact experience from an associate of his. No reply to my emails after the initial inquiry. I canceled my request and still received no reply or contact.
I like his blog, but the award booking service needs attention.
Seconded on this. Ben's associate was great initially on booking an itinerary that I found, but I've done most of the work since then myself (such as finding LH F availability exactly 14 days before departure and rebooking it myself over the phone with UA). At one point, I didn't receive any response to my emails (requesting a change in my itinerary) for over a month. . I'm still not 100% confident that they'll be able to get me the TATL sector, so I've set up EF alerts myself and am using the ANA tool. I would not recommend.
. I'm still not 100% confident that they'll be able to get me the TATL sector, so I've set up EF alerts myself and am using the ANA tool. I would not recommend.
