Award booking services - a list
 

I have done plenty of award bookings- but at times its quicker to pay for the help as Im on travel etc. Or the multiple friends & family "bugging" me for help.

I would like to divert them to competent and reasonably priced consultants.

Could you please post links to relevant services here, and possibly add your experiences. Feel free to add basic pricing etc.

I will update this post with all links provided.

The search function revealed very scattered info over the years. This might become a master list.

THERE IS NO NEED FOR DISCUSSION ABOUT THE NEED FOR SUCH SERVICES OR BASHING OP OR OTHERS FOR NOT DOING IT FOR FREE

Edit:
Some of the veterans dont take new clients. Will add info posted on thread.

http://www.awardtravelconsulting.com/ My personal favourite based on requests to all services. YMMV.

www.awardexpert.com

gleffp - http://bookyouraward.com/

lucky9865 - http://pointspros.com/ (unable to take new clients at time of October 2012 update)

http://travelfreecoach.com/ (no e-mail adress on web site - only link for form)

http://awardtravelservices.com/ - another personal favorite

http://premierawardbookings.com/ (no e-mail adress on web site - only link for form)

http://www.travelconcierge.com.au/ (no e-mail adress on web site - only link for form)

www.milevalue.com

http://www.maximizingmiles.com/services/ (unable to take new clients at time of July 2012 update)

http://www.firstclassandbeyond.com

http://crankyconcierge.com/ (Word of warning: contrary to other services this require full pre payment)

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/thewan...aramean/about/

http://www.worldclassperks.com/

http://upgrd.com/award/ (no e-mail adress on web site - only link for form)

www.awardplanners.com (very nice website!)

www.awardbookingservice.com (no e-mail adress on web site - only link for form)

http://www.extrapackofpeanuts.com/aw...oking-service/

Out of service as of time of writing;
thepointsguy http://thepointsguy.com/about-me/ "If you are writing to ask about booking travel using points, I do not currently offer that service, but hope to add it again soon."

Concur that a master list with reviews would be a great addition.

gleffp - http://bookyouraward.com/

lucky9865 - http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemil...ed-award-help/

thepointsguy did or does, couldn't find link on his blog - http://thepointsguy.com/about-me/

You really think your friends & family will pay for this service when they know that you will help them if they bug you enough? :)

What is even more interesting is instead of helping "friends & family" he will rather have them pay. (wow)

And I don't see the point of paying someone for that.

Agree with why wouldn't you help family/friends???

I would, but OP clearly says "at times its quicker to pay for the help as Im on travel etc"

Award booking is time sensitive

I believe lucky and thepointsguy are not currently accepting new customers (for award bookings that is). But I may be way off.

http://pointspros.com/
 

http://pointspros.com/

I recently used this service. I wanted to book a round trip to Asia, but one way with OW, and the other with *A. He presented me with a schedule that I hadn't thought of, but that I liked.

I believe the price was worth it, considering I didn't have to deal with any airline, and everything was done through e-mail.

How much?@

$150.

Obviously you have not ever booked a complicated routing involving very hard to find award seats segments, at the peak seasons or last minutes.

There are times the money paying for the experts to hunt these down for you is money well-spent when you either dont have the knowledge or the tools to look for such, or you simply dont have the time to hunt for such.

And it is time consuming.

Above all things, it is the KNOWLEDGE that one is paying for.

Those pros know the alliances route maps like the back of their hands. They can come up with routing that none of the newbies here can think of, or know about.

Of course if your award idea is a r/t to Hawaii, or a r/t to Europe / Asia with the basic routing, you would think paying for such service is crazy... UNTIL, you have a very difficult time finding award seats on the basic routing you know about... such as just to get to Rome in July by business class to meet your cruise ... Then those services may come up with very unusual routing that have seats to get you there... just an example.

I've used travelconcierge before (twice now) and Roland has been very good at finding what I want and from different alliances. I think he is Australian based, but is very knowledgable in finding routings for me that work. ^

I used up *A miles for my first trip and this time I am using up my *A miles one way and BA/Avios miles on the way back. Being able to fly the A380 on Air France was nice.