No, basic service is typically finding available seats so you book yourself. Some of them can also do the booking for you though.

We offer this for business or first class with Star Alliance. It is difficult to know the ins and outs of all schemes, thus concentrate on *A (US, UA, Avianca Lifemiles mainly). No fee unless you are happy with routing and we continue to keep an eye out in case something better comes up. Can also advise on hotels at destination if required. Fee depends on amount of work - if booked online or advice only, then around €50 per ticket. If miles need to be bought and airlines phoned, goes up to €80-100 per ticket. Reduced if hotels bought.

You should be able to get routes for free from a few people who offer this service and then book with the person who has the route you like best.

Who is "we"?

driven2travel - small travel consultancy.

Hi award booking services,

I'm planning a multi-segment trip ideally in first or business from SEA to multiple stops in asia for the Nov 15 - Dec 7 2014 time period.

When would be a good time to reach out to you to plan an itinerary? Most of my miles are in United.

Probably 9-11 months before your booking period opens, so at the earliest perhaps early january.

Express service is great. How did you get it for cheaper? I would think Award Miles are specific levels..?

I'd like to add my service to the list. I run Shrewd Travel and we have an award booking service. Flat fees, feel free to email or call and I'll be happy to help.

Another successful and incredible booking with UPRGD - tenacious, intelligent, responsive. Can't say enough about this service.

I'm new to this booking service and have read the last 10 pages - seems like b8b is the only one who has posted over 10 positive reviews for UPRGD -

B8B must be smitten by UPRGDs service?

I'm been reading that for the most part people are unhappy about how long it takes for service providers to get back. How quick is UPRGD?

10 reviews - really? Wow. Maybe he should comp me some bookings then for the advertising! :)

I've just booked a lot with him, found him responsive, really knowledgable, innovative, and able to book 4 of us on the same flights in J, which can be tough. Using the IMDB scale, I'd give him an 8.7 - not perfect, but we're all human and I'm not the easiest customer. I think he's booked around 16 tickets for me so far.

I've also tried a lot of others, I tend to stick to a service that works well. His responsiveness depends on if he's traveling, but I think he also has a team, but when I've needed him, he was there and reasonably responsive. I could only suggest you give him a try and see.

Obviously, there are a lot of factors to come into play....notably how "busy" one is when you contact them. But I used UPGRD for a booking a while back and ultimately just feel "OK" about the service. First of all, we got off to a very slow start (barely one email reply per 24hr period) for the first week or so. It was just over 2 weeks from the time I requested service to the time it was booked, fwiw. Only during the last couple days did I feel that he was really working on the itinerary. Also, he wasn't proactive to inform me about taxes/fees/surcharges despite my specific inquiry along the way. Thus I ended up being a bit surprised with the $600 per ticket surcharge.

In the end, he found an acceptable routing - but not truly optimal. I ran out of segments and needed to come up with a domestic (positioning) segment. It was pointed out by another member here that I probably should have eliminated one of the very short (international) segments of the itinerary and just paid out of pocket for it. That would free up one segment for the domestic portion (which was much more costly). I pointed out this to him, obviously after the booking was made, but he never addressed it. At any rate, he did make the booking for me, which is one of the main reasons why I used a service to begin with.

Oh, some of these services advertise "service after the sale." If that's important to you, be sure and discuss that before hand. UPGRD.com doesn't provide it (and to be fair, they don't advertise that they do). But there was a slight change in flights on the itinerary he booked for me and I wrote with a few questions about my alternatives/options - I got no response. Just keep that in mind if important to you.

I don't doubt that there are folks who have had great experiences with UPGRD. But for whatever reason - maybe it was the itinerary I wanted, maybe the fact that I was using SM - it just wasn't an experience to write home about. I'll either use someone else or do it myself next time.

Looking back, I would have to agree with most of the statements made by Retale_88 had as I too experienced these in one form or another. His request-capturing/tracking system has some shortcomings and I apparently missed emails from him and him from me, so he put me on a later flight when I had specifically requested an earlier one.

That said, compared to the others I've used, I've still had the best, most consistent experience with UPGRD, though I would give only four stars out of 5 for timely response (which can vary).

http://awardplanners.com/ seemed to be very responsive as well. Very nice website.

I would appreciate if you add my site to the list of award booking services.

I run AwardAssist, an award booking service catering for both english and russian speaking customers.
Similar to the other sites, if we can't find what you are looking for there is no charge.

Thanks a lot.

Agreed
 

Time is money , which makes it well worth it