CanuckFlyHigh

Hi All,

I am looking to book a honeymoon trip for Sept 2017. It is time I start to look/hire an award booking service, as we will need to book in Sept/Oct of this year, and I want to make sure I have a feasible trip, in advance of the booking date. I am capable, but certainly not an expert, and I need an expert for this trip. I have approximately 450-500K Aeroplan, and 250,000 Amex MR's. I will be departing Canada, so assume Aeroplan is my best bet. Our dream/goal is to do Canada to Europe (istanbul), Europe to Asia (indonesia, but would consider other 'beachy' dest), and then Asia to Africa (Tanzania is the dream - although we arent set on Africa, and I think MPM's will not allow this, so I am open to suggestions here).

This MUST be in business class or better. Obviously would like to keep my taxes/fees low, but it is not my top priority (although I obviously don't want to go through LHR on Aeroplan, as an example)

If you have significant experience with Aeroplan and RTW trips, please let me know your experience, website (if you have one), and fees. Looking to make a decision soon. Please PM me if you are interested.
Thank you,

ckpeter

I would not recommend speculatively engaging several bookers in parallels. In many cases you would be wasting people's efforts. For challenging trips, award searching are expensive. It can take an experienced agents several hours to search, confirm, and call the airlines. If you engage several of them at the same time, you are unnecessarily wasting their efforts.

A more ethical approach would be to approach them serially, one at a time. If the first one got you the perfect itinerary, you are set and no need to search more. If the first itinerary doesn't work for you, then you can decline and find another booker to work with.

Do note that the bookers are aware that some people shop around. Some of them will withhold the full flight details until you confirm.

lucke27

Thanks for the reply. I can certainly see that point of view, which is the reason for the OP. I think my situation is pretty binary, with Virgin Australia not really allocating business class award inventory to Delta the way they used to; so, I'm not sure how much help they could give, but I may be way off base.

abaheti

Agreed. To me, it isn't quite the same as calling five stores/vendors to get quotes on an item, then picking whoever calls me back first with the price I want. In this case, they would have to do possibly substantial work which would be, by design, a waste for the majority of them. Also, how to handle if multiple of them come up with a good itinerary at basically the same time? If two come up with the same itinerary at basically the same time?

Now, you could send a note to multiple saying "Here's my issue, miles I have, desired itinerary, I'm trying to select a vendor, is this something you feel you could do -- or is it not your airline niche or in your experience is it just not possible? And if yes, what are your terms?" Then select someone to start. It feels very reasonable to feel out multiple and see who you feel best about. (Although handling all, some may really know your carrier/alliance, for example.)

ckpeter

In that case, I would still give one of the bookers a try. I know some of them have some tricks that in rare instances can help to secure seats. As long as you are not engaging a host of them in parallel, it is all in good intentions.

GSTgst

I’d like to put in a recommendation for the award booking service “Juicy Miles” (http://www.juicymiles.com/), and especially Josh Gibson there. I recently tasked him with finding near impossible-to-find Business Class seats (two nevertheless) from Phoenix to Morocco, then onto Barcelona, then back to Phoenix – and on Delta and AX affiliated carriers at the base / economy level award pricing! (had only a certain amount of points). He accomplished the task! (the final itinerary was a bit more miles than the base cost, but still quite reasonable). Josh also kept me up-to-date with his progress. I’d recommend using him and expect to use him again in the future.

Kagehitokiri

dont some say they charge if they find an itin that fits your original criteria ?

ajames

Long time lurker, but first time posting!

Question for those who either have used award booking services or who operate them:

Is it okay to not be exactly sure of my itinerary when I contact an award booking service? Basically, I'd like someone to search for me and figure out the difference between going from say, PHL to Hawaii, or from starting in my hometown instead of PHL, or making an overnight stop in Seattle and then going on to Hawaii. Do award services expect to have the exact itinerary, or will they help figure out from several options?

abaheti

This sounds like a reasonable set of alternatives for them to research for you -- that's why you're paying them -- but be careful not to really be asking for two different itineraries. In my experience, they can find some creative solutions that you may not think of. They may even come up with other alternatives based on your parameters. I've requested "A --> B with whatever the heck sounds fun in between and guarantees class of service", and received some great trips.

ajames

Thank you for the response, that's helpful!

HMPS

A hat tip to Chase of Juicy Miles for trying to put together a bit demanding itn. for two. There were eight or so back & forth between us but alas could not put together what we needed.

I will call upon him in the future.

Kalboz

Welcome to Flyertalk ajames!

Rule of thumb: it all depends on availability - sure, they place your preference into priority consideration and then they get creative. This is also depends on how good they are.

Hate to discourage you here, but some (won't mention any names) are just lazy! They don't take their time looking and expect you to accept economy as part of your itinerary all the while they brag about their F seats on the blogs and at the get-togethers!

Juicy Miles is awesome and took us around the world to keeps us enjoying F and Business with lounges throughout. While this other yahoo wanted us fly to pay for our LAX-YVR flight in economy and then catch the flight with the award seats to Asia!!!

Another excellent one is the peanuts guy - Travis Sherry (http://www.extrapackofpeanuts.com/) who will construct complex itinarary based on your preference and keep you in F and Business with access to lounges throughout. He brilliantly engineered our first trip around the world. BTW, we travel as a family of 4 - finding one premium award seat is hard enough, let alone 4 for an around the globe trip!

Thirdly, and just as good, is the Bengali Guru (Tahsir Ahsan). The man has the knowledge and the access to some great awards. I believe he is currently with Travel Codex (http://www.travelcodex.com/) not sure which award booking services.

I follow and keep in touch with all above through twitter and Facebook as they are tremendous help.

newaarondavidson

However if they are willing to negotiate their pricing, or added services his parallel approach is ideal. Sort of like pitting car dealerships against one another.

aves17

Adam with The Points Jet Setter here requesting to be added to the list. I previously worked with Dominic over at Award Bandit (who has since shut down I believe as he got picked up by BA) in addition to running my own award booking service. I quoted from a post here from a satisfied client to show how I operate. I am extremely well versed in the award travel arena and am a mod over on Reddit AwardTravel where you can see some examples of my depth of knowledge in the area.

My award consulting fee structure is as follows and I offer a 100% money back guarantee if I cannot find a routing that fits your schedule and/or criteria.

Award Consulting - This includes a conversation regarding what you are looking for, as well as searching out award space for your itinerary. $150 for the first passenger and $75 per passenger for each after that.

Credit Card Strategy & Analysis Consulting - A 30 minute telephone consultation to help you plan a credit card sign up strategy to maximize your points and miles for your next trip. $50.

Route Monitoring - Monitoring a particular route for available award space (this is most useful for Cathay Pacific and JAL flights). $50.

Destination Wedding Consulting - Free! I will provide a link to a custom webpage that will be designed specifically for your wedding destination providing three to five credit cards that would help get your guests to your wedding destination on points and/or miles. All you have to do is post the link up on your wedding website, and we take care of the rest! I also offer my consulting services to your guests at a discounted rate. The best part? If the bride and groom retain my services, there is absolutely no cost to them AND my consulting services are offered free of charge to help plan a honeymoon trip using points and miles if 5 or more of your guests utilize my consulting service!

Any other questions, feel free to PM me. Thanks!

abaheti

Fair point. but I would quiz them on what they will throw in first and not ask both to start the work.