Putting on hold an awards reservation?

I expect to have the miles needed in 20 days. Can I make the reservation now and put it on hold?

EDIT Now that this is in its rightful restingplace:
Most I have ever seen is 5 days.

I can't speak for US DM awards, but I recently redeemed *A awards on United flights with US miles and was allowed to put them on hold for 3 days. It used to be 7 at one point, but I don't think it was even anywhere near 20.

My understanding (and my experience) is that the miles needed for an award are deducted when you first make the award reservation. While it's generally possible (depending on the carrier/s you're trying to ticket) to extend an existing hold for a series of 3-day periods that could reach beyond 20 days overall, it sounds like the OP wants to reserve an award he/she doesn't yet have the mileage to ticket. If that's the case, since your account would get docked for the miles up front, the short answer is: no. You need to have the proper amount of miles in your account before you make the reservation; there's no award layaway program.

No, miles aren't deducted until you actually ticket, up to 3 days later. When I was searching for flights I put 4 different sets of UA tix on hold, with confirmation numbers. Only one was charged to my account, 2 days later when I ticketed it.

The only option is to put them on hold for 3 days, then re-put them on hold at 12:01a 3 days later, 7 times in a row. Or just hope they're there 20 days from now.

(hold is until midnight on the 3rd day, not 72 hrs)

US does not require that the miles be in your account when you put a reservation on hold. US also does not require that the miles come from the account that put the reservation on hold.

Interesting. I made an award reservation recently to hold without ticketing and was explicitly told that the miles would be deducted then and there; of course, I could have had an uninformed phone agent. It's been known to happen. And I don't recall checking my account balance during the 3 days I had the itinerary on hold to verify.


Really? Then that's a complete reversal of this policy:

"The required number of miles for award travel must be posted to your account prior to requesting an award reservation."

From the Dividend Miles membership guide, available here: http://www.usairways.com/awa/content...mberguide.aspx. I'd be interested in knowing what your source was, since the policy you described would seem to create nothing but headaches for people who do have enough mileage to ticket award reservations right away.

Reservation does not equal putting an itinerary on hold. Reservation occurs when the ticket is issued in the arena of awards.

As for my source, I have ticketed several flights using this mechanism.