wdp85

Is there any service, paid or free, which allows one to search for Envoy Off-Peak availability easily (i.e. without entering each set of dates)?

I'd like to see a list of Envoy availability for destinations like CDG, LHR, FCO, etc. in Jan/Feb 2012 for a 4-6 day trip. Something like the flexible date search on ITA Matrix would be ideal, but anything would be easier than entering each date for each potential destination.

ArizonaGuy

You can use the flexible calendar view on the website. Will show you all the days available for the particular destination for a 30 day period. You still have to go city by city but that's still only a handful of searches.

And note that you should be looking specifically at the longhaul segment only, PHL-<Dest> or CLT-<Dest>. Ignore your starting point if elsewhere. If there's no low domestic F on the feeder flight it won't show you low or off-peak Envoy on the longhaul sector whether it's available or not. Once you find what you want to/from CLT or PHL, then check to make sure the domestic segment has low F inventory.

wdp85

Thanks, that helps a lot. For some reason before I was only getting economy flights when I was searching by flexible dates before.

I'm a little confused by your second point. I'll be flying SFO-{PHL, CLT}-<Dest>, or alternatively OAK-PHX-{PHL, CLT}-<Dest>. I see several options where CLT-<Dest> is available as an Envoy Off-Peak award, but when I search for SFO-CLT-<Dest>, the Off-Peak award is not available. Does this mean I can't book SFO-CLT-<Dest> as an Envoy Off-Peak award, or that I can book it but can't confirm F on SFO-CLT yet? If that's possible, I don't see a way to do it on the website, so presume I would have to call the CP desk.

ArizonaGuy

I did some searching on this myself. It would seem even for the domestic segment there's an unknown "off-peak" inventory (which is of course only bookable with off-peak TATL flights). Here's my example:

On a particular date, I found PHL-CDG available in off-peak Envoy. However, I could not find PHX-PHL-CDG at the off-peak level, even though there was clearly low F space available on the PHX-PHL segment. In fact, I couldn't go via PHL, or directly to CLT. It only offered me off-peak if I want PHX-LAS, DEN or ORD, then CLT-CDG. But I'd do that for the off-peak mileage if the layovers were long enough to accommodate fickle winter weather.

I've never bothered to find out if you can book off-peak awards via phone. If you can, since the search engine won't do what you need, I'd possibly call and start off by having them book PHL-CDG-PHL (or wherever you're going) have them verify it will be 60K (or 55K with US Airways credit card), then ask to add the SFO segments and see if you can still get it for the off-peak rate.

Nikolaos

I am interested in booking an off-peak Envoy ticket for a family member to travel from Europe (FRA, FCO or MAD) to US in February..

Usually, the off-peak Envoy tickets run only in February, but i have found availability only for a couple of days on different routes. At the same time, i have checked and most of the Envoy cabin in these flights is empty.

According to your past experience, is there a possibility that US will release off-peak awards seats as the date of departure comes closer (in a similar way as with CP certs)?

I can still find off-peak in Economy, but is looks like a bad use of miles, if Envoy off-peaks are to become available!

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.