Moomduck1

Hi,
My hubby and I were getting ready to book some award travel, or at least see if we had enough miles to do so. We have never done this and we are so confused. We looked at the cities that USAir flies to and found a few that we were interested in seeing. Gothenburg, Sweden was one, mainly because USAir doesn't fly to Copenhagen. We could fly into Gothenburg and take a train to Copenhagen. When I went to see how many miles we would need, I got an error message that said that USAir didn't fly there. Except their "where we fly" chart says they do!

Has anyone had this happen? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks!

ffI

You can book US air awards on US website for flights operated by US only.
So search for a fare between cities and make sure that onlu US is operating the route.

For everything else, book a partner award
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/us-ai...ad-merged.html

PHL

The "where we fly" chart shows where they, and their partners, fly. Many of those European international cities would be flown partly on Swiss or Lufthansa (e.g. PHL-FRA on US or LH, FRA-Gothenberg on LH, or maybe PHL-ZRH on US and ZRH-Gothenberg on Swiss).

Either way, you'd have to call US Airways reservations and tell them you want to make an international Star Alliance award reservation. Then the agent can look for flights to the city(s) you wish to visit. Be flexible, because the agent has to access available seating on partner airlines so your first, second and 8th choices may not be available.

iztok

*A awards are usually better than US awards alone so even if US flies somewhere you might be better off getting award on an alliance airline.

fly747first

Also, depending on the number of miles you have, you may want to consider First or Business Class travel. Some of US Airways' European Star Alliance partners like Lufthansa and Swiss offer first, business, and economy award tickets, while others like Austrian and SAS only offer business and economy award tickets.

chinatraderjmr

Swiss no longer allows F travel for *A awards (they are adopting the same rules as SQ). I was just on a paid F flight ZRH-DXB a couple weeks ago and there were only 2 of us in F. The pursur showed me a company news letter saying that the company has decided (at least for now) to put a stop on LX F *A redemptions and open a few more seats then usual with LH. They want to make it more "exclusive" and blame UA/US mileage "millionaires" who change flights 3-4 times within a week due to the free changes for Elites. I know I saw LX F availability a few weeks ago on UA and ANA but I checked after that flight (and again a few weeks ago and it's true. There are no more LX F awards anywhere on ANA / UA site. Even looked st s few flights that were going out that same week and a few were showing F9 but no award availability. (LX only has 8 seats in F, same as LH but for some reason LX must overbook by 1

Moomduck1

Thanks!! I am going to just call them and see if someone on the phone can help. We are only looking for basic round trip tickets so hopefully it won't be a problem. Does anyone know how far in advance you can get tickets? I think it is too early to buy for June 2013. We do not have enough for business class, I don't think. I'm not sure we even have enough each for a round trip! I'm unable to figure it out from the charts. I can't figure out which chart to use. I think calling would be best.

Phudnik

The general rule of thumb is that seats are made available beginning 330 days before the flight. Availability can change, so if you don't see what you want at first, it may show up later.

US to Europe on US is anywhere from 35,000 miles to 125,000 miles round-trip in coach, depending on the time of the year and availability. US business class awards similarly vary and range from 60,000 to 350,000 miles round-trip.

Partner awards are 60,000 in coach, 100,000 in business, and 125,000 in first, all round-trip. As noted above, availability varies and you need to call in to book a partner award.

Good luck!