Oct 14, 2013, 4:55 pm

FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides

Update 08APR2014: Star Alliance Awards must have been booked by March 30, 2014. They are no longer available through US. This thread is mostly useful for historic purposes, and discussing issues such as schedule changes/route changes that affect FTers existing *A awards booked before 3/31/2014.

Discussion on using US miles to book oneworld awards is available here.

If you are looking for discussion on US's new partner awards that use various partners not in oneworld (many of whom are former *A partners), see the devoted thread on using US miles to book NON-oneworld partners here.

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Update 07JAN14: American Airlines award tickets bookable online on usairways.com or through reservation.

Award travel must be wholly on American Airlines or a combination of American Airlines and US Airways.
American Airlines awards cannot be combined with any of our current partner.
American Airlines award travel chart (PDF)

Please see the devoted thread on using US miles to book AA here.

Star Alliance Award Bookings Using US Airways Miles - FAQ and Help Thread [MERGED]

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Oct 22, 2013, 4:36 pm

#18451

Paiteaw

Join Date: Jul 2003

Location: WAS/ Silver Spring, MD,USA

Programs: UA/AA

Posts: 857

It should match the person's passport. You should not let it slide.

Oct 22, 2013, 5:02 pm

#18452

davem4

Join Date: Feb 2004

Location: BNE / LHR

Programs: QF Gold

Posts: 1,601

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paiteaw

It should match the person's passport. You should not let it slide.

Quite a .... creative booking.

Oct 22, 2013, 5:33 pm

#18453

dilvala

Join Date: May 2005

Posts: 234

Need help finding something out of EWR/JFK to SIN ... My final destination is AMD.
Jan 5th, 7th are the only 2 days I see flights from SIN - AMD.

I am going crazy trying to find seats/ combination that gets me into SIN before 5pm on either the 5th or 7th. I been using united and awardtravelr

Thanks in Advance

Oct 22, 2013, 6:08 pm

#18454

davem4

Join Date: Feb 2004

Location: BNE / LHR

Programs: QF Gold

Posts: 1,601

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paiteaw

It should match the person's passport. You should not let it slide.

Anyway I called, so will add an update incase it helps anyone in the future.

"I have added a note to the reservation, the first checkin agent in Brisbane will be able to modify the ticket. It will be fine".

Oct 22, 2013, 6:14 pm

#18455

FlyingDoctorwu

Join Date: Mar 2004

Location: Baltimore MD

Posts: 3,457

So my parents are scheduled to fly EWR-IAH-PEK in January. However, due to a schedule change their 3.5 hour layover in IAH has turned into a 61 minute layover. Still legal, but not exactly comforting... They (I) haven't called into accept the changes but I just wanted to check how much US will let me alter the ticket beyond that EWR-IAH segment. For instance, they are actually thinking they want to go to Chengdu, so will US let me change the itinerary into EWR-IAH-PEK-CTU without any change fee? (probable return from CTU as well but might turn the stopover in TPE to an open jaw return from TPE instead)....

thanks
FDW

Oct 22, 2013, 7:32 pm

#18456

PVDtoDEL

Join Date: Oct 2010

Location: SEA/ORD/ADB

Programs: TK ELPL (*G), AS 100K (OWE), BA Gold (OWE), Hyatt Globalist, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Plat, IHG Plat

Posts: 7,763

Quote:

Originally Posted by davem4

Hi All,

Booked a ticket yesterday and the middle names are incorrect.

OLLET, MATTHEWCHRISTOPHERJOHN is on the booking

OLLET, MATTHEWCHRISTOPHERJAMES is the passengers real name.

Birthdate in booking is correct.

Only booked about 13 hours ago, is it possible to get this fixed up, or would such a small difference not really matter? Is it a simple change for US airways?

3/4 names correct. Birthdate correct.

Everything past the 14th character will be truncated anyway. Don't worry about it.

Oct 22, 2013, 7:49 pm

#18457

mcdullhk88

Join Date: Apr 2012

Location: NYC, LAX, HKG

Posts: 286

Sorry to re-open an old thread, but I need help too. Is the following type of booking possible as a Star Alliance North America-North Asia award (US Airways)?

Outbound: LAX-PEK-SYD-SIN-HKG (destination)
Return: HKG-BKK-CDG-VIE (stopover)-DXB-JFK (I do not wish to terminate at LAX)

I am seeking to fly the segments in a combination of first class (where available) and business class, and will pay the the points needed for first class. Every stop besides my destination and stopover will be under 24 hours.

And if I must return to LAX, can I just add a final JFK-LAX segment and just not fly it?

Thank you in advance.

Oct 22, 2013, 9:42 pm

#18458

DC777Fan

Join Date: Aug 2011

Location: ECP

Programs: DL Diamond

Posts: 1,658

Quote:

Originally Posted by kudzu

The DM membership guide states that the award processing fee is non-refundable -

That's fine and understandable, if extremely annoying, in the event you cancel an award by choice, but in this case it wasn't my choice. The only acceptable routing (1 stop with business class space) became an illegal connection due to a change. I asked them to accommodate me and open space on US metal and they declined...what else could I do?

Oct 22, 2013, 10:37 pm

#18459

eponymous_coward

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Aug 2007

Location: SEA, but up and down the coast a lot

Programs: Oceanic Airlines Gold Elite

Posts: 20,386

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcdullhk88

First page of this thread:

Quote:

An award booking can contain a maximum of ten segments.*

Quote:

One stopover (subject to conditions) is permitted on an award, or ONE open-jaw.* (This rule changed from two-stopovers to one stopover in Summer 2010.)

Your itinerary has an open jaw AND stopover, and more than 10 segments... so, no, by the rules, this booking is NOT possible.

Also- how are you flying DXB-JFK nonstop on *A metal? EK does not belong to *A.

I'm surprised you didn't include EZE, ANC, KTM, DEL and JNB in your routing, seeing as it's pretty ridiculous already, and going to get shot down as it stands, on top of breaking program rules. (PEK-SYD-SIN to get to HKG? VIE-DXB-North America? Really? Backtrack much?) Might as well go for some extra continents.

Try something a little more reasonable like LAX-PEK-HKG(destination)-BKK-CDG-VIE(stop)-JFK-LAX, throw away the JFK-LAX, and you should be OK.

Last edited by eponymous_coward; Oct 22, 2013 at 10:48 pm

Oct 23, 2013, 12:18 am

#18460

UA Fan

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Mar 2006

Location: DFW

Programs: AA 1M

Posts: 31,474

Has something changed wrt to mixing and matching star and non-star carriers on an award? I just added a segment within India on 9W to my itinerary. I was also able to change the entire outbound to EWR-BRU-BOM on 9W.

Oct 23, 2013, 5:15 am

#18461

goodo

Join Date: Nov 1999

Location: SYD

Posts: 2,903

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcdullhk88

Assuming you didn't have the open jaw and just threw away the last segment and you ignored the # of segments issue or the backtracking issue, the MPM+25 of LAX-HKG = 10,872m, your outbound LAX-PEK-SYD-SIN-HKG is 17,297m and return HKG-BKK-CDG-VIE-DXB-(FRA)-JFK-LAX = 19,542m so not even the slightest hope that's gonna get approved.

goodo

Oct 23, 2013, 6:29 am

#18462

gottaluvNW

Join Date: Nov 2008

Location: LHR

Programs: Ex-NWA Plat

Posts: 1,480

What's the latest on the issue surrounding non-availability of LH flights using DM?

I just called the DM desk after much search/research on the ANA website re: availability and each and every Europe-Asia leg that I considered for my final journey into SYD was unavailable in LH business class... I checked flights into Tokyo, HK, Delhi, Singapore - each of these was available on ANA, none were available via US.

VERY strange...

Edited to add:
http://upgrd.com/matthew/diagnosing-...end-miles.html
Found this link online that folks might learn from...

Last edited by gottaluvNW; Oct 23, 2013 at 6:40 am Reason: Added a note...

Oct 23, 2013, 6:30 am

#18463

kudzu

Join Date: Nov 2003

Location: AVL

Programs: AA EXP ; Cunard Plat

Posts: 4,211

Quote:

Originally Posted by DC777Fan

US would note ...

1) it wasn't their choice either that the partner airline changed flight times. I gather also that opening up award inventory space on their own metal is a courtesy that may be extended to their own frequent flyers primarily.

2) the initial award booking went through OK, and the nonrefundable transactional fee applied ... in other words, work done, fee ($25 to $50) paid.

3) they're already waiving the $150 redeposit fee due to the compelling nature of this case.

Oct 23, 2013, 9:11 am

#18464

UA Fan

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Mar 2006

Location: DFW

Programs: AA 1M

Posts: 31,474

The itinerary I put on hold yesterday that had some 9W segments can't be viewed online. I did view it as soon as the agent put it on hold. Anything to worry about?

Oct 23, 2013, 10:46 am

#18465

mjjckc

Join Date: Dec 2010

Location: SBA/FAT

Posts: 38

GRU to Colombia with Dividend Miles

Newbie warning...

I have around 55,000 miles with US and was hoping to use them in late January for a trip to Colombia with Copa or Avianca, lasting around a week. I live in Sao Paulo so GRU would be my home airport for this trip.

I would like to visit both BOG and MDE (a 48 hour stopover in LIM or PTY would be a cool bonus, but I can see the need for BOG to "be" the stopover).

Any creating routing ideas to maximize the miles I would be redeeming?

Thanks!