Originally Posted by
Jaimito Cartero
Tom,
I've been doing a lot of award checking the last month. I've found that you often have to do a multicity award, and include CDG as your first EU port of entry. Try this a bit, and see what kind of awards you come up with. I've found lots of cheap Y and Biz tickets when I've gone this route.
Yes.
For SkyTeam award travel, multi-city search via CDG or (usually better) AMS is the thing to do on nwa.com, especially for US/Canada to Finland+Scandinavian cities, when it comes to standard ("low"/non-extortion mileage price) award travel.
Excluding considerations of status-related extra award inventory (i.e., not applicable to biz and not applicable in an apples to apples comparison in coach on partner airlines), the TATL availability using NW miles from US/Canada to Europe continues to map to whatever DL has available and then some more than can be booked online or offline with DL miles.
If anything, it is more often DL that seems to have somewhat reduced award inventory -- when checked online and offline -- in comparison to NW when it comes to actual attempt to book the award tickets regardless of online or offline.
If there is a discrepancy in award availability between NW and DL
and we are not talking about DL-operated flights, then -- unlike with calls to DL -- a call to NW and handed over to NW web support will be able to do the booking and even waive the telephone booking fee for this NW and DL elite. [At DL it is still a different story than at NW in terms of approach to the customers, as evident when DL charges the telephone booking fee even to DL Platinums who have hit online award booking tool problems or when DL reps hit a wall in terms of search and pricing and cannot even see what AF/KL, CO, NW and even KE reps can find in terms of basic award inventory when doing a manual search and booking.] This fee waiver may change at NW -- and become the same as at DL -- as DL management implements more of DL's famous "no waivers and favors" mentality.
Multi-city search is the way to go about it. If at early glance there is an apparent discrepancy in award availability between DL and NW, then a call to NW -- if using NW miles -- should be able to generally resolve that; however, if attempting to use DL miles and there is at early glance an apparent discrepancy in award availability, don't expect as easy of a time when dealing with the DL facilities to try to make an award booking to try to make up for that discrepancy.