Originally Posted by
sdsearch
1. After it's less than 21 days before departure, most of them charge extra for you pouncing upon that (unless you have enough status).
2. Just because you can grab outbound wihin a week of departure doesn't mean you can grab the return part then nor does it guarantee that you'll be able to grab the return part later. So how do you use this for a round trip if you know you have to return at a certain time?
(It's of course exactly because they know most people can't use it at that point that they release inventory at that point!
)
That is part of the fun of booking award flights. If it was that easy everyone would do it. That is also why award booking companies exist. For those people not familiar enough with booking or just don't want to spend that amount of time looking for flights. Part of this game is being flexible. Another is checking out all the options.
For our trip to Greece next year, I saw many open possibilities leaving on LH the first three weeks of June. I needed to book a round trip in order to get a stopover in Athens before flying on to Rhodes on Aegean. Aegean does not release their seats on the same time table as other *A carriers. By the time I could book Aegean, the LH seats were gone. I spent the better part of a Sunday, checking flights from the US to Europe on LH, UA, LX, OS, A3, US. I had an itinerary I could live with when I thought about checking flights from Montreal. Bingo! A much better route was found. But, I needed to move up my departure date 2 days, and moved my return date up one, and will spend an extra day in Athens. I then spent another hour and a half (yes really) spoon feeding our route to the UA agent. Three business class tickets round trip for under $120 in taxes and fees per ticket. Well worth the effort IMHO.
This game we play takes time, patience, a good credit rating, and a little luck. Will I continue looking at routes and available upcoming seats. Probably not. I have my tickets in hand (so to speak) and I am happy with that.