Cash/revenue and loyalty currencies/liabilities (miles/points/upgrades) bookings are two different systems and concepts. You gotta know what works for you and take advantage when you can.
Your example of BER-ARN in Y wasn't a good use of Airpoint Dollars at the time when you booked/searched. Try again 5-7 days before the departure and the cash/revenue ticket would likely cost a lot more, and make using APD worthwhile, if there was availability.
Originally Posted by
ClanJ
Am looking at using air dollars for a booking Stockholm/Berlin. For the date I want airpoints wants $250 in air dollars and cash $69 for taxes on SAS. On the SAS site same flight/date/time/baggage the cost is $168 including taxes.Can anyone enlighten me on why such a difference in cost. Makes using air dollars a waste of time really..
SQ,LH and TP became unavailable online since late Feb I believe. TG has never been available online. There were issues with booking SQ,TG and TP with UA Mileage Plus last month as well.
Before the "enhancement", SQ short haul all classes, including Suites, and mid-haul Y and J, were bookable with APD online. Long haul was only available in Y, EXCEPT SIN-AKL v.v., for which J and F were bookable. For AP$2000+NZ$85.05 taxes, in late Jan I booked and flew SIN-AKL in SQ's A380 Suites Class in mid-Feb.
You need to call Airpoints to feed them the availability (segments) you see on UA/AC/NH's Star award search engines for those "offline" Star airlines like TG,SQ,LH,etc, as well as EY and VS.
Originally Posted by
NZbutterfly
While we're on it, anyone notice Singapore Airlines disappear from long haul? Or more importantly know when it will be back? Or even why it's disappeared? It's been a few weeks at least. Current option is to fly via China for an extra 800APD.
