Originally Posted by cfischer
What DallasBill is suggesting is the elaborate way of researching award availability. Just make sure that the booking class is available throughout the entire journey. Even if every single flight has that booking class available, the combination might not. The reward availability calendar of continental is not bad (at least for CO and NW), you can see the availability for an entire month.
Yes... correct. But it can be that booking class, or a
lower booking class, if you are booking a First or a bizclass seat.
So,
loomis, DL codes are N/O/R for economy/biz/exec. AF are X/O/A for economy/biz/first. Say you have 100k points and you want to go to IAH-CDG-FLR. Enter IAH for the depart and FLR for the destination. Select DL, CO and AF for the airlines.
Now, for outbound, what gives you First (A) on IAH-CDG if that is most important and what other airlines on the outbound leg have availability in that level or lower. Do the same for the return.
When I booked, I knew I wanted to only use CO and CDG because I didn't want to fly thru Atlanta. I knew that AF out of Houston had a higher availability of A seats than it did out of any other city, generally. So, I fly economy to Houston on CO, First on AF to Paris and biz on AF to Florence. On the return it's economy on AF to Paris, First on AF to Houston and biz on CO back to DFW.
I hope that makes some sense.
Originally Posted by cfischer
Even if every single flight has that booking class available, the combination might not.
I am not sure what to make of this point. If every single flight going both ways for what he searched for shows seats in (let's say) A, O, N, and he is booking with 100k points, then he can easily get there and back again and he can pick which airline and flight he wants.