[QUOTE=Manoa Chris]Interisland Hawaii flights at 5,000 miles RT are a great deal on United. But you can't book them online, have to deal with an indian call center at least twice (first to make the reservation, then 12 hours later to confirm it), and the flights are on Aloha's 737s which make most NW DC9s look state of the art. So there are some tradeoffs.

I booked a flight between Kona and Honolulu using United miles for early June -- it took no less than four lengthy phones calls to India (first the flights came back unexpectedly full, than another set of flight were somehow entered for the wrong month altogether, then the itinerary was reversed(!), and finally it seems to have been done right. The fifth, confirmation call, was thankfully handled by a US call center. Since you have to deal with them twice on each reservation, it seems to double the chances that something will get mangled.




Maybe we just have different experiences with different airlines. I called United, requested my ticket, called back 12 hous later and booked my ticket. It was fairly pain free and pretty convenient (it was also nice to get the award for 5,00 miles instead of 10,000). I will agree with you on the India thing though, having dealt with them in the past, they are really nice but not veryeffective in solving any sort of problem. They only seem capable of reading from a script and any deviation from that seems difficult for them. I just hang up and try again if they answer.

I don't know if award availability depends on what market you orginate from or what. I guess there are people who do well with awards and some who dont, like me. I just want to clarify that I don't simply call up the day before and ask for "two tickets to London" I have requested tikets 4-6 months out on partner airlines and 2-4 months out for NWA flights.

I really don't care for the fact that when flying cross country, there is zero entertainment. When I fly United or Jet Blue, at least I don't have to lug the personal DVD player with me and I kinda like that. The Ipod is much more used friendly!