Originally Posted by
azul
MisterAviator-
I just booked a *A award trip to BKK and let me tell you, it was not easy. You might want to take a look at my recent posts to familiarize yourself with some of the shenanegans USAir might pull along the way as you try to book your trip.
In the end the trick to getting a ticket was to keep calling back over a series of days or even weeks. Depending on when you are hoping for a ticket may depend on the ease of booking. Also, you may want to consider whether or not you would be willing to fly into a different city and buy a ticket to your final destination. But if you do that, plan carefully. Buying ticket between BKK & NRT will cost you $400-700 depending on the season. But buying tix between BKK and SGN, HKG, etc would be pretty cheap.
Just wanted to bump this up and report all the success I've had recently using the ANA site to check *A award availability. I booked IND-ORD-NRT-ORD-IND for a friend, DFW-FRA-VIE-FRA-MLA-FRA-MUC-IAD-DFW for a friend, IAD-FRA-VIE-FRA-MLA-FRA-MUC-IAD for me, HNL-NRT-BKK-HKT-BKK-NRT-ORD-IAD for my dad, and IAD-JFK-BKK-HKT-BKK-NRT-ORD-IAD for me. All of those are business class awards using US miles and were booked within the last few months. All of the flights showed as available on the ANA site and all were available when I called US. Using the ANA site has shown availability that most US agents would not have found, so it really is a great tool. Plus, most of the time the US agent comments that complex award bookings never go that well and then thanks me for doing my homework before calling.