<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by pdhenry:
For what it's worth, I've had good luck requesting this service from the airlines themselves.
Example: "Hello, I'm trying to arrange award travel in Business Class to Europe in May. I'd like to leave from Philadelphia and fly to any destination in Italy or Switzerland. Ideally I'd prefer to leave on the 3rd and return on the 18th, but any trip of two weeks duration give or take a day will work out well. I will fly on your airline or any of your mileage partners that are available."
"Yes sir, let me look at what I can find. Why don't you call back in two or three hours."
Three hours later I had PHL-ZRH on my choice dates all reserved.</font>
That's pretty cool. I remember about five years ago, I had a wonderful agent at US Airways spend an hour or so piecing together a last-minute request for business class flights from the US to Scotland for a weekend in mid-June. Most flights were sold out, but she put together a six-segment, open-jaw trip on three different airlines and I got a great golf weekend in St. Andrews done for 80,000 miles.
Where AwardPlanner will add value for me will be on a trip where I will be redeeming awards from multiple airline programs and multiple hotel programs. Throw in a stopover or two and the fact that there will be a lot of international partner travel... I'm a travel junkie, but I'll leave this one for the pros...