gonebabygone

Apologies if I'm posting in the wrong place!

Four years in the game and SN has always seemed the most elusive of the YQ-free airlines, I never see it appear on Aeroplan or United's award search.

But now I'm planning a trip to Belgium and could really use some seats with them!

I'm assuming there's very limited space for something like YYZ-BRU. But even short intra-europe flights (eg. MXP-BRU, AGP-BRU) aren't easy to find.

Any tips for me? What am I doing wrong?

Stranger

yyznomad

@gonebabygone

Please give dates and actual flights you want to book.

As per @Stranger, I've never had issues booking AP rewards on SN.

I didn't realize they are one of the no/low-YQ carriers though... never paid attention to that.

opentag

I've never seen space offered on the only TATL Canadian SN route YYZ-BRU (nor on the return). So it's not an option for to / from Europe.
Usually it's a decent option for popping around Europe though. I'm looking at YVR-SFO-ZRH-CDG-BRU-FCO-CAI-ATH-IST-ZRH-YUL-YVR that's relying on SN to get me between 2 non-*A base airports.

djskynet

I have flown YYZ-BRU in J using AE several times over the past 3 years, booking up to 3 seats at a time. Never had any issues though I have noticed over the past month or so, no seats appears to be released any more, I am thinking it might be due to this route being often flown alternatively by an A332 formerly flown by Eurowings aircraft (with less seats in J) and one of their recently refurbished A332 with the new J cabin. Hopefully the situation will return to normal soon. Their J product is quite nice and quite often half empty.

The one thing to keep in mind however is that SN often times releases seats in married segments in a way similar to LX therefore you may be able to score seats searching for GVA or LHR as destination (I have personally had to book the 2 aforementioned examples to be able to get YYZ-BRU)

gonebabygone

Thanks for some great tips!

I did some more research and was able to find some availability on MXP-BRU for several dates in May 2020.

However there appears to be a maximum of four seats I can book, and we are a family of five.

Does anyone know SN's policy for flights like this? Are there only 4 reward seats made available for each flight? Or can only 4 be booked at a time? (Meaning I would need to make two separate bookings.)

yscleo

I had tried to find SN award seats YYZ-BRU over the last couple of years and they are hard to find. Early this year when two seats showed up for Sept., I grabbed them. So they are there, but not easy to find. Last year I couldn't get YYZ-BRU, but did get LHR-BRU and BRU-CDG (in a RTW trip), so at least we had the experience flying on SN.

A separate question, after getting award seats on SN552 YYZ-BRU this year on Sept. 12, I called to get seating, but was told the fare class does not get assigned seats. That is different than last year. Has anyone been able to get assigned seats this year?

djskynet

In Y, you have to pay for seat assignment, that's not new, this has been on for at least a year.

In J, you should have free seat assignment. If they tell you otherwise on the phone, I would get a hold of them on twitter.

yscleo

It was Y. Last year I was able to get seating. This year no. Too bad. Most other airlines allow choosing seats for ae award booking.

Stranger

flyertalker00156

anyone been able to book any SN availability on the new YUL-BRU flight?

gonebabygone

Yep, booked in early September. Availability was wide open. Not sure what it's like now though.

choppertester

Did it last night for two one ways YOW-YUL-BRU for 15 Oct 2020. Total $134 in fees for two tickets. Similar flights on AC or LH were $700 to $800 in scam fees.