carl321

Hello, can someone please help me how to book a non-AP award flight?

when I search AP I don’t see all the options and most of them are asking for unrealistic number of points (hello dynamic pricing).

eg: I’m trying to book yyz to cmb via any port in the world but I can only see EY BA or AC/UL. Why can’t I see Eva? Or CY or any other option? I’ve also tried the cowtool but not a lot of options. I would love to fly Turkish via Istanbul (takes the same time as EY but I have no idea how to check. I have AP points and Amex MR. I did fly QR via YUL DOH and that was an amazing flight but would like to use my AP points. Pleas can someone share their logic or process to do this? I’m thinking if I should stop collecting AP and switch to 100% Amex and BA avios ? Thank you

wjw

You’re free to sign up with any frequent flier program you’d like. If you’re not satisfied with AP rewards no one is stopping you from signing up with Miles and More or Miles and Smiles…

rambling man

for when? economy, business, or first? one-way or round-trip? there are many people on this forum who would be happy to help but you have to tell us what you want. not just a routing.

if you're looking for next month, forget it. i'm booking 360 days out to be able to get flights for reasonable points.

and if you think that Avios are better, you may be in for a rude awakening.

fbrdky

If you can't see it, then it's just not available. There are no special "button" to search for non-ac flights.

ChrisA330

If you’re looking for a non-AP flight, you’re in the wrong forum.

Nitehawk

You mean non AC, right?

wjw

Not even that. Sounds like OP is just asking how to book *A flights (whether AC or not) with points without using AP. So odd that the question is posed in an AC/AP forum. Of course one can sign up for another frequent flyer program. Really don’t get the question.

HerpaYvr

Well that is a fun place to go too

You have to be patient and flexible. Try one-way fares at first and then work backward from there. If you have AMEX then AVIOS is an option as I just did that on a few flights. You can also do cities close to your destination and then another flight reward to where you want to go. Some will say this is silly, but then I look at what the cost is versus the value.

carl321

thanks. I thought I was doing something wrong. Coz to get QR I searched BA and didn’t see all the options but once I transferred from BA to QR I started seeing J options. I thought there’s a similar strategy with non-AC flights. If it’s not showing up in the cowtool that means there’s no availability? I’m looking to fly to cmb from yyz in Jan and dates are flexible

rankourabu

Unfortunately, Air Canada does not have a very functional search engine.
You may need to search in pieces like YYZ-AUH and then AUH-CMB. Or IST or whatever.
Once you have your route call in and have it priced by a phone agent (and pay the booking fee)
Keep in mind this will probably not work if you involve any Air Canada flights in your routing.

PES_B1

Just curious, is it possible to book a routing like this on the phone? : SIN-LHR(via CGK(Stopover) and MCT, with the first leg on SQ F, with the latter on WY F), each of the individual legs is available

I can commonly see TK,WY and BR results on AP Asia-Europe J flights.

commaspace

Seems like nobody is understanding what the person is asking: reason for lack of availability booking award flight of Star Alliance partners on AC platform using AP points.

The answer is simple: not all flight inventory of partners are available on specific partner, in this case AC. This is normal across all airlines. They simply do not make all inventory available to alliance partners. It has nothing to do with AC search tool, which works just fine: searching inventory made available to AC.

If you want to fly with more carriers, you should collect flexible rewards points like Amex MR or Chase UR. AC points is only good with AC and nowhere else, and inventory is limited to what is made available to AC only.

rankourabu

Dont see why not, 135000 points. Going up Sep.1
But you will need to find a good agent to price this out.

The lack of availlability on the OP's specific route in January is due to the limitations of the AC search engine which will not display more complicated routings and prefers to push dynamically priced AC flights, which then dont combine with partners beyond cities AC serves.

ChrisA330

Is it though? The OP asked about BR as an possible airline. Searching in Expertflyer for YYZ-TPE non-stop or via a US gateway in January, I found exactly 2 flights available for the whole month YVR-TPE on Jan 24 and IAH-TPE on Jan 27. Lack of availability in this case is a BR issue, not AC prioritizing certain flights.

I'm not sure how you're seeing BA or UL in an Aeroplan award search. Who is CY?

carl321

thank you this is very helpful 🙏