og

FJ has a very small long haul fleet. IRROPS can cause big delays if the A330 is involved - only 3 of the type.

ranles

Thank you everyone

I gave up on award seats, too complicated to wait and then pay way more if they do not show up. Little chance of getting them, etc.

og, read reviews on Fiji Airways, lots of people posted when flight delayed by hours or days... Also heeded your comments of great fares popping up.

Snagged two Biz special tickets $6600 total for two round trip including taxes, that is a third of what I was coming up with for Q and UA all non refundable).

As suggested, we will fly out of LAX, not SAN. We will likely take an execu car or shuttle from home to LAX, and not have the complication of buying and matching a separate set of fights SAN-LAX and rtn.

We booked to arrive days before our cruise, just in case. Still leaves time to see some of our friends after the cruise, or sneak in one before if all goes well.

For you miles junkies, yes we get mileage on these fares. Me AS, Les AA. Not sure on how many or how calculated. Also now questioning their value.

dgreen12

Your miles are worth quite a bit, but you do need to plan how to extract the value for them.

Unfortunately, that process usually involves asking questions before award seats first become available.

For the next big trip, start planning about 12 months ahead of time (or have the flexibility to make last minute decisions).

Sounds like you'll have a grand trip, even if the tix were purchased.

eponymous_coward

North America->Australia/NZ in premium classes is probably the most difficult award to come by; the airfares are very high with excellent demand due to 15+ hour flight times, so airlines are stingy with the awards, there's limited options because for many programs, connecting in Europe/Asia is often not allowed because of maximum mileage rules or other restrictions, it's a very popular aspirational award, and several of the popular non-USA airlines like Qantas allow their members first crack at redemptions at T-355 days, well before USA-based partners get access at T-330 and snap up the rest.

In essence, you're judging AS's program value after not really understanding how to best maximize your chances (and thus not having your best opportunity to use your mileage). Certainly your call to do that, but you may have better luck with other destinations in the future.

og

And this is about the only advantage of the very poor value QF program over AS, AA and so on.

ranles

Thanks everyone.

This is our 7th trip to OZ, all the others were several years ago. All on UA miles. Wife was I-k G, yet we still had to beg-borrow and steal to get the flights in F, never had a problem in business.

I should have planned earlier. We were looking at going to SO Africa, and some medical issues have made this all but impossible. We decided "at the last minute", late June to return to OZ, visit some friend and do a cruise to finally get to Fiji after being chased off several years ago by violent storms.

We need to think of where we want to go next, where use of our points will fully value them, yet give us a chance to cash them in.

Thank you again for your comments...gotta luv this board!