notquiteaff

Someone taking a quick glance at the chart might come away with the conclusion that (for example) there is an 82.1% chance of getting a saver award on the flight one wants to travel on. That very much isn't my experience on the carriers I care about - AS, UA, AA, and DL.

nearlysober

Every international flight I look at online, hoping for business or first... always shows a "mixed itinerary" where its First Class on a regional hopper to LAX or DFW... then coach on the international segment.

Pretty bummed... I've been stockpiling miles for years and would really like to take a fancy international trip with them sometime... but its impossible to find actual first/business redemption tickets.

eponymous_coward

That is 100% not Alaska's fault, unless I missed something where Alaska is flying widebodies to Europe or Asia out of LAX or DFW. Guessing by those two cities, you're probably looking at American business/first class inventory. Alaska cannot give you what American does not give them.

Extensive whining here by AA folks on what is the same issue (AA doesn't even give much to their own elites, let alone Alaska fliers):

MileSAAver / SAAver award reduction / scarcity discussion

Also: my last two AS F/J redemptions on partner metal? AA (DUS-ORD in J, which is dead as a route now, and HKG-LAX in F, which is not). So it does happen. Personally if I really really REALLY REALLY OMG REALLY RILLY wanted to fly a premium product to Europe, I'd and pay the extra $ in gouge fees for BA F. Or for Asia, read the fine threads here:

Cathay Pacific (CX) Award Redemption, Booking and Availability – 2017 and Later
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...ll-cabins.html

Bretmd

Flying for Fun

Both JL & CX fly from YVR too. Have you looked for award space to YVR to connect there?

James

ou81two

The worst thing about AS and redemptions is that their website programmers are too stupid to figure out how to filter mixed flight award availability. Nothing like looking up SEA to AUK and finding a first redemption only to find that it's First to LAX and coach to Aukland.

DaWhirledTraveller

AUK - Alakanuk Airport, Alaska
AKL - Auckland Airport, New Zealand

Trying to get to AUK, would take a diverse set of small carriers and scheduled service is limited AND a programming change to have it as an searchable destination for award redemption.

Mauibaby2008

Flying for Fun

Good to hear, my experience as well. I never look 330 days out as I never know what I will be doing in 11 months time. Although I did book a cruise on a new ship that they had yet to lay the keel in May 2017 for an April 2019 sailing. 😉 Usually four to three months out is a good place to start. Last minute even easier. Your booking in August confirms that.

CX starts service to CPT in November so keep that in mind too. Highly recommended. I did JNB-HKG//HKG-BOS in February.

August is certainly high-season for air travel from NA even into Northern Asia; maybe a little less so into an Australian or South African winter.

Surprising how many cry foul when they cant find an F award on CX for their exact dates and city pairs, have a family of four or want to switch with their SO half-way through the flight. 🤔 Perhaps they should book through AA for 110K and forego any stopovers in Hong Kong. The reality is that there are only six seats in F and a lot of other people not part of Mileage Plan are vying for them too and unsold F revenue seats doesn't necessarily mean more award space. There is a large cost to the airline to have that seat occupied as well; pajamas, amenity kits, premium Champaign, Caviar etc which can easily run $100's of dollars per passenger. My HKG-BOS flight had a light load and we departed with three empty F seats. I had the right isle all to myself. 😁

James

BW Flyer

I have been looking for F award tickets on SEA-LAX and SEA-ORD routes in the last couple of days for early July, late August, and mid October departures, and I could not find any non-stop F saver awards in the days I searched, even on the very early or late flights. And I looked at many different days. All F awards were 60K redemption one way, even a lot of those LAX flights were virtually empty in F. I guess the F class saver award era were gone.

eponymous_coward

Yeah. Y is wide open almost everywhere though.

TheDudeAbides

I have found that weekend award availability from Bay Area to Hawaii, which used to be easy with 2 A and 2 W opening reliably at 330 days out, has dried up completely over essentially all dates. I suppose the current availability is in line with other carriers, but it's still a bummer because saver awards previously were readily available for almost any week in Hawaii if one could plan 11 months out.

Boraxo

The methodology is completely flawed, for reasons that have been discussed elsewhere. For starters, many of us here are not looking to book 25k awards in the lower-48, which is the focus of the study. I rarely book these awards except when fares are sky high (and thus saver award seats are difficult to find).

That being said IME it is difficult, if not impossible to find peak season/holiday saver awards to Mexico, though others have reported success. As for Hawaii, I was pleasantly surprised to find award seats to Maui in July (a steal at 12.5 BA avios one-way) when I search about 90-120 days before departure. Admittedly not every day but more than I used to find. (I ended up booking on UA for the EQM and E+ seats).

A more useful exercise would be to compare peak season business class saver awards to Europe, Asia etc. including partner bookings but that's probably beyond the capabilities of these researchers.

mark diver

I too have been stockpiling miles for years and pretty bummed to find limited/no availability in the International market for F/J class. I've been checking daily to see if anything opens up early-mid October (around the Seahawks game 10/14) LAX-LHR-LAX. Should I pretty much give up hope of ever finding anything more than Y class in this market? Thanks.

eponymous_coward

There seems to be some reasonable BA availability around your dates (the AS flights are mostly in Y). Of course you get to pay over $1000 in BA surcharges and the layovers aren't great. I've included a sample.

There are tricks to diminish that if you book as one ways and don't return from London. (This drops the cash price component significantly).







But to repeat once again, until AS actually flies planes over the big oceans, it's not exactly their fault because partner award availability is 100% the problem of, well, partners.