Mar 30, 2014, 12:53 pm
Last edit by: JDiver
WIKI POST: Using US Dividend Miles for oneworld Award Flights
As further details become available, please fill in this wikipost.
As further details become available, please fill in this wikipost.
N.B. Booking opportunities for new Dividend Miles awards of all kinds ended 11:59 PM Wednesday, 25 March 2015. Please continue using this thread for trips booked or in progress through 24 March 2016.
Changes on USDM oneworld award tickets
This is the only official statement about changing issued USDM award tickets:
If I need to make changes to a Dividend Miles award reservation, which program’s rules will apply?
Minor changes such as date/time can be made provided seats are available without requiring a new award to be claimed. More substantive changes such as changes to stopovers or origin/destination may result in the need to reinstate the previously claimed Dividend Miles award, then claiming a new AAdvantage award under the existing AAdvantage program rules.
The old membership rules do 'generally' still appy to USDM tickets.
For awards ticketed / reticketed on 001- ticket stock, go to the AA Refunds site with your ticket number at hand (unsure if it works with 037- stock at this time)to:
- Print a receipt with ticket number (instead of Request a refund)
- See total fees, taxes, etc. attached to your ticket
- See applicable detailed fare rules
- Request a refund (may not be useful for awards)
- Some were able to change their ticket without beeing charged the USD 150.- changing fee.
- No chance to change a ticket after the first flight segment has been flown.
- ...
Old stuff
oneworld member airlines - airberlin, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, S7 Airlines (Sibir), SriLankan Airlines, TAM Airlines, US Airways and their affiliates.
Award Chart for oneworld awards using US Dividend Miles:
http://shopping.usairways.com/en-US/...wardtravel.pdf
You can use the American Airlines, British Airways, JAL, or Qantas sites to search for oneworld award inventory. AA and QF also allows you to search for award inventory using a handy 30 day calendar view. However, availability on the calendar is dependent on site coverage (e.g. QF does not include JL or MH, AA does not include CX and others). Also, the calendar view may not be completely accurate on all partners, so use it as a guide but do not rely on it fully.
One of the easiest ways to search for oneworld availability is through the use of an outside tool such as Award Nexus, ExpertFlyer, KVS Tool, or The Wandering Aramean oneworld Search.
Award Nexus has a free community membership for flyertalk members, and award email alert with premium membership. ExpertFlyer has email alerts and direct GDS access to select oneworld award inventories, such as AA, QF, and US. ExpertFlyer can also search J class certificate upgrade inventory. With KVS Tool, you can search QF, BA, JL and CX's search engines, in addition to other alliances, on your PC (Mac / Linux with CrossOver). You can also set up an alert via The Wandering Aramean oneworld Search. This tool will automatically search on QF for your alert once per day with a free account and four times per day with a paid account.
N.B. With all of the above tools, it is best to search one segment at a time. Most oneworld search engines have difficulty marrying segments.
For route searching with itinerary information, use the interactive oneworld map and timetable.
For searching Intra-North America availability, the best tool is AA.com. Unlike the other oneworld engines, AA is pretty good at marrying segments, so you can search origin to destination.
Regarding availability, the strategy that has been most effective for people looking to book award travel on oneworld is to start searching right at 330 days prior to departure. This is generally when availability is at its best. After that, availability tends to be sporadic until starting 8 weeks prior to departure where some airlines open up availability, and will vary all the way up until the day of departure.
If you're having trouble finding availability, it may be best to look at alternate airports (JL, for example, serves SAN, YVR, and BOS, in addition to the larger markets of SFO, LAX, YYZ, ORD, and JFK).
(N.B. Although US was not adding fuel surcharges to awards, there are reports that they have started doing this for awards containing BA flights.) With the exception of BA & IB, no oneworld carriers require you to pay a fuel surcharge for awards. With BA, be aware that you may have to pay both a fuel surcharge as well as the UK Air Passenger Duty departure tax for intercontinental J and F flights out of UK. These fees vary with class of service and length of flight and are determined by BA; the Air Passenger Duty (see specific thread) is due for all UK departures not under 24 hour connecting flights. APD applies to coach tickets, too, but at a reduced rate. The fuel /YQ surcharge with IB is generally considered minimal.
Known Problems / Workaround:
- Dep 00:00AM : Some agents have difficulty finding flights leaving between midnight and 2 AM. This is because the US systems show it leaving the day before. If the agent cannot find it, please ask to look at the day before. > source <
- LA : Flights put on hold will be cancelled after 24h. Workaround: Issue the ticket immediately. > source <
- JL : US Rep cannot find available seats. Workaround: "Always have to remind Rep to open JL reservations on a new screen". > source <
- MH : US Rep cannot find awards in First Class. Workaround: First class needs to be booked in P-cl instead of Z-cl (as on most other OW carriers). > source < booking classes: > KVS <
- All : If you are booking outbound flights at the US Air 335 day window US Air will often allow you to put your reservation on a longer than 3 day hold to capture the return seats once they open up at T+335. There is a report of this for 30 days here, and FT user beofotch was successful in getting a 13 day hold here. Workaround: Huaca until you get an agent who is competent enough to do this. It may help to act naive and ask for your return flight on your preferred date even if it is after T+335 days. Once they get an error from the computer may be a good time to bring it up.
- ...
Fixed Problems:
- CX : US Rep cannot find seats on flight CX 645 HKG-DOH. Workaround: none so far, search for different routing/carrier (CMB/DXB/...?)... > source < > fixed <
> fixed < - CX : US Rep cannot find seats on flight CX 640 DOH-HKG. They admit, the flight exists, but are unable to book <source>. Workaround: none so far, search for different routing/carrier
> fixed < - BA/Comair : US rep could not see / or unable to book intra-South Africa flights in BA flight number operated by Comair despite AA treats Comair a full fledged oneworld member under BA, in the same context as KA under CX. Only one reported success booking - poster reported agent had trouble at first but on consulting a supervisor was told "where to look"; the agent did not give any further information. Most everyone else reported unable to book Comair flights.
> fixed < - IB : Flights will be cancelled after ticket issued. Workaround: None yet... > source <
> fixed <
LUS: USDM oneworld Award Bookings - (Closed to new bookings) [Master FAQ and Help]
Dec 23, 2014, 5:23 pm
#2851
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 117
Help Finding QF1 in July/August
Hey everybody -
I am trying to do a pretty complex US Airways itinerary and I am having a really hard time avoiding BA (to avoid surcharges).
I am looking for SYD->LHR in business anytime late July or early August. When I search on AA, it looks like QF1 does not exist during those times?? What am I missing?
It always just defaults to SYD->SIN->LHR or SYD->DXB->LHR but always utilizing at least 1 segment of BA.
Thanks for the help!
I am trying to do a pretty complex US Airways itinerary and I am having a really hard time avoiding BA (to avoid surcharges).
I am looking for SYD->LHR in business anytime late July or early August. When I search on AA, it looks like QF1 does not exist during those times?? What am I missing?
It always just defaults to SYD->SIN->LHR or SYD->DXB->LHR but always utilizing at least 1 segment of BA.
Thanks for the help!
Dec 23, 2014, 5:35 pm
#2852
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 44,623
Probably simply that there is no availability on the QF service
Dec 23, 2014, 5:40 pm
#2853
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 117
It's not so much that there isn't availability, there isn't even any fully flights I can find on the AA or BA search engine. Any ideas?
From my experience, normally you can at least find the full flights but they are greyed out.
From my experience, normally you can at least find the full flights but they are greyed out.
Dec 23, 2014, 6:45 pm
#2854
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 44,623
The BA search engine only returns flights which have availability in at least 1 of the 3 displayed classes
I thought that the AA search engine had greyed out flights which indicated flights where a higher mileage could be used to book on them ( such as Anytime awards ) which would not be applicable to QF 1
I thought that the AA search engine had greyed out flights which indicated flights where a higher mileage could be used to book on them ( such as Anytime awards ) which would not be applicable to QF 1
Dec 23, 2014, 7:22 pm
#2855
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2001
Programs: DL 1 million, AA 1 mil, HH lapsed Diamond, Marriott Plat
Posts: 28,190
Hey everybody -
I am trying to do a pretty complex US Airways itinerary and I am having a really hard time avoiding BA (to avoid surcharges).
I am looking for SYD->LHR in business anytime late July or early August. When I search on AA, it looks like QF1 does not exist during those times?? What am I missing?
It always just defaults to SYD->SIN->LHR or SYD->DXB->LHR but always utilizing at least 1 segment of BA.
Thanks for the help!
I am trying to do a pretty complex US Airways itinerary and I am having a really hard time avoiding BA (to avoid surcharges).
I am looking for SYD->LHR in business anytime late July or early August. When I search on AA, it looks like QF1 does not exist during those times?? What am I missing?
It always just defaults to SYD->SIN->LHR or SYD->DXB->LHR but always utilizing at least 1 segment of BA.
Thanks for the help!
Dec 24, 2014, 12:37 am
#2858
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 117
Good call.
Is there anyone out there that has any sort of alert system? IE - When there is 2 seats in business between july 27th-aug 12th from SYD or MEL -> LHR on QF it will notify me?
Is that something Expert Flyer has?
Thanks
Dec 24, 2014, 12:56 am
#2859
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 44,623
Expert Flyer has alerts and you could set it up to alert if the elusive seats become available
You might well find much easier availability if you go on Cathay or Malaysia
There seems to be plenty of availability on Cathay
You might well find much easier availability if you go on Cathay or Malaysia
There seems to be plenty of availability on Cathay
Last edited by Dave Noble; Dec 24, 2014 at 1:10 am
Dec 24, 2014, 11:36 am
#2860
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2001
Programs: DL 1 million, AA 1 mil, HH lapsed Diamond, Marriott Plat
Posts: 28,190
I was replying to your 'does not exist'.
Lots of flights exist but routinely don't have adequate inventory in the class of service on a specific date at a specific point in time as desired for award redemption. That isn't a bit uncommon.
ExpertFlyer alerts are a solution - but be prepared for award inventory not to become available at all.
Lots of flights exist but routinely don't have adequate inventory in the class of service on a specific date at a specific point in time as desired for award redemption. That isn't a bit uncommon.
ExpertFlyer alerts are a solution - but be prepared for award inventory not to become available at all.
Dec 24, 2014, 3:03 pm
#2861
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: ZRH/SFO
Programs: A3*G - AZ CFP- HH DIA
Posts: 3,666
I was replying to your 'does not exist'.
Lots of flights exist but routinely don't have adequate inventory in the class of service on a specific date at a specific point in time as desired for award redemption. That isn't a bit uncommon.
ExpertFlyer alerts are a solution - but be prepared for award inventory not to become available at all.
Lots of flights exist but routinely don't have adequate inventory in the class of service on a specific date at a specific point in time as desired for award redemption. That isn't a bit uncommon.
ExpertFlyer alerts are a solution - but be prepared for award inventory not to become available at all.
Dec 24, 2014, 7:50 pm
#2862
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Australia
Programs: QF Platinum
Posts: 361
BA Taxes ASIA to Europe
Looking at using USDM NRT/LHR a 3 hour transit then to CDG in F/J could someone advise what the extra fuel charges and taxes would be.
Dec 25, 2014, 1:35 am
#2863
Ambassador, British Airways; FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Leeds, UK
Programs: BA GGL/CCR, GfL, HH Diamond
Posts: 42,983
What is USDM? Have you tried doing a dummy booking to check taxes & surcharges?
Dec 25, 2014, 2:11 am
#2864
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: London
Programs: Hilton, IHG - BA, GA, LH, QR, SV, TK
Posts: 17,008
I used avios for HKG LIS and the extra over HKG LHR (in miles and cash) wasn't too frightening. But Dividend Miles are are different currency and the US programme a different world.
The direct Japan Airlines flight NRT CDG will certainly offer better value.
You're probably better off asking the nice people at US about this - or using the website to dummy-book a trip.
Dec 25, 2014, 2:30 am
#2865
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Perth, Australia
Programs: QFF, USDM, AAdvantadge, Velocity
Posts: 5
A big thank you to the education from this forum, just booked myself a 7 segment monster (in my eyes) from PER - HKG - JFK - LON - MEL - PER mostly in Z but some CX in J.
My question is from LGA i go to BOS 2hr layover LHR. Am i able to not show for the shorter first segment and make my own way to BOS for the trans atlantic leg spending some time in Boston or will i be refused boarding?
My question is from LGA i go to BOS 2hr layover LHR. Am i able to not show for the shorter first segment and make my own way to BOS for the trans atlantic leg spending some time in Boston or will i be refused boarding?