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]
Mar 31, 2014, 11:50 pm
#91
Join Date: May 2012
Location: NY
Programs: AA Plat Pro, KrisFlyer Elite Gold
Posts: 578
WIKI: Oneworld Award Bookings Using US Dividend Miles [Master FAQ and Help Thread]
might be long shot but any hope of routing to Asia via Doha on QR?
Apr 1, 2014, 8:06 am
#93
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: WAS, LAX
Programs: AS 100K
Posts: 1,330
KVS Tool supports Award Availability on all OneWorld member airlines (which now also includes US & JJ) -- there are no 'gaps' in coverage:
http://Help.KVSTool.com/#AwardUpgradeClasses_OneWorld
http://Help.KVSTool.com/#AwardUpgradeClasses_OneWorld
Apr 1, 2014, 8:48 am
#94
Join Date: May 2012
Location: NY
Programs: AA Plat Pro, KrisFlyer Elite Gold
Posts: 578
Apr 1, 2014, 9:06 am
#95
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: CLT
Programs: AA ExPlat, Hyatt Globalist, Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium
Posts: 1,551
I just successfully ticketed my first Oneworld award using US Dividend Miles. I had a really helpful agent and on the first call was able to get this put together for 2 in J for 90,000 miles "North Asia" Award:
DFW - LIM (<24 hour layover) [AA]
LIM - IPC (Stopover) [LA]
IPC - SCL- GRU - DOH (<24 hour layover) [LA, JJ, QR]
DOH - HKG (Destination) [QR]
HKG - JNB (<24 hour layover) [CX]
JNB - SYD (<24 hour layover) [QF]
SYD - DFW [QF]
The agent says that taxes and fees went up on April 1 compared to what they used to be and were about $240 per ticket. She also called me a Fool for not ticketing it sooner.
DFW - LIM (<24 hour layover) [AA]
LIM - IPC (Stopover) [LA]
IPC - SCL- GRU - DOH (<24 hour layover) [LA, JJ, QR]
DOH - HKG (Destination) [QR]
HKG - JNB (<24 hour layover) [CX]
JNB - SYD (<24 hour layover) [QF]
SYD - DFW [QF]
The agent says that taxes and fees went up on April 1 compared to what they used to be and were about $240 per ticket. She also called me a Fool for not ticketing it sooner.
Last edited by beofotch; Apr 1, 2014 at 9:12 am
Apr 1, 2014, 9:42 am
#96
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: DFW
Programs: AA 1M
Posts: 31,475
Wow. Does US have no sense of MPM?
Apr 1, 2014, 9:43 am
#97
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: YVR
Programs: AC: E50K, AP: dDiamond
Posts: 963
Fail. It's an April Fool's joke, he even highlighted it in red.
In all seriousness, am I correct in reading that only published routings are valid for OW bookings? I am coming from the *A world where everything is based on MPM5 - is this not the case here?
Thanks,
Mark
In all seriousness, am I correct in reading that only published routings are valid for OW bookings? I am coming from the *A world where everything is based on MPM5 - is this not the case here?
Thanks,
Mark
Apr 1, 2014, 10:26 am
#98
Join Date: May 2012
Location: NY
Programs: AA Plat Pro, KrisFlyer Elite Gold
Posts: 578
Apr 1, 2014, 10:58 am
#99
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: body: A stone's throw from SFO, mind: SE Asia
Programs: Some of this 'n some of that
Posts: 17,263
That would be a waste of miles!!!
Well, maybe not to SIN.I am more referring to something akin to PNH-HKG-DPS and other itins of that ilk. If pigeonholed into PNH-KUL-XXX then this will indeed be a net minus for us.
Apr 1, 2014, 11:04 am
#100
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: LONDON
Programs: CX DM, BA G4L, QR PLT, EK PLT, Hyatt CourtesyC, HH DM, SQ PPS, BonvoyTit, UK, VS, UA, DL, AA
Posts: 1,715
so they are still not allowing one way awards?
Apr 1, 2014, 11:11 am
#101
Moderator: American AAdvantage
Join Date: May 2000
Location: NorCal - SMF area
Programs: AA LT Plat; HH LT Diamond, Maître-plongeur des Muccis
Posts: 62,948
The FlyerTalk mantra might apply here: HUACA. See post #95. Good luck.
Apr 1, 2014, 11:17 am
#102
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: SEA, but up and down the coast a lot
Programs: Oceanic Airlines Gold Elite
Posts: 20,392
Might even get away with PNH-HKG-DEL/BOM.
US allows one way awards... at the RT price, like they always have.
The mantra seems to be "do the absolute minimum until the FF program merger". I don't think we have much reason to complain given the
of AA routing rules (no India via TPAC on one award, published fare must exist, no stopovers outside of N American gateways, etc.) in comparison to US's.
Apr 1, 2014, 11:18 am
#103
Suspended
Join Date: Apr 2011
Programs: RIP
Posts: 506
Seems the transition is far from smooth, with nothing but Aprils fools yet.
Apr 1, 2014, 3:28 pm
#104
formerly FamilyFlyers
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: USA
Programs: Virtuoso, Four Seasons Preferred Partner, Select Hotels, The Travel Collection, American Express PWP
Posts: 86
Booked CLT to MAN on US outbound and returning LHR to JFK on BA then on to CLT for 60K DM per ticket in economy.
US website shows 4 tix available CLT to LHR on our travel date in "Economy High" but the agent would not let me book that combined with a BA flight. She said all the flights had to be in the Low category.
Does that seem correct?
US website shows 4 tix available CLT to LHR on our travel date in "Economy High" but the agent would not let me book that combined with a BA flight. She said all the flights had to be in the Low category.
Does that seem correct?
Apr 1, 2014, 3:33 pm
#105
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: SEA, but up and down the coast a lot
Programs: Oceanic Airlines Gold Elite
Posts: 20,392
Booked CLT to MAN on US outbound and returning LHR to JFK on BA then on to CLT for 60K DM per ticket in economy.
US website shows 4 tix available CLT to LHR on our travel date in "Economy High" but the agent would not let me book that combined with a BA flight. She said all the flights had to be in the Low category.
Does that seem correct?
US website shows 4 tix available CLT to LHR on our travel date in "Economy High" but the agent would not let me book that combined with a BA flight. She said all the flights had to be in the Low category.
Does that seem correct?
Also... you do know there's significant fuel surcharge (YQ) involved on a BA economy flight, right? It can be several hundred dollars per ticket one-way. This tends to make awards involving BA Y a very poor value, since you can end up paying 80%+ of the cash cost of a non-award ticket PLUS miles...