Mar 30, 2014, 12:53 pm

FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides

Last edit by: JDiver

WIKI POST: Using US Dividend Miles for oneworld Award Flights
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:

Quote:

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.

To make a change on a USDM ticket, you need to get an agent that is trained to use the US reservation system.
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)

(Go here to print in flight purchase receipts)

Some experiences about changes to tickets, reported by members:

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]

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Jul 8, 2014, 3:13 am

#1381

Matthew_DC

Join Date: Sep 2007

Location: MAD

Programs: UA, US, AA, Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt

Posts: 374

Booking on LAN

Hi - Anyone have experience getting LAN tickets from Europe to South America using USDM and does LAN charge the fuel surcharge or whatever the exorbitant fees are that BA/IB charge? Thanks in advance.

Jul 8, 2014, 6:09 am

#1382

beofotch

Join Date: Apr 2003

Location: CLT

Programs: AA ExPlat, Hyatt Globalist, Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium

Posts: 1,551

Could anyone with the KVS tool kindly check for me the MPM for CLT - SYD - CLT?

Currently have on hold:

CLT - MIA - MAD - LHR (stopover)
LHR - MEL - SYD (destination)
SYD - MNL - HKG - LAX - CLT (return)

Rates desk is telling me this routing at 30,911 is invalid: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=CLT-MIA...NL-HKG-LAX-CLT

although they were able to store it yesterday as:
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=CLT-ewr...NL-HKG-LAX-CLT (29,058 miles)

We took out the EWR - LHR to avoid the BA YQ.

This is a 2 person F class award with F on LHR - MEL and HKG - LAX and all other segments business class.

Jul 8, 2014, 6:23 am

#1383

wheresmybagba

Join Date: Jan 2005

Location: Melbourne, Australia

Programs: Flying: VA; Buying: AA, AS, AV, BA, UA!

Posts: 2,349

Quote:

Originally Posted by beofotch

I don't have my KVS tool available but I can say for certain your routing CLT-SYD is way over 25M...close to 2000 miles over I'd say. MPM is based on travel in one direction so the totals for the return journey you mention aren't relevant.

Jul 8, 2014, 6:39 am

#1384

beofotch

Join Date: Apr 2003

Location: CLT

Programs: AA ExPlat, Hyatt Globalist, Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium

Posts: 1,551

Woohoo!!

I was able to convince them to ask revenue management to open up CLT - LHR nonstop in business to make it under the permitted mileage and the agent did and to her surprise they said yes.

So here is the new routing which successfully stored for 2x 140,000 points each and $501 taxes/fees per ticket (still seems steep?)

CLT - LHR US C (Stopover)
LHR - MEL - SYD QF F/C (Destination)
SYD - MNL - HKG QF C/ CX C (18 hour layover)
HKG - LAX - CLT CX F / US F

Does $501 seem steep to anyone else per ticket? Is there some residual YQ still stuck in there? What is the best way to troublehsoot?

Quote:

Originally Posted by beofotch

Jul 8, 2014, 6:48 am

#1385

flashware

Join Date: Jan 2007

Posts: 4,709

Quote:

Originally Posted by beofotch

Given you are stopping in LHR that makes sense. The APD there is quite substantial.

Jul 8, 2014, 6:49 am

#1386

bluegreentravel

Join Date: Oct 2012

Programs: CX,SQ,PR,QR

Posts: 577

Haven't followed the US thread for a while since they became OW. But planning to book SIN-MLE with CX with this routing: SIN-HKG-MLE.

This may be a bit above MPM, but I'm pretty sure it would be alright with the old US after a couple of HUACAs. Would the new US still allow it? Or would it be stricter? Sorry if this is redundant - but would appreciate any opinion. Thanks a lot!

Jul 8, 2014, 7:16 am

#1387

beofotch

Join Date: Apr 2003

Location: CLT

Programs: AA ExPlat, Hyatt Globalist, Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium

Posts: 1,551

Quote:

Originally Posted by flashware

Given you are stopping in LHR that makes sense. The APD there is quite substantial.

Great point - I forgot about that APD extortion.

Jul 8, 2014, 7:42 am

#1388

flashware

Join Date: Jan 2007

Posts: 4,709

Quote:

Originally Posted by beofotch

Great point - I forgot about that APD extortion.

That's one way of putting it ^

Jul 8, 2014, 11:14 am

#1389

Wrend1

Join Date: Feb 2013

Posts: 120

Do you have to have miles in your account to hold an award? Thinking of doing the buy 50,000 bonus miles, but am worried wont find right flights.

Jul 8, 2014, 12:33 pm

#1390

yerffej201

Join Date: Nov 2011

Posts: 6,385

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wrend1

Do you have to have miles in your account to hold an award? Thinking of doing the buy 50,000 bonus miles, but am worried wont find right flights.

no.

Jul 8, 2014, 12:37 pm

#1391

Wrend1

Join Date: Feb 2013

Posts: 120

Quote:

Originally Posted by yerffej201

no.

Thanks a million.

Jul 8, 2014, 1:34 pm

#1392

Wrend1

Join Date: Feb 2013

Posts: 120

Just called and they said no biz open back to the states from EUROPE, (got a good award out to LHR) bar 1 BA biz seat to Boston, then she said she couldnt get me back from BOS to CLT.....call again?

Jul 8, 2014, 2:38 pm

#1393

eethan

Join Date: Nov 2006

Programs: AA MM PP, MR LT Plat, Globalist

Posts: 1,004

Before US joined OW, I booked an all Star Alliance award (connections not shown for simplicity):

TAP: LAX-BCN (stopover)
LH/CA: BCN-PVG (destination)
CA: PVG-LAX

Now I want to change to a more direct LAX-BCN flight on IB, while keeping my other 2 legs (on *A).

I understand I will pay only $150 change fee. No extra miles needed.

Is it possible to change one leg to OW while keeping the rest with *A?

Jul 8, 2014, 2:50 pm

#1394

flashware

Join Date: Jan 2007

Posts: 4,709

Quote:

Originally Posted by eethan

No.

Jul 8, 2014, 4:48 pm

#1395

travelislife

Join Date: Jul 2011

Location: Melbourne

Programs: Velocity Gold

Posts: 1,069

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wrend1

Just called and they said no biz open back to the states from EUROPE, (got a good award out to LHR) bar 1 BA biz seat to Boston, then she said she couldnt get me back from BOS to CLT.....call again?

Find the flights first before calling. Don't rely on the agents on the phone to do all the searching for you.