GUWonder

In the past few months -- week before Thanksgiving to this past Sunday -- I've been paying rather close attention to coach award availability for US-Buenos Aires flights operated by the same airline whose miles are being used for the US-EZE non-stop segment. I looked at award space availability for the two-month period beginning with the "following day" on just the US-EZE non-stop. This was looked at from an "elite" account standpoint and non-elite account standpoint with only 1 passenger redeeming miles.

What I found was that AA was consistently the easiest for US-EZE redemptions. United was second. Continental was third. And Delta was in last place. Those findings held true for each airline respectively regardless of status.

I am personally very disappointed in DL's being a award ticket miser on ATL-EZE coach tickets.

Any one here done something similar for business/businesselite/businessfirst class award space? What did you find?

TheKnife

As an EXP I can get to EZE within 1 day of when I want on AA. This out status I'd be screwed. I cannot get any useful routings to EZE on UA (Premier Executive).

I'm talking MileSaver awards in Business. What are you talking about?

GUWonder

.... at the the (cheaper) capacity-controlled award prices (e.g., non-AAnytime, non-SkyChoice, non-PerkPass, etc) where the mileage account holder was to be the passenger.

USAFAN

Delta is "an award ticket miser" to all places ...
Wanted to go to Europe ... nothing during a time frame of couple of month. Got an award flight to Santiago .. and enjoyed it.

Regarding EZE. Last year I went with Delta Miles on Continental to EZE **). CO's business class was great, perfect service and very good food, and 2-1-2 seating on the 767.
**) or GRU, I totally forgot.

stephem

This is interesting, as a NW Plat using NW miles, my best option for getting to EZE seems to be Delta (standard award, Biz). I simply cannot get CO seats in Biz to EZE with WP miles. I will admit that I do the hunt and peck approach, find an outbound and then look for a return a week or so later. But I found several times over the next year where I would be able to get 2 Biz seats on DL. (Overall, my experiences as a NW WP member is that Delta availiability is quite good, but interestingly the Delta people claim availability is poor when redeeming Skymiles.) I was also able to find decent availability on UA (standard award, Biz) where I have no status.

GUWonder

Per my above posts, the data was looking at coach award tickets, including using DL miles for DL flights in the manner stated in my prior posts. Biz cabin redemptions are another matter -- a matter upon which I have not commented in this thread, and a matter upon which I am not in a position to comment about currently. I would certainly not expect identical findings for premium cabins and coach cabin award ticket availability in the manner I specified. (I'd actually expect some differences, but I don't currently have findings from hard data on such availability and that's why I left biz redemptions at the "cheaper" level out.)

USAFAN

It is almost impossible to book award flights on Delta. I often end up with one of their partner airlines...and I am extremely flexible regarding dates and even locations .... EZE, GRU in South America ... MUC, ZRH, FCO, BRU, any in middle/south Europe.
Actually, I believe the agents at the Delta "partner desk" are more knowledgeable.. I have flown SwissAir, Sabena, AirFrance, CO on Delta Miles, to name a few.

haveric

FWIW, I had no trouble booking coach award DCA-DFW-EZE-MIA (stopover)-DCA for November on AA. Almost every day I wanted was available. SCL was also available. I booked In January.

I no longer have AA status.

BillScann

I was able to get three saver awards in F IAD-EZE-IAD-DEN-ANC on UA with three months notice.

catwood

I recently used a friends AA miles because UA/US had nothing good. AA was apiece of cake and only one connection

holly1

Hi, I have 77,000 AA miles and am trying to get to Buenos Aires in November. Do you recommend using the miles if possible for 1 free economy ticket, or is it a better value to use some miles for an upgrade. An economy ticket seems to be going for $950, or 100,000 miles. (Seems like no MileSaver awards available--are they ever??)

headinclouds

Remember the $250 copay with the 25K miles to upgrade on AA. Nov is still the off-peak time for economy tickets (40K vs 60K miles). I have found that getting the domestic award flight harder than the MIA-EZE flight. Check also from DFW and JFK if that is not too much out of the way.

GUWonder

If you are having trouble finding (AA) MileSAAver award space, also call up AA and have them look up availability via partner airlines like LAN, TAM, etc. The award costs in miles are the same whether you fly AA or AA and its partners or just stick to AA's partners. There may be a different cash component due to taxes, fees and surcharges, but the cost in miles is the same. [Upgrading on partner airlines using AA miles doesn't work here.]

rdg_dc

looking to visit EZE over new years. flexible dates, mostly, would prefer 28 Dec - 7 Jan. happy to use miles, prefer coach. not really sure if it's too late or not to use miles to begin with.

can depart from most anywhere in the US, prefer WAS or PHX. have 250k NW miles, 75k on UA.

what's the best strategy? the non-stop iah-eze on CO looks nice, but i doubt i could get a seat.

psychtobe

DL ATL-EZE isn't bad