zeer0

*A silver is useless unless flying Asiana or United (they extend premier access to *Silver). You won't otherwise be receiving any benefits from *A partners.

*A silver OR gold is not "officially" going to get you any upgrades on OZ, let alone any partner *A airlines. You will be higher on the op-up list if a flight is oversold in Y due to *A status, but op-ups are rare nowadays. You can actually use OZ miles to upgrade flights on any *A partners, but you have to be booked in full fare Y (usually a variant of Y/B/M), so this is rarely a good deal.

I really wouldn't bother going for *S unless those flights are the cheapest/best scheduled anyways. *G is a different matter, and very useful if you fly enough.

wpcoe

I booked an award ticket on OZ BKK-ICN-JFK via Avianca's LifeMiles site. When I called the local BKK Asiana office to obtain seat assignments, I asked if they could input my UA Gold (*A Gold) number in the PNR.

Later, I looked at the details of my reservation on checkmytrip.com and noticed both the AV LifeMiles number and the UA MileagePlus number are in the record. I have no status on LifeMiles. Will having both FF plan account numbers cloud the issue of my *A Gold status? Should I (can I?) ask Asiana to remove the LifeMiles information?

zeer0

Your Avianca FF # can't be taken off since you used it to redeem the ticket. However, you'll get all your benefits. Just make sure you have the card ready to show in case an agent gets confused. But plenty of people have done successfully what you are talking about.

sol95

Are you flying in J or F? I'm asking because you were looking for J or F menus for April on the BKK-ICN-JFK route in the other thread.

If that's the case, your *G status won't get you anything more than what a J or F boarding pass will already get you, beyond an extra bag. So unless you're travelling with a huge load of bags, no need to worry.

wpcoe

I am flying a combination of J and F.

There are other things that *G can sometimes help with:

• In oversales *G can get preferential upgrade
• During irrops, *G can get priority in re-route handling, including priority waitlisting & priority standby
• On the BKK-ICN-BKK A380, the F cabin is sold as as J, and *G might get a crack at seating in that cabin over non-elite status

Now, about those online menus...

sol95

Fair enough. But not sure why your first point matters. You're in F for ICN-JFK-ICN legs, and irrespective of status, for the BKK-ICN-BKK legs, they'll place a revenue passenger in the F seats over anyone on an award redemption, even if they have status. Anecdotally, it seems OZ ranks their Asiana Gold members (which is *A silver) higher than *G from other airlines. Sadly, I'd say your chances of getting "a crack" at an F seat on the BKK-ICN-BKK legs is pretty much zero...

goodtasting

Hello!

I am trying to book a HNL->OSL/CPT/HEL flight (any of those cities), and I have a couple of dumb questions as I am completely new to Asiana and awards bookings with them:

1. I searched on awardhacker.com for the above flights and it displayed OZ for 25k 1-way. Is this actually possible with Asiana? Using their website (tried US-English, Korea-English, and Korea-Korea(with google translate) and as long as my origin was HNL, the only destination I could select was ICN. Am I doing something wrong?
2. I've read elsewhere that it's easier to book awards by searching for availability of routes on the United website. If I were to do this, do I just search the UA site as if I were booking a UA *A award ticket, and then once I find anything I like, I call Asiana? If so, how do I know how many miles it would cost? Is it the same as that display on UA's site?

Thanks in advance!

truncated

To answer your questions:
1. Yes, Hawaii to Europe in Y is indeed 25k miles one-way. However the English award search function on the OZ website is only for searching for/booking OZ award tickets, which is why you're only seeing the HNL-ICN route. That said, you can search for (and book) *A award tickets on the Korean site but it takes some digging — the first link in this thread Star Alliance Bookings Online is what you're looking for; sadly the English workarounds don't work any more but google translate does an adequate job.

2. You are right — the UA award finder is significantly easier to use, and any *A availability (i.e. Economy/Business/First Saver, but not Standard awards) that you see on UA.com should be also available to OZ. Once you find availability you can call OZ to book, and per the OZ *A award chart it'll cost 25/40/50k one-way for Hawaii to Europe. Alternatively once you find availability you can put in your dates/destinations in the OZ *A booking site in the link above, and book the tickets online.

Also, the price/mileage amounts displayed on the UA site is not the same as what you'll pay when booking with OZ — it's only if you're using UA miles and booking through UA MP. Also the taxes displayed on UA.com will be different (and usually higher) when booking through OZ as well.

Hope this answers your questions!

goodtasting

thanks for the detailed reply!

i can't seem to find anything in terms of availability from the kr link above (was specifically looking up HNL->OSL on the first week of july, but i couldn't get anything for any dates within the next 3 months for OSL, HEL or STO so i'm not sure if i was using it correctly), but the UA is showing tons of availability (economy) so I'll try giving them a call to see if i can book one of those flights.

i tried this link and also the same link where the 2nd "kr" is replaced with "en"
??? < ??????

if i use this link with google translating it from korean to english, my only destinations for flights originating from HNL are ICN:
https://flyasiana.com/I/ko/Redemptio...INTType=I#none

truncated

Hmm I went in and did some searching and it looks like the OZ engine is just bad at handling too complicated itineraries. However if you break up the segments and do a multi-city search it should work and price out correctly in the end. For example:
A simple search on UA.com shows economy saver availability HNL-IAD-FRA-OSL on 7/4. So I put in HNL-IAD, IAD-OSL on the OZ Korean *A award booking site, select the relevant segments and true enough the whole itinerary does come out at 25k (and ~$270 in taxes, compared to $42.90 on UA):



(also I don't speak/read any Korean but I've used the OZ booking site enough times to figure out where everything is, lol).

zeer0

The reason you're getting such high taxes is because your IAD-FRA and FRA-OSL are operated by LH. Try to find an itinerary where everything is operated by UA, AC, and SAS. All the LH group carriers add ridiculous surcharges on OZ award tickets.

In fact, on the same day, I found an itinerary fully operated by UA and SAS. HNL-ORD-AMS-OSL with a long layover in ORD during the day so you don't even need to overnight. Call in and see how much the taxes for this are, I have a feeling you might save some $$.

truncated

eh not my itinerary, lol. just showing how it's possible to book *A awards without having to call in etc.
and yes you're right about the taxes — can't replicate the HNL-ORD-AMS-OSL but HNL-SFO-LHR-OSL on UA/UA/SK comes out to about $50 in taxes with OZ. That said if in Y I'd take HNL-IAD on the 763 over HNL-SFO/ORD on the UA 772HD any day.

goodtasting

thank you for doing that, but my goodness! i'm sorry to ask, but i need your help to spoonfeed me a bit here since i'm still unfortunately running into issues

1. I was using this website below. Am i off to the right start or am i already off?
??? < ??????

2. Then, after entering my itinerary separated per segment (see below), it told me in Korean to "please select a departure/arrival airport" so I wasn't able to get to the next page.

3. On top of that, when I selected "July 11, 2018" on the calendar, it automatically converted it to "May 11, 2018" as shown.

The itinerary I was trying was as follows which I found on United for 35k:
7/11: Dep HNL 355pm
7/12: Arr ORD 5am
7/12: Dep ORD 1035pm
7/13: Arr FRA 150pm
7/13: Dep FRA 405pm
7/13: Arr OSL 6pm

[edit] also tried the following which i searched are available on UA for 35k at the moment:
7/10: DEP HNL 845PM
7/11: ARR LAX 457AM
7/11: DEP LAX 315PM
7/12: ARR VIE 12PM
7/12: DEP VIE 830PM
7/12: ARR OSL 1050PM

7/10: DEP HNL 325PM
7/11: ARR IAD 633AM
7/11: DEP IAD 540PM
7/12: ARR AMS 735AM
7/12: DEP AMS 705PM
7/12: ARR OSL 855PM

7/11: DEP HNL 355PM
7/12: ARR ORD 5AM
7/12: DEP ORD 1035PM
7/13: ARR FRA 150PM
7/13: DEP FRA 405PM
7/13: ARR OSL 6PM

[end edit]

Also another question: is it correct to assume that any UA fare that shows up as a saver award for 35k will appear on OZ for 25k? Or is it a hit or miss? Or do some 75k fares on UA even show up on OZ as 25k?

goodtasting

for such a long flight, i wouldn't mind paying more in taxes to fly on lufthansa since i've never flown on them before! as someone not very familiar with european airlines, i'm assuming even a couple hundred extra in taxes would be worth it for lufthansa over united for a transatlantic flight?

drvannostren

I'm still confused as to how to price out an award.

Based on the award charts, one way...

USA/Canada -> South Africa // 40,000 in Economy or 60,000 in Business
Southeast Asia -> South Africa // 45,000 in Economy or 67,500 in Business

First off, I can't totally make sense of that. It would appear to me Southeast Asia is much closer to Africa, though I suppose if you look at ALL of Canada/USA you can get alot closer than from where I'm at in YVR.

Now, since Asiana doesn't fly to YVR or South Africa, presumably I should be able to route in such a way as to avoid OZ, right? I could fly to JNB from FRA/ZRH/SIN/PEK/CAI/ADD/HKG/JFK/IAD/MUC, so there's a handful of options none of which involve needing to touch ICN. I'm a total rookie when it comes to OZ awards, but I can't imagine being forced into an OZ leg to accomplish this.

So, are those point values correct? Do they also apply to Etihad? If you were to fly Etihad, can you pair a star alliance connection to get to it without paying extra miles? Like if I flew YVR-LAX on AC/UA then Etihad from there?

Let's say I did have to take OZ for some reason, YVR-HKG-ICN-SIN-JNB (AC, OZ, SQ) what would the damage be there? Would it be the original point value + a regional point value for the OZ flight?