sadln

Anyone have any success with booking *A online under the new chart?

I managed to pull up http://flyasiana.com/I/ko/Redemption...I&BIZType=STAR from the Korean-language Korea website and type in an O/D and dates, but then I got an error message saying to book awards online, you need 35000 miles per passenger in your account-- to even view availability (I don't have this many miles). This even happened when I looked up a one-way US domestic flight (should be 12.5K under the new chart). I thought this was strange, considering you can look up OZ domestic and international awards with a very small number of miles in your account. Also very inconvenient.

I also manually changed the URL to http://kr.flyasiana.com/I/en/Redempt...I&BIZType=STAR (added kr. and changed /ko/ to /en/) and got an apparently functional-looking English-language version of the site, although there is no link for it on the English language website. Once again, I got the 35K miles error.

Same thing happened when I changed kr. to us. (http://us.flyasiana.com/I/en/Redempt...I&BIZType=STAR)

I don't actually want to book now, just want to see availability and which routings OZ allows.

Has anyone with 35K+ miles tried or been successful in checking availability or making a reservation for *A awards online yet? Have any idea why 35K miles are needed to book online?

I know the new rules have been in place for just over a day, but thought I'd ask.

P.S. I also noticed that only the Korean-language websites have the updated *A award chart listed on the website instead of the old chart (The English Korea and USA versions still have the old chart with a link to the new chart in small print). But, the USA Korean website has the new chart.

jon503

I have over 35k miles in my account, so I just did a mock booking on the Korean language Korea site as well as the English version you linked to and it seems to work just fine. Really strange that they have a 35k minimum. The US domestic one-way i entered for the mock booking would have been just 12k...

SirJman

I had a very strange pricing 'error' yesterday on the Korean site. A ticket which used to be 55,000, which should be 110,000 with the new rules (lots of stopovers which push up the miles), was pricing at 40,000. My existing reservation now shows it was priced at 40,000....going to see if I can get a 15k refund!

sadln

Thanks, just was hoping it'd work for someone!

SirJman

It will work if you select Family Plan as your redemption method. Even if the entire family doesn't have 35,000 it will still let you 'book', the flight. Still requires you to call in/visit an office for ticketing.

flyvirgin

Work perfectly. However, the taxes US-Europe on LH/LX/TK are much more expensive than flying with AC/UA mental.

Got a Business class SFO-YYZ-IST with AC at 40,000 miles o/w. What a deal!!

Obokata

I booked first class flights from Europe to Bangkok without any problem. To maximise my first class experience, I decided to go via Tokyo both ways (CDG-NRT-BKK, and BKK-NRT/HND-FRA), using NH, TG and LH First Class - with the total of 150,000 miles (no additional miles needed for transiting through Tokyo, and the booking also includes additional business class flights between Europe-UK). Taxes & charges were like £600 GBP, but given that one way fist class on NH alone costs around £8,000, I wouldn't complain about it. The website worked fine, including cancellation, refund, and rebooking, so many thanks for this pointer.

UA Fan

Can one book any Star partner online?

sadln

I do not know of any partner not in the booking engine.

kp88

I did a few mock booking for *A booking on OZ's Korean language website a couple of days ago. I am based in BNE and I plan to go visit Korea at the end of the year. So i did a few different stop over scenarios and dates. I was able to choose BR, TG and SQ, however i did notice that SQ business class seat wasn't available from BNE on any dates as well as other sample routes i tried.. I am wondering whether SQ blocks out business class on *A booking for these particular routes. Anyhow I ended deciding to just fly down to SYD and fly with OZ to ICN.

lcpteck

Most of the time SQ Premium cabins are blocked out from *A partners.

It's harder for us here in SIN to earn miles for our home airline than it is for someone from the US.

Even the cheapest flight on UA metal earns 100% mileage on SQ. Cheapest SQ flight (which isn't cheap in the first place) earns only 10%.

Here's an example on a current promotion price to fly to JFK:

SIN-JFK roundtrip costs S$2,350 (US$1,854) on SQ metal and earns only 10% mileage on SQ and 0% mileage to other airlines.....

Sigh...

THD

The OZ award tool is a pretty good reflection of what is available on Starnet, the common interface for all *A carriers to share award seats. It is rare but has happened that there is a discrepancy between OZ and say ANA award booking tools. Otherwise pretty much all *A partners can be booked online subject to the restrictions that individual carriers have placed (SQ restricts premium cabins, LH does not allow F bookings more than 15 days before departure, LX first class restricted)

0815

I was wondering about taxes and surcharges. Is there a way to find out what they are before booking the reward?

When I select an available seat a popup tells me that I cannot change the selected itinerary when I continue. At that point the applicable taxes haven't been revealed yet. However, if there are big differences in taxes between the available options that might influence my selection.

How do you deal with that dilemma?

stargold

That's a poorly worded comment in the booking engine. You can click through to the payment page, and if you don't like it, you can still come back out and choose a different flight. I think what they might be trying to say is that you'll have to start searching from scratch rather than go back and just "choose different flights".

yewgene

+100