I understand Asiana redemption offers great value for redeeming on star alliance partners, but since Lufthansa released premium class award to partners just a few days before the departure, and we know asiana redemption process isn't as simple as United or Aeroplan or other partners redemption process (i.e. asiana requires multiple phone calls during daytime business hours), is it too risky to not make other arrangement and simply to wait until few days before departure with the hope that Lufthansa or swiss award in business/first classes become available?

For me it was just 2 hours on the phone during business hours but you should have a backup in case space does not open. You have to talk to 2 different departments though (one to make the reservation and then Asiana Club dept. to issue the ticket)

You have to call in at least 3 days before. Also, know the award price beforehand, oftentimes the agents don't know and will misquote it. Just search for "saver" award space on united and write down the flight numbers. Then it will be super quick. If you're outside business hours, you can still call the Korean office to put your award on hold, I believe for 3 days.

So if Lufthansa does not release first class award until two days before my departure, I can not use Asiana miles to book Lufthansa first class??? I believe Swiss doesn't release business class award to partners until the day before departure too.

1) Yes, the minimum required time is 3 days before departure.
Any flight that opens within 2 days of departure is a no-go with OZ.

2) Swiss generally opens up business class award seats earlier than just one day before departure. (usually 1-2 weeks before departure)

3) Sometimes OZ cannot see certain award flight inventory even if other airlines can (e.g. UA, AC, NH, etc), which means you won't be able to book some flights using OZ miles.
This is really random, so it can happen anytime on any flight.
In the past, there were some LH flights I wanted to book using OZ miles but for some reason OZ just couldn't see the inventory on their end, so I ended up booking the flights with other airlines' miles.

4) You should always have a plan B when you plan on redeeming miles last minute.

can I book a ticket using my oz miles for a friend? I know thats a no-go with korean air and ANA as well. tia

for a friend, no.

http://au.flyasiana.com/C/en/boardCo...&boardCmd=VIEW

I'll just share my recent experience; I can't get too irritable with OZ since they have great mileage rates and I've never flown with them, just tx SPG points. Every call the hold was 15-20 minutes but agents were relatively efficient (not always seeing the correct information as mentioned in other posts) once I got through.

So I wanted to book myself and wife in TK biz IST-ATL in August (40k miles + $220 fuel charges pp, paid identical taxes/fees to those shown on ITA matrix), so transferred from SPG (took 5 days for wife --> me, then 65k SPG --> OZ took 2 weeks).

- 1st call once miles posted, first agent cannot find the flight availability (UA, AC, ANA all show 8 seats in biz), HUCA
- 2nd call new agent could find availability, said I have 0 miles, transfers me to an Asiana club agent who confirms I have miles, but can't book ticket; offers to transfer me back but I declined (couldn't wait longer on hold at that time), HUCA
- 3rd call agent finds flight availability, but informs me that I need to have my wife on my family plan to book for her (I now know that this was known around the internet but not well publicized)
- 3 days spent getting family plan authorized since wife and I have different last names, end up sending marriage certificate, passports, after 1-2 days successful
- 4th call agent finds seats, books, and transfers me to another agent to ticket and pay for fees. Successfully booking took about 30 minutes total including hold time.

Then IST bombing and more so military coup lead us to decide to reroute our trip. Found ZAG-VIE-IAD on Croatian/Austrian in business.

- 5th call yields seamless change from original ticket to new ticket, again transferred to pay new taxes (prior tax payment to be returned minus $30). This call took about 30 minutes as well.

So the overall process was quite arduous (3 weeks from SPG transfer initiation to booking!), but overall worth it. Just make sure you prepare in advance by linking them via family plan if you're booking for family members, too.

what do i need to prove my sister in law is my sister in law?

i could be wrong, but I don't think sisters-in-law qualify for family award/points transfers

Under similar circumstances, I was never asked to pay the $30 fee.

I am still a little unclear on the refund process. At the time of changing the award I was told I would be refunded and then charged a separate, new fee for the new ticket. I purchased the original ticket with one card and then used a different card for the new taxes/fees. The full amount of new taxes/fees were charged to the second card. I have yet to see any refund onto the first card. I called Asiana after 5 days and they said it will take up to 4-6 weeks for the refund to appear.

Was this your experience, too? It seems odd that I haven't seen a refund yet after 2 weeks just given typical processing time for these things.

My last refund from OZ took about a month to appear on my credit card statement.
It was a refund of taxes and fuel surcharges for a cancelled award ticket.

Yea, there's a lot of HUCA involved if you want to book an award. Most agents misprice the star awards, but then there's also the MPM problem, because there's no "hard" rules for it on the website, so you have to ask the agent to put the flights in to find out if you're under the limit. I wasn't successful in trying to book a star award on the website on the Korean version, even after finding the flights. Much easier to find the flights on UA and call in. Keep in mind that taxes are very high on some airlines ($500 o/w lh biz flight from us to Germany), though it's fair when the mileage prices are so reasonable. Changes are surprisingly easy to make, and they even waived the fee (which is already a super reasonable $30), when I changed the date and routing of a flight but kept the same carrier. And if you can't reach them because of the long hold times, the US office will sometimes call you back, which is awesome.

I saw in laws as an option to add to family mileage pooling.