May 26, 2014, 8:47 am
Last edit by: SingaporeDon
Every forum on Flyertalk has a personality. A forum gains a personality through user input over time, and Lifemiles is a very definitive example of how users have developed a unique community.
While Flyertalk boards actively encourage sharing of info, the Lifemiles community has developed and thrived via obscuring of certain data elements. It may not be easy for new participants to break through the codes and gain knowledge of the program's quirks, but the overall board community has adopted this unique approach. And frankly, that is not going to change overnight.
If a FT member wants to participate on this board, then they will need to respect other users. Hence, posts that run counter to this community's standards, will be removed.
While Flyertalk boards actively encourage sharing of info, the Lifemiles community has developed and thrived via obscuring of certain data elements. It may not be easy for new participants to break through the codes and gain knowledge of the program's quirks, but the overall board community has adopted this unique approach. And frankly, that is not going to change overnight.
If a FT member wants to participate on this board, then they will need to respect other users. Hence, posts that run counter to this community's standards, will be removed.
C1 North America
C1.5 Caribbean, Bermuda
C2 Europe
C2.5 Middle East
C3 Asia
C4 South America
C5 Africa
C6 Oceania
2X, 3X: in the context of this LifeMiles thread, 2X and 3X refer to any 2nd and 3rd legs of a one-way award ticket.
LifeMiles' Star Alliance Award Chart
LifeMiles' old Star Alliance Award Chart (before Oct 15 2014) // Table of changes
Cash & Miles redemptions: the price per mile purchased during award booking varies significantly depending on how many miles are purchased. The "sweet spots" are between 38% and 58% of the total mileage required, where miles are purchased for 1.5 cents. See here for some examples.
Beware of Cabotage: LifeMiles has been known to issue tickets that constitute Cabotage, and at least one instance of denied boarding has been reported, stranding the passenger. An easily-seen example is travel on Copa from LAX to SJU (via PTY).
Understand Cabotage: Departing country 1, transiting country 2, returning to country 1 (no stopping) *is* cabotage (example: depart JFK, connect in YYZ to return to ORD, or depart Miami, connect in Bogota, return to San Francisco). On the other hand, departing country 1, going to completely unrelated country 2, and ending up in country 3, is not cabotage. So if you fly JFK-JNB-ZRH, for instance, this is completely not cabotage.
Availability: Seeing availability for *A award seats elsewhere is no guarantee they are accessible on Lifemiles. For instance award space shown on ANA often is not accessible on Lifemiles. Similarly, finding award space on single legs doesn't mean you'll get award space on the combined itinerary. And no, there is no way to overcome that.
Screenshot Method
Send email to [email protected] with attached screenshots on Lifemiles website of each individual leg showing availability. Also, screenshot showing no availability as one booking. Include passenger names, gender and DOB and copy of passenger passport. They will either call you for payment or email the itinerary and give you 3 days to call up and make payment by CC.
NOTE: This previous thread has been closed; it can be read here LM F and J routes (and the occasional trick-it)
LM F and J routes (and the occasional trick-it) Rebooted v2.0
Sep 23, 2014, 3:46 pm
#871
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: BTS
Posts: 611
Is there a way to specify specific carriers without having to resort to all in Star Alliance?
Very often I can find flights I want by specifying one specific carrier, but these same flights don't show up when specifying Star Alliance; certainly not when adding a "feeder" flight where the specific carrier does not operate...
Now I can tweak the departure times (thanks to a post in the old thread ^), but have so far been unable to search for flights from/to an airport where the specific carrier does not operate so I am not sure of what results that might produce (if any).
Finally, I have been looking into some 2 segment itineraries where availability (in C) is not an issue when searching segments separately; however when searching both flights only Y shows up; is this normal behaviour by the website? married segment logic, or something else? Note: the origin and destination are relatively close...
All suggestions welcome!
Very often I can find flights I want by specifying one specific carrier, but these same flights don't show up when specifying Star Alliance; certainly not when adding a "feeder" flight where the specific carrier does not operate...
Now I can tweak the departure times (thanks to a post in the old thread ^), but have so far been unable to search for flights from/to an airport where the specific carrier does not operate so I am not sure of what results that might produce (if any).
Finally, I have been looking into some 2 segment itineraries where availability (in C) is not an issue when searching segments separately; however when searching both flights only Y shows up; is this normal behaviour by the website? married segment logic, or something else? Note: the origin and destination are relatively close...
All suggestions welcome!
Sep 23, 2014, 10:49 pm
#875
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: SVG
Posts: 1,172
No, you cannot specify carriers. Specifying an airport not in the carriers list works in theory the exact same way as changing the departure time; but you'll need to have some familiarity with DOM to avoid the search erroring out (just see what happens, i.e. what changes in the DOM, when you type in a regular airport)...
Sep 24, 2014, 2:13 pm
#876
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: JFK
Programs: -
Posts: 178
Sep 25, 2014, 12:34 pm
#877
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Austin, Texas
Programs: Airline nobody. Sad!
Posts: 26,062
I can't find OZ F anymore even when it should be available in October. For that matter, a large amount of OZ J and OZ Y either. Verified on ANA and UA that it isn't phantom space in all of the classes. Not a tricked route or anything, a straightforward ICN-USA route. 
Sep 25, 2014, 12:52 pm
#878
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 177
It comes and goes and no one knows why. Try again tomorrow.
Sep 25, 2014, 12:55 pm
#879
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Austin, Texas
Programs: Airline nobody. Sad!
Posts: 26,062
Sep 26, 2014, 5:32 am
#880
Suspended
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: New York Metropolitan Area 45 km from JFK
Programs: UA,AA,AS,BA
Posts: 4,607
I wrote a piece of this lumpy (non-contiguous and non-random) pattern a few weeks ago. I have a feeling that the various carriers from time to time do Batch processing, i.e manually release lumps of availabilities, for time period(s) where their booking calendars seem thin, ie. actual bookings at that particular point in time are below the historical booking pattern for those flight(s) .
Sep 26, 2014, 6:20 am
#881
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: CDG
Programs: TK Elite
Posts: 1,611
I wrote a piece of this lumpy (non-contiguous and non-random) pattern a few weeks ago. I have a feeling that the various carriers from time to time do Batch processing, i.e manually release lumps of availabilities, for time period(s) where their booking calendars seem thin, ie. actual bookings at that particular point in time are below the historical booking pattern for those flight(s) .
Sep 26, 2014, 11:29 am
#882
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Austin, Texas
Programs: Airline nobody. Sad!
Posts: 26,062
I wrote a piece of this lumpy (non-contiguous and non-random) pattern a few weeks ago. I have a feeling that the various carriers from time to time do Batch processing, i.e manually release lumps of availabilities, for time period(s) where their booking calendars seem thin, ie. actual bookings at that particular point in time are below the historical booking pattern for those flight(s) .
.
Sep 27, 2014, 1:19 pm
#883
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Washington, DC
Programs: SPG Plat, Hyatt Diamond, AA Plat
Posts: 11
noobie here... read through all these posts. first, want to say thanks to everyone that contributed, it wasn't clear for several hours but ultimately super helpful.
I have identified award space using ANA tool, but cannot see space on LM. Is there a way to force a particular *a airline? or perhaps another way to get LM to show such space. It appears the destination won't register when I choose that airline from the dropdown, but the destination is allowed when I select use *a carriers. Would love some hints if I am missing something...
I have identified award space using ANA tool, but cannot see space on LM. Is there a way to force a particular *a airline? or perhaps another way to get LM to show such space. It appears the destination won't register when I choose that airline from the dropdown, but the destination is allowed when I select use *a carriers. Would love some hints if I am missing something...
Sep 27, 2014, 3:02 pm
#884
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Valencia, Spain
Programs: Pascal and Python, no C++
Posts: 738
Is there a way to force a particular *a airline? or perhaps another way to get LM to show such space. It appears the destination won't register when I choose that airline from the dropdown, but the destination is allowed when I select use *a carriers. Would love some hints if I am missing something...
Forget fiddling around with the input page's javascript, too complex when it comes to airports.
Sep 28, 2014, 1:14 am
#885
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: SVG
Posts: 1,172
Is there a scenario where this is useful though? I tried specifying a carrier and then setting an origin it does not serve; this returns no results (as one might expect, though I was hoping for different behaviour).
