Hi, I would like to take a ow J redemption for two people from EDI or LHR to west coast USA (LAX, LAS or SFO) with stopover on east coast (EWR or IAD). This is traightforward enough but I'd appreciate some feedback from FTers on two aspects. Firstly, creative valid routings that might allow us to see more? Secondly, valid route options that might keep taxes/YQ to a minimum? IIRC, I have also seen meantioned here routings such as LHR-EWR overland IAD-LAX; are such overland sectors allowed in a fingle ow redemption or would it count as two redemptions? Thanks, SF.

Some time ago we booked C class rewards 2 people: LHR-FRA-MIA on LH returning MIA-EWR-FRA-LHR on CO and final segmant LH

On checking the booking yesterday I find that the MIA-EWR flight has been cancelled and we have been moved to a much earlier one giving us 6 hrs at EWR. Checking my options on ANA I found that a reward has appeared for EWR to LHR direct so missing the FRA segment out ; and bringing the total trip time back down

Contacted PTS who were quite happy about this but then ran into trouble as apparantly the MIA-EWR-FRA segments are now "married" and so the EWR-FRA segment cannot be cancelled and substituted for EWR-LHR by itself.

If not married could have been done; not a great problem but a shame; any one else had experience of this at all?

This will sound unhelpful, but should be noted for the future (as much for anyone brought here by a search as for you): booking outbound and return journeys as two separate tickets is the best way to avoid thiskind of hassle. You could simply have cancelled the return and rebooked without EWR and FRA.

That said, I don't understand why two segments being married should make any difference if you want to cancel both of them. I'm hesitant to say this, as PTS have an excellent reputation on this board, but this might be a case where calling again makes sense and a different person will give you a different answer.

Does HKG-AUH-LHR sound too far fetched ?? Called DC and she pretty much refused to even look for anything, saying I coundn't go HKG-LHR with a stop in the middle east.
Anyone had any luck with this kind of routing?

Who were you going to fly with?

I don't see any Star airlines routing HKG-LHR via AUH.

Maybe he/she meant DOH? BMI partner QR?

Had found flights HKG-SIN-AUH(STOPOVER)-IST-LHR on ANA tool, but after reading a couple dozen pages on this thread seems that anything via the middle east has always been a problem.

Looking for HKG-LHR option via HAN. Is this possible without backtracking? Alternative seems to be HKG to SGN on UA and onwards via TG or SQ or via BKK and book a separate side trip.

I looked at this one, No * carrier HKG to HAN and unfortunately HKG-SGN has been switched to a B737 as a connection and no longer seems to have any availability for redemption , see ANA:(

CMB (Sri Lanka) to London via Bangkok?
 

Looking at the Star Alliance schedule the only way from Colombo to London seems to be via Bangkok. Would I be allowed to book this? Sri Lanka and Thailand are in the same zone but I would definitely be backtracking. Thanks, ps

Should be ok though.

FRA-ADL via AKL?
 

Here's another one: I am looking at Frankfurt-Adelaide on Lufthansa and Air New Zealand (either via North America or Hong Kong). What do you think are the chances of the call centre saying yes, provided that there is no availability on Singapore Airlines' one-change connection? (A brief search on KVS seems to confirm that now that SQ's second daily FRA-SIN flight is switching over to A380 business class availability is zero and and the LH/NZ combination may well be the only option.) What do you think?

Again, this should be fine.

I could route via CAI when I booked Z8->Z2 award last year.
But maybe bmi is now more stingy about routing than before.

NRT-SIN-CAI(stopover)-ATH

Last year I booked ZRH-DXB//SIN no problem