clairephil

Hello all,

I'm new here, I found this site yesterday after my first unsuccessful BMI redemption After reading the sticky posts I've got a feeling what the answer is but I'll ask anyway....just in case.

For the last 2 years we have flown Manchester-Vegas (direct) and we joined the diamond club and have been doing e-surveys to scrape together enough miles to be able to go this year in premium economy for miles (31250) + cash. Or so we thought...we've been checking the flybmi website and suspiciously noticed that there never seems to be any availability on this route but hoped that it would be different when we called the diamond club on the phone. We called them this weekend and were told that there was no availability at all for the whole of august or September.

We were wondering if this is because we haven't tried early enough or we should leave it until later? Is there any chance we will be able to get the flights we want or have we unfortunately picked a route that just isn't going to have any availability. As we've never tried to redeem miles before we don't know whether they come up months in advance or closer the flight.

Should we just accept the fact that we won't be able to redeem them and just go back to keeping an eye on the ticket prices and book normally ?

thanks in advance (apologies if this is a silly question....it took 6 months to get enough miles and about 5 seconds to be turned down)

Claire

Oxon Flyer

Welcome to FT clairephil

Redemption seats on the direct bmi MAN-LAS service are notoriously difficult to secure : the online website is saying that there are no seats, in any class, in either direction, between June 3 and December 21. The call centre have access to the same inventory so they will give you the same answer.

Looking forward into the early months of 2009, there are a few dates where some seats (mainly enonomy and business) are available, but very few in PE.

The normal fallback is to use the daily MAN-ORD flight and connect on to LAS, where there are usually more seats available, but again, because it is peak season, there is very little here in July and August. There's 2 outbound PE seats MAN-ORD on Sep 9 if you want them.

If thats not a runner, all I can suggest at this stage is to keep filling in those surveys, and take a look at the FAQ sticky to think about alternative ways to get to LAS.

Raffles

BMI is, sadly, off its rocker with redeeming awards on its own planes. They would rather pay cash for you to redeem on Lufthansa etc than give you an empty seat on its own planes.

However, wake up. PE is for chumps! FTers only fly in Business!

Buy 6,250 BMI miles on the website. That gets you to the 37,500 you need for a Business Class redemption to Vegas.

There are plenty of routings available although you have left it a little late to book for August and you will need to change planes at least once, and potentially drive from SFO or LAX. Use the ANA tool (look in 'Definitive Guide' credit card thread for details of how this works) to look for availability.

Looking really further ahead, for example, it seems pretty easy in Feb 09 to get 2 business class seats on US Airways (MAN to Philadelphia) although you may end up in Economy on the Philadelphia to Vegas leg.

clairephil

Thank you for your reply. We had been coming to that conclusion....I guess we assumed that you could redeem miles against any flight you wanted really. Probably a bit of wishful thinking there !

Ideally we wanted the direct flights, we've only just got into long haul flying and a longer journey with a change at ORD is a bit too much for us yet.

I guess we'll just keep on playing 'air fare chicken'....how long do you hold out before you think the price wont drop anymore and go ahead and book As an aside, is it just as well to book on the website or can the call centre do the flights any cheaper ? I'm guessing they just have access to the website ? Also, is it cheaper to try for an upgrade to PE at the airport rather than booking it up front. The price difference has been so much more expensive we've never considered it but we thought be in with a chance with our miles this time.

thanks again
Claire

ajamieson

Not sure about this. Bmi is one of the few airlines to allow members to waitlist for award seats, which you can do for its own flights.

They tend to offer this only to golds, and I don't know what status clairephil has, but it may be worth a try.

Flashyphotos

We Managed to get 2 Direct MAN-LAS Business Redemptions recently

1st Week Of UK School Hols this year Out 22nd July Back 5th Aug. There was nothing showing online of course, but were waitlisted and they did release the seats after a bit of aa wait.

So if you have Gold it is well worth trying to get any dates you want waitlisted.

clairephil

Thanks to everyone for your replies. We have silver status which we thought was good.....did I mention we are newbies

So, in future really we want to book as early as possible such as a year in advance. We didn't have much choice this time round as we have only just got enough miles to qualify. Maybe we should be booking next year's holiday already

modularmayhem

Its sometimes cheaper to upgrade at the airport, depending on availability, but i cant remember what they charge for PE upgrades on MAN-LAS route.

Also if you do want to book in advance, ive always found www.travelocity.co.uk to be cheaper than www.flybmi.com when booking PE. Thats because it books into U class if available, whereas flybmi doesnt seem to price anything lower than L class.

More Champagne Sir?

I know its extra flights, but if you do go for business class, I'd recommend MAN-LHR-LAX-LAS, with the LHR-LAX sector on Air New Zealand, who use the same seats as the Virgin Upper Class Suite.

Also, go for US Airways LAX-LAS as they have an F cabin, rather than United which will be on Ted (eugh).

kryten22uk

Dunno how you got on with this but looking now shows 2 business seats available on either 17 or 29 July on the outward leg. Only 27 July has 2 business for return. So either you have a long break, or you use a different carrier for the return. This at least leads you gently into the idea of a 2-leg long haul flight.

simon stingray

Also don't forget to keep on checking. I managed to grab 2 x Business seats on the direct MAN-LAS flight for travel at the end of June-availability suddenly appeared a couple of weeks ago.

I often check and am sure that these weren't available previously, so I can only assume somebody cancelled an award booking.

More Champagne Sir? is spot on regarding Air New Zealand. This is how we booked our last Vegas trip in september. A fantastic flight (and LHR lounge crawl) thanks to the advice on this board

jedikiah

Thought it worth mentioning that business fares to LAX are fairly soft this summer if you actually have to buy them(!) Air New Zealand is currently around £1375 inc taxes; oddly last week this was only available via the bmi code share but they are themselves selling at that fare this week.

kryten22uk

Although I've never flown NZ, I cant see the attraction of the coffin seats that they have (as do VS and AC). If you're travelling with a couple of friends to LAX on a day flight for instance, arent they incredibly anti-social?

Tiger_lily

Yes they are anti-social if you are travelling with companions.

If they are the same seats as VS, then they are also incredibly hard and uncomfortable when in bed mode. The height of the partitions IMO restricts air flow and makes it very hard to get a good night's sleep especially if the cabin temp is cranked up.

FlyingOnceMore

Totally agree with you there.........I love 'em

Each to their own I suppose. Much like hotel beds, some prefer soft, some want hard. Personally, I like the NZ beds because they're hard. They do give you thin pad you place on it, and many people just use the duvet as extra padding and sleep on top if it, given the warm cabin, which is particularly noticeable in the nose of the 744's.