Can't say I really envy you the outbound flights in US Y, but they can be survived and your return on NZ is something to look forward to. And BD to GLA, of course. You've done a great job of minimising the cash outlay, too.

Have a great trip!

Thanks! I was actually 92 miles short of this total (thank you Pune!) so I knew I would have to slum some of it in order to come back in biz. However I'm fine on daytime flights, I can read. It's overnight flights that kill me, so a lie-flat bed in the nose of a 747 should do the trick ... :D

Yes. The danger is that, a year or two down the redemption road, you start to demand even more. I'm currently planning a pre-Christmas trip and caught myself thinking "I suppose it would be all right to book our (daytime) return TATL flight in C, as long as we can get F for the overnight to Europe". I immediately felt a little ashamed of myself. ;)

Redemption Flights for next January 2012
 

Hi, this is my first attempt at redeeming miles. I'm looking for two seats from LHR to SJO (San Jose, Costa Rica) either via Houston or New York in business. Flexible departure from 2nd -6th January. Most important is to get the transatlantic sector business. I'm having no joy even though the flights are shown as wide open on the Continental availability rewards booking website. The ANA tool is not showing up any availability. I can't check the return yet as it will be more than 330 days but am looking to return to LHR on 19 or 20 January.

Any suggestions, tips or help appreciated as to how to go about this.
Thanks!

They were not "wide open" when I checked their a few minutes ago. I can see limited availability with CO and AC on 3 January LHR-EWR-YYZ-SJO, including seven hours at EWR, or with CO and US on the same date LHR-EWR-CLT-SJO. In both cases you'd be travelling for 24 hours plus whatever time you need to get to and from the airports.

Is there any particular reason for wanting to go via Houston or New York? If not, don't limit your search unnecessarily. I can't see any LHR-YYZ availability on AC right now, but that would be a nice option. Alternatively, consider starting with a short hop to mainland Europe and letting someone else take you across the Atlantic. Usually plenty of C (business) availability with LH, including around your dates.

lhr-sjo
 

I'm new to this. I've only redeemed airmiles before on BA and Virgin (through their frequent flyer schemes) and both are very straightforward.
Ideally I'd like not to have go via continental Europe (or anywhere for that matter where blizzards are likely in January - hence Houston) and get to SJO with just one stop - via canada is fine, but I don't know how to go about checking this out. I'm finding *A ICC quite unhelpful. I've got the ANA tool but as I said it's a bit early to check out the dates.
I only looked at CO because they have a routing LHR-Newark or Houston-SJO.

Any other suggestions would be greatly welcomed. Thanks

Struggling with options to/from West Coast
 

Hi Guys

Any help with this would be appreciated. Looking for a Biz redemption for 1 person

Ideally I would like to fly LHR to LAX on or around the 7th April (6th to 10th is OK) and then LAS to LHR on 15th April (14th to 16th is OK but not ideal!)

I realise that in/out of LAS is likely to be tricky due to the lack of domestic business class in the US but I am having trouble finding anything even remotely sensible! Tried LAX, SFO even as far as ORD and DFW (don't mind paying for a Y internal flight for a shortish distance). Equally I would pay to start from DUB, FRA, IST etc if I could get in/out of LAX

If anyone has access to things other than ANA and would do a search it would be massively appreciated.

I've also been looking for flights to the US west coast in J in April, I agree that availability is very sparse.

Especially since most of the NZ J seats were snaffled by other Flyertalkers.

Could you consider taking UA F via ORD on 7 April ?

I did find FRA - LAX in J on the 6th.

Need to look at taxes from LHR vs taxes from FRA+flight to FRA for the outbound. I have got 250,000 miles so I suppose 62,500 for a C+M in F would be possible (not sure the good lady would appreciate me flying in F without her!)

Just had a quick look and it is nuts!

It would work out cheaper to pay to fly to Frankfurt and then redeem from there due to the APD charges :mad:

I think I am starting to need help for this mileage addiction when I consider LHR-FRA-ORD-LAX-LAS-LAX-ORD-LHR perfectly normal so I can get the F/J redemption TATL :D

I'm in the same predicament as I need to get to the US West Coast in June 2011. I don't think it's worth my while paying £50 or so for a positioning flight to an EU airport, and possibly an overnight hotel stay too, in order to save on £120/£150 APD.

I don't think I have the bottle to try and do a same day EU positioning flight for fear of missing the connection!

I had problems with the exact same flights. Had to settle on flights with LH. The flights to ORD ex FRA or DUS seem to have decent availability. From there you will have to Y it to LAS.

I've got a problematic redemption coming up that I need some help with.

A friend of mine is flying on a EuroBonus redemption ticket on LH 710 (the 380) FRA-NRT, in biz, on 13 May. I've been thinking about joining him (with DC miles), and up until recently the ANA tool showed plenty of availability in C (at least four seats). However, when I was going to book the ticket yesterday, all C seats were gone. I've checked both ANA, Aeroplan, and M&M availability. There's no C, but economy is still available on that flight.

So, now I have to decide whether to book some other flight, or to book economy in the hope that biz will open up later. I've got two questions:

1. In your experience, is there any realistic hope that C will open up later on?

2. Could anybody with access to seat maps check if there are any decent economy seats (emergency exits or bulkhead) that I could book already now if I go for an economy award?

I'm quite tall, so I really need some extra space on such a long economy flight. From the seat map, it appears that 50A/C/H/K, 53D/G, 75B/C/H/J or 76A/K would be ideal.

Thanks!

All, I tried awardnexus but no luck.. well partial luck as I see a return sector, but no way to get there first,

Looking for a First award from SIN to AMS. TG via FRA or LHR, LH via FRA, TK, LX, NZ. Departing February 24th from Singapore.

Any suggestions?

Return the next week I can do on Lufty. I never tried then in F before, heard their first is not great bit love to try their ground service once in FRA.

Thanks,
Globalist.

You should forget about NZ as they don't have any first class.

A quick search on Aeroplan gives one option on going to Europe in first:

SIN-HKG UA896 06:40-10:20
HKG-FRA LH LH739 13:20-19:00
both in first