Is this likely to be a valid route....
 

Hi,

Am looking at a trip taking in both Montreal and Orlando.

now, I guess that LHR-YUL (break) YUL-MCO would be acceptable, but...

1) I don't want to fly AC on the TATL, so something like LHR-FRA-YUL would be better.
2) AC don't seem to have more than 2 seats on any one flight down to Florida and I need 4, so YUL-(UA hub)-MCO would be better.

I can see that each event in isolation would be fine, but if I bundle them all together like that, will it cause me problems???

TIA

Do you have to do YUL first? The FRA-MCO flight usually has good availability in the premium cabins.

I think it would be vaild... you are not backtracking and makes sense with the number of seats. Just ensure you have the flight numbers you need with that have the availability.

Thanks both,

Yes, schedules dictate that we have to do Canada first.

Cheers

Tony

Not DC, but I wanted to make a redemption on my UA miles to get to a wedding in YUL in mid-summer a year or so back, and there was no direct availability ex-LHR, so I had to route via Germany

Firstly, LH doesn't fly FRA-YUL, so it'll have to be MUC-YUL

Secondly, according to the UA ICC, LHR-MUC-YUL is well past the maximum permitted mileage for a LHR-YUL redemption. They would let me have DUS-MUC-YUL, but that's as far as I could push it (the LHR-DUS tag being GBP100 cheaper on my dates than LHR-MUC!)

Of course, the bmi ICC seems to play by slightly different rules, so, as ever with Pune, YMMV...

There doesn't seem to be an equivilent of the Maximimum permitted mileage at BMI - just a 'how sensible is the routing and is it a permittable one according to the standard *A timetable. If your routing appears on staralliance.com when searching for the start/end airports you won't have a problem. Otherwise the standard advice is to state your route sector by sector and you should be fine.

However BMI does frown on backtracking, but I think in this case - considering the stopover, you'll probably be fine.

Any particular reason you're avoiding AC Swiss Tony? Their newly refitted cabins are superior in both C and Y to what LH offer. Service in C probably won't be as good on AC but LH have gone downhill recently with dramatic oversells of Y causing consistently full-to-the-rafters C cabins leading to stressed out crew.

I agree, especially after my recent LH C experience. I would certainly not go out my way adding several hours to the journey to fly LH over AC.

The new product may be good if it's one or two adults traveling, but we're going with the kids and having done that with CX, I don't want to repeat the experience!

What's more, can't see much availability on AC for the dates we want but LH/LX have plenty.

Also, because of where I live the option to go from BHX instead of LHR is quite appealing!

Oh, and apologies re the MUC/FRA mix up - saw LH and just assumed it was FRA.

I can appreciate that, the herringbone config is not ideal for families. AC never release more than 2 seats at a time in I class, sometimes as soon as these are snapped up they release 2 more!

Really? Any idea how soon they release another pair after a first set go?

I know they were doing this on the EZE-SCL hop, 2 more C seats were there the day after the first set were booked. Whether they'd do this on a trunk transatlantic route I don't know.

That has not been my experience. The ICC starts off with official routings thrown by the computer and what is on there is fine. If you want a different routing, they then look at, among other things, the mileage. To give you an example, I was specifically told that an FLL-BOS-FRA-LHR routing was not allowed due to exceeding the MPM (by a handful of miles) whereas FLL-BOS-FRA was OK. They eventually let me have it after discussion (as a 'one-time exception' of course) as the MPM excess was minimal but nonetheless were quite clear that they do base themselves on that for creative routings (as well as backtracking issues etc...).