Companion award questions

Old Feb 22, 2019, 6:15 am
  #1  
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Join Date: Feb 2016
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Companion award questions

Hi, so I've been unable to get though AMs hotline so I figured I'll post my questions here.

I'm planning to buy a revenue return J ticket KUL-HKG-JFK in October and redeem a companion award for my wife. I will only have the necessary miles in about 2-3 weeks, so will they hold the award ticket while I put the points into my AM account? Provided I purchase the ticket first.

Currently I don't even have half the required points and no I don't have status in MPC.

Thanks
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Old Feb 22, 2019, 6:25 am
  #2  
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Anyways AM finally picked up my call. Apparently they can only hold the companion award if I have 70% of the miles and even then they can only hold for 2 days max. So it looks like I better have all the miles before calling.

Hmmm here's hoping award tickets will not dry up within 2-3 weeks
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Old Feb 22, 2019, 9:08 am
  #3  
 
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Originally Posted by catalyst2211
Anyways AM finally picked up my call. Apparently they can only hold the companion award if I have 70% of the miles and even then they can only hold for 2 days max. So it looks like I better have all the miles before calling.

Hmmm here's hoping award tickets will not dry up within 2-3 weeks
I am surprised that CX would hold the booking for 2 days at 70% miles. Didnt expect them to be such helpful.

Anyway the requirement of FIRST purchasing a revenue ticket, THEN try redeeming the companion award is just too tricky. The risk of not being able to redeem is just too high which IMHO does not justify the purchase of the revenue ticket in the first place.
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Old Feb 22, 2019, 9:35 am
  #4  
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Originally Posted by SLGO

I am surprised that CX would hold the booking for 2 days at 70% miles. Didnt expect them to be such helpful.

Anyway the requirement of FIRST purchasing a revenue ticket, THEN try redeeming the companion award is just too tricky. The risk of not being able to redeem is just too high which IMHO does not justify the purchase of the revenue ticket in the first place.
I thought 2 days was too stingy seeing that waitlisted awards have about 2-3 weeks before ticketing deadline. But in retrospect if everyone were to ask AM to hold their awards, then it would cause availability to be very limited.

So the most convenient way to do companion award redemption would be to

1) Have enough miles
2) Sit in front of computer
3) Call and check for available dates
4) Ask agent to hold while purchasing revenue ticket
5) Ask agent to proceed with companion award

However dates have to be very flexible and risk is that if there's no available dates the miles will be tied up.

Decisions decisions....
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Old Feb 22, 2019, 3:31 pm
  #5  
 
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Originally Posted by catalyst2211
So the most convenient way to do companion award redemption would be to

1) Have enough miles
2) Sit in front of computer
3) Call and check for available dates
4) Ask agent to hold while purchasing revenue ticket
5) Ask agent to proceed with companion award

However dates have to be very flexible and risk is that if there's no available dates the miles will be tied up.
Securing companion tickets can be stressful as described. Worse if your revenue ticket has to be first ticketed by the corporate travel agent and only then initiate the companion ticket redemption with CX - praying the availability still exists. You cant hold the companion ticket in advance, then try to link it to your revenue ticket.
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Old Feb 23, 2019, 3:59 am
  #6  
 
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Originally Posted by catalyst2211
1) Have enough miles
2) Sit in front of computer
3) Call and check for available dates
4) Ask agent to hold while purchasing revenue ticket
5) Ask agent to proceed with companion award
It will be a little more frustrating than you describe.

I'm not certain that companion tickets work the same as upgrade redemptions, but I think they do.

If so, then you will need to first have your ticket, and only THEN can you check on companion availability. In other words, you cannot call and have them check various dates for redemption availability and then purchase the ticket based on that search.

What you can do is call reservations and have them HOLD the revenue ticket. Then call and check for companion redemption availability. Then HOLD the redemption. Then call back and purchase the revenue ticket. Then call back and book the redemption.

Yeah, it sucks.
Gongzuokuang is offline  
Old Feb 23, 2019, 6:00 pm
  #7  
 
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Originally Posted by Gongzuokuang
It will be a little more frustrating than you describe.

I'm not certain that companion tickets work the same as upgrade redemptions, but I think they do.

If so, then you will need to first have your ticket, and only THEN can you check on companion availability. In other words, you cannot call and have them check various dates for redemption availability and then purchase the ticket based on that search.

.
Actually you can! I have just done a companion award redemption last week. In fact, for upgrade awards too I always call MPO to check availability before I even book anything.

For the companion award redemption. What I did was:

1) Call MPO to check companion award availability. Ask them to create/hold the seat on the desired date if available. They will at least hold for 24-48 hours if seats are available immediately.
2) Call Global contact center/Local Reservation to purchase the business/first class tickets.
3) Call back MPO to issue the companion award redemption.

It obviously gets very frustrating when your desired date of travel has no companion award availability but that goes the same as upgrade/full redemption award booking.
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Old Feb 23, 2019, 6:27 pm
  #8  
 
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Originally Posted by HKGglobaltrotter
Actually you can! I have just done a companion award redemption last week. In fact, for upgrade awards too I always call MPO to check availability before I even book anything.
Do you have status?

I just tried to book an upgrade last October and had to go through the process I described above. It was exasperating. I actually discussed it TWICE. First, when I tried to check availability, and then again after I had reserved the revenue ticket. I even pointed out to the second MPC rep that it was a bit obnoxious to make us do that, and it just seemed like more evidence that they were doing everything they could to discourage redemptions. The reply basically was that it may be a lot of work, but we (customers) are enjoying substantial savings. He was quite clear there were no options, and had even told me that they could not even CHECK for availability unless we were already holding a ticket.

So either that is some change, or you have status, or you got lucky, or I got incredibly unlucky my getting two duds in a row! :-)
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Old Feb 23, 2019, 7:58 pm
  #9  
 
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Originally Posted by Gongzuokuang
Do you have status?

I just tried to book an upgrade last October and had to go through the process I described above. It was exasperating. I actually discussed it TWICE. First, when I tried to check availability, and then again after I had reserved the revenue ticket. I even pointed out to the second MPC rep that it was a bit obnoxious to make us do that, and it just seemed like more evidence that they were doing everything they could to discourage redemptions. The reply basically was that it may be a lot of work, but we (customers) are enjoying substantial savings. He was quite clear there were no options, and had even told me that they could not even CHECK for availability unless we were already holding a ticket.

So either that is some change, or you have status, or you got lucky, or I got incredibly unlucky my getting two duds in a row! :-)
Wow! I have never had encounters like yours where they refused to check availability upon asking on the phone without the underlying tickets. yes, I am a DM so perhaps that might explain why.
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Old Feb 23, 2019, 8:50 pm
  #10  
 
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Originally Posted by HKGglobaltrotter
Wow! I have never had encounters like yours where they refused to check availability upon asking on the phone without the underlying tickets. yes, I am a DM so perhaps that might explain why.
Same with me- a few weeks back, I was looking at either a PE+ upgrade for 2, or, a revenue+companion. Called, MPC agent checked availabilties, created the award bookings and transferred me to reservations to do the revenue tickets (had not made an underlying reservation yet). Oh and availabilty was different for companion/upgrade.
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Old Feb 23, 2019, 9:47 pm
  #11  
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Originally Posted by Gongzuokuang
Do you have status?

I just tried to book an upgrade last October and had to go through the process I described above. It was exasperating. I actually discussed it TWICE. First, when I tried to check availability, and then again after I had reserved the revenue ticket. I even pointed out to the second MPC rep that it was a bit obnoxious to make us do that, and it just seemed like more evidence that they were doing everything they could to discourage redemptions. The reply basically was that it may be a lot of work, but we (customers) are enjoying substantial savings. He was quite clear there were no options, and had even told me that they could not even CHECK for availability unless we were already holding a ticket.

So either that is some change, or you have status, or you got lucky, or I got incredibly unlucky my getting two duds in a row! :-)
But what happens if the available dates for companion award doesn't match the revenue tickets that you've bought? Since they wouldn't even check for availability unless already holding a ticket for your case. I've checked the rebooking fee is about ~USD170 but not sure if they would waive this fee if we were to change the dates to match the available award times.
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Old Feb 24, 2019, 12:48 am
  #12  
 
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Originally Posted by jagmeets


Same with me- a few weeks back, I was looking at either a PE+ upgrade for 2, or, a revenue+companion. Called, MPC agent checked availabilties, created the award bookings and transferred me to reservations to do the revenue tickets (had not made an underlying reservation yet). Oh and availabilty was different for companion/upgrade.
Multiple agents have told me companion award has the higher priority over upgrade award and obviously upgrade award has higher priority than full redemption.
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Old Feb 24, 2019, 5:52 am
  #13  
 
Join Date: Jan 2017
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Regarding the experience in getting the revenue ticket and redeeming the award, (a few years back) the MPC agent was able to i) check award availability and ii) issue the revenue ticket for me with a single call. Best every experience when the award seat is immediately available. Was a lowly SL back then.
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Old Feb 24, 2019, 4:29 pm
  #14  
 
Join Date: Sep 2014
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Originally Posted by catalyst2211
But what happens if the available dates for companion award doesn't match the revenue tickets that you've bought? Since they wouldn't even check for availability unless already holding a ticket for your case. I've checked the rebooking fee is about ~USD170 but not sure if they would waive this fee if we were to change the dates to match the available award times.
When you call ticketing you need to have them HOLD the reservation for you... not TICKET it.

I guess I don't know if I'm helping by chiming in; I don't mean to confuse things. Maybe I just had bad luck when I went through the experience I described. I read the stories from @HKGglobaltrotter and @jagmeets, and I can assure you I tried to to EXACTLY what they did. I was pretty annoyed that I could not do that, and MPC made me make multiple calls as described. I can see in their taglines that they are DM's, so that might make a difference. @SLGO seemed to have it work also, and reports as a SILVER. I don't credit miles to MPC, so I have no status (I pay for GREEN). Maybe that's why they wouldn't help me. I don't know...

For sure, try to do what they did. Of course it's much easier, and you'd THINK that MPC would help with that.
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Old Feb 24, 2019, 7:41 pm
  #15  
 
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Originally Posted by Gongzuokuang
When you call ticketing you need to have them HOLD the reservation for you... not TICKET it.

I guess I don't know if I'm helping by chiming in; I don't mean to confuse things. Maybe I just had bad luck when I went through the experience I described. I read the stories from @HKGglobaltrotter and @jagmeets, and I can assure you I tried to to EXACTLY what they did. I was pretty annoyed that I could not do that, and MPC made me make multiple calls as described. I can see in their taglines that they are DM's, so that might make a difference. @SLGO seemed to have it work also, and reports as a SILVER. I don't credit miles to MPC, so I have no status (I pay for GREEN). Maybe that's why they wouldn't help me. I don't know...

For sure, try to do what they did. Of course it's much easier, and you'd THINK that MPC would help with that.
Putting a reservation on hold is always an option, especially if one tells the agent I need to check with MPO/Asiamiles on upgrade availability
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