TornCalfGuy

Three of us are going to Europe next summer, and I got 2 seats through Onepass. I recently got the Chase CO card, which brought me up to the level of one more seat. Unfortunately, no seats are available right now for any return flight from Athens to the DC area (DCA, IAD, BWI) at the lowest mileage level (27,500 one way) on the same date in July.

Do more seats ever open up or are they fixed on all flights (so once they're gone, they're gone entirely)?

Also, would a CO ticket agent possibly be able to find routes that I don't see online? If so, I certainly don't mind spending $25 for the service.

Thanks for any knowledge about this.

smg77

Yes, more seats may open up. Or they may not. Impossible to predict.

You should be able to see the same availability as the agent for CO flights, but it can't hurt to ask.

An alternative would be to book the seat on partner flights (if available) and then waitlist for the CO flight you prefer.

craz

yes its possible that more setas may open up and just as possible that they wont,it depends on how the flight/s are selling

yes by calling in they can check All the *A Carriers now that Aegean is a *A member they should beable to book you to any City in Europe where Aegean will then fly you to/from ATH or any *A carrier that flys to ATH, these usually will Not show up on CO.com

if by other routes you meant to fly only on CO to ATH then nope, since CO has but 1 flight a day to ATH, if you meant by flying on other Carriers see above. Most likely the lack of seats is due to the EWR-ATH flight or ATH-EWR, so check just for EWR-ATH to see if there are still seats if there are then its a problem of getting to EWR or from ATH , you will have to find some other way for that last person. I think its the ATH flights that is the problem otherwise CO would have offered you alternative ways of getting to the ATH flights

It wont be the same but US flys to ATH I believe out of PHL

TornCalfGuy

Just to clarify, the tickets we already have are almost exclusively based on non-United/Continental flights. We return from Athens via Heathrow (on Aegean) AND Toronto (on Air Canada) before going to Dulles on United. In fact, other than two flights between the U.S. and Canada, the other 5 flight segments on our overall trip (IAD-CDG, BIO-ATH-IAD) are with partner airlines Spanair, Aegean, and Air Canada. The only difficulty I find currently is the return flight from Athens to the DC area.

Thanks for your messages.

sbm12

I just changed an itinerary today because C seats opened up where we were ticketed in Y previously. Inventory is very much dynamic and can come and go from time to time.

What date are you trying to get back from ATH to WAS? Maybe someone here can help you with alternate route suggestions or such. Something like ATH-LHR-IAD with a combination of A3 and VS might work out, for example.

Also, assuming you have an itinerary booked - even a less desirable one - you can have CO waitlist you on the more desirable CO metal routing and no penalty/fee if that clears.

elitefreak

I thought that Yapta.com had this service. But I checked there today and didn't see an option to get notified about FF seats opening up.

sbm12

I believe they advertised it at one point but they're dependent on access to the inventory just like we are. Given that the airlines are generally loathe to publish it in general it doesn't seem likely that they'd go out of their way to make the data accessible to a company focused on making it easier for customers to reduce the value to the airlines of the FF programs.

TornCalfGuy

To recap: I needed to see if I could get back from Athens to the DC area on July 3 for the lowest mileage total when nothing in the cheapie category was showing up on Continental's website.

I decided that I would see what cities Aegean Airlines flew to early in the morning. I then went to the Continental site and searched for reward travel from each of those cities to the DC area. Most cities had no availability or there would be too close of a connection, except Rome. So I thought I'd see if I could book Aegean to Rome using the Aegean flight I saw and then use the Rome-to-Dulles flights on Continental's site (Air Canada to Montreal; United to Dulles).

I called up and asked the agent if there was anything she saw and mentioned that if there was nothing I'd like to see if my route would work. She checked and said nothing showed up. When she plugged in my route, she said each segment was available and I got the confirmation shortly after. The $25 fee was money very well spent because the route never would have appeared on Continental's website.

Thanks for everyone's help. I'm starting to feel like I should start a business finding odd routes for travelers looking to use their air miles.