PaulInTheSky

I am going to book a reward travel ticket for my girlfriend from ROC to HKG this May/June, 2011. I see 125k is the standard reward redemption through CO website. However, she would like to sit with me so I have to figure how the best way to pay my tix to get the EQM while she pays nothing but enjoys the first instead of Y.

What I am planning to do is to get her on first through UA ROC-(ANA)ORD/IAD-(ANA)NRT-HKG RT. I notice CO doesn't seem to release all the reward savers so it's expensive to redeem the CO reward tickets. If I book the same through CO and fly through ANA with B or M fare, can I use the same upgrade scheme to upgrade my flight so I can sit with her? I just found that B won't be available for ANA flights, and the fact that most ANA international flights will only give you 70% EQM except full paid Y.

There will be about 60k miles in my AMex Membership rewards which have not been transferred. Do you think I should transfer all of them to OP or to ANA? Anybody knows the mile redemption for ANA flights? Can we book through CO to fly ANA, and use the miles in my ANA account to upgrade? These are the questions I don't know yet.

sbm12

Lots of questions in there; here are a couple answers:

• You cannot upgrade an ANA M fare using OnePass miles. I believe you can using ANA points but I also know that their upgrade scheme is changing in the early part of the new year.
• If you purchase a CO B fare on ANA metal you cannot upgrade that at all.

Basically you'd have to buy the ANA fare and upgrade using their rules if using their miles or buy the ANA Y/B fare and upgrade using the *A Upgrade rules if using OnePass miles.

dergon darkhelm

You would think this would be relatively simple thing to do...... $$ for you (because you are expensing it or want to get EQMs for status), miles for your guest. with a matching itinerary so you can sit together up front.

This is the ideal for most of my travel too.....and it is consistently very difficult to work out.

Good luck.

Xyzzy

If you fly ROC-EWR-HKG on CO you'll likely find better flight times and easier access t upgrades. It will also be easier to coordinate IMHO.

ijgordon

Yes, but OP states "I notice CO doesn't seem to release all the reward savers so it's expensive to redeem the CO reward tickets." EWR-HKG is probably incredibly difficult to find a standard BusinessFirst award on, and while you can potentially waitlist, having one person on the waitlist for an upgrade and the other on the waitlist for a reward seat is not likely to end well.

If OP can find 2 reward J seats on ANA and a reasonable ANA B fare, his best bet is to book his girlfriend into one reward seat and claim the other as a *A upgrade.

The other option is to book/waitlist two rewards on CO metal and then purchase the elite maximizer for himself. This will be "expensive" even if the price for the EQMs drops after the new year.

PaulInTheSky

I am pretty sure I would have to waitlist my EWR-HKG like what most other PLTs do in FT, but regarding reward F, if you give 125k miles I thought you should have got the confirmed F seats in any flights from the search results in CO right away? If they still couldn't give me the confirmed seats with 125k, I would be pretty pissed.

PaulInTheSky

Wish I could have done it that way, but CO is really reluctant to release all the EWR-HKG seats for standard awards. I guess they wanna sell all the seats in their flagship product which is one of the best in business. Trust me, I hate routing through NRT especially when you have to pay more taxes as well, but considering the fact that UA 747-400 (ORD/SFO-HKG) is pretty atrocious compared to ANA 772ER IAD-NRT, CO 772ER EWR-NRT/HKG, you almost just wanna avoid UA when you can get better hard and soft products, unless you can route through UA IAD-NRT, which is also 772ER.

Xyzzy

I wish yu well with that strategy. The *A upgrades are segment based, not trip based so a connecting flight requires double the miles. I've not had too much luck with *A upgrades, but then again I was looking to redeem UA miles against CO metal. CO has plenty of availability without a waitlist on the flights I'm interested in (HKG-IAH in this case) but for some reason no seats are being made available via *A.

PaulInTheSky

Thanks a lot for the info, xyzzy. I think one of the best options is to route UA and pick my paid B on UA as well. I wish I could just avoid all the 747 and keep our itinerary on 772ER, 763(NRT-HKG) and the little CRJ . I know I can search the difference, but is there any of you who could give me a route idea of how different the hard/soft product on:

1. EWR-HKG 772ER
2. ANA IAD-NRT 772ER
3. UA IAD-NRT 772ER?

I am curious about the difference between the last two. However, would UA stick with the CO upgrade scheme to have 30k EQM + B or stick with *A upgrade? That's huge difference here, as noted by xyzzy.

Xyzzy

Why avoid the 747? I prefer them, particularly when seated upstairs. UA now has lie-flat seats on all of its 747 aircraft. Only a few of the UA 777 aircraft have been converted. There are also more seats to potentially upgrade into on the 747. than the UA 777 aircraft. If you're going on UA you really do want the 747. UA also offers service ORD-HKG, which cuts out the NRT connection and potentially late arrival time into HKG.

Regarding the upgrade itself, I don't know the details of the UA upgrade for miles scheme. I've always used SWUs.

h -- and I meant NRT-IAH in my post above...

ijgordon

Fair point -- it would thus be 50k miles for a *A upgrade on US-NRT-HKG each way, vs. 30k on Continental.

It's been reported that *A upgrades come out of standard reward inventory. Is the
"plenty of availability" you're seeing for upgrades on NRT-IAH or for full awards?
FWIW, my only personal experience with a *A award was trying to get a J->F award on TK for IST-JFK. Seats were never released, even though the F cabin ended up going out completely empty.

Xyzzy

Don't forget that you can't waitlist for *A awards. You have to keep calling in to check if inventory is available.
The inventory I'm seeing is standard inventory on the NRT-IAH segment. C.com is willing to upgrade me right away for 30k, and there are 8 seats available.

ijgordon

Well, that's sort of besides the point, because my strategy posted above was to find a date where 2 reward seats were available, one of which would be used for the *A upgrade, the other for the reward seat.
Still . CO.com willing to upgrade you for 30K is not the same as standard BF award availability, they're different buckets. The *A upgrade (e.g., using UA miles) reportedly requires availability for a free BusinessFirst award ticket.

Xyzzy

I believe that's there t.

ijgordon

Well, assuming it is, perhaps you're a victim of Starnet blocking? Take it up with UA

And if your belief is incorrect, then that would make sense.