OnePass miles on NW/KLM
 

Hi everyone,

I have some a strange experience with trying to get an award ticket to Europe, can someone enlighten me?

When you ask for an award to ticket to Europe, do they only check CO flights, or do they check NW flights as well? It seems to me they check NW/KLM only when you ask them. Is that just poorly trained agents, or am i missing something?

Can someone explain which NW/KLM flights are eligible for OnePass awards? If you purchase a ticket for money, NW and KLM are the same thing for all intends and purposes. What about OnePass miles? Does it have to be a NW flight, cannot be a KLM codeshare? I called up and asked if I could get a reward ticket to Italy on NW/KLM, and the guy didn't quite get it i think. He said NW doesn't fly to Italy. I said, but KLM does, and all of their flights are codeshared, so i can fly to AMS on NW and then to Milan on KLM, right?? He said, so you want me to combine two flights? He then said there were no seats to AMS for the days I wanted... but i still don't understand the "combine two flights" thing. Should I simply try to give them NW flight numbers?

And one final thing... when they say no seats for 50K miles, only EasyPass... any tricks for getting the 50K award anyway? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Thanks!

[This message has been edited by maximizer (edited 05-10-2002).]

Two suggestions:

1) Check flight availability on http://usr.v7.com/wpaa/ or http://www.nwa.com

2) Look for non-standard routings. Just because there is no availability on SFO-EWR-AMS-FCO, doesn't mean you can't route an award ticket through SFO-IAH-MIA-AMS-FCO or SFO-MSP-ORD-AMS-FCO. Look for availability from all of KLM's US gateways and then find the appropriate US connecting flights on CO, NW, or even AS.

The CO procedures for booking award tickets on NW and KL are different. For flights operated by NW, CO can check award availability and book seats immediately, with as much ease as if it were a CO flight. For flights operated by KL, I have been told multiple times that CO has to put in a request and that they will hear back from KL within 48 hours. So, what I think might have happened is that the agent you talked to thought of these two procedures and then assumed that to get you to Italy would require two different awards--this is wrong.

FWIW, NW does have seasonal service from DTW to FCO (Rome). I'm not sure when this goes into effect, but you might ask about this. Another thing you could try would be flying CO into MAD and then UX (AirEuropa) from MAD to either FCO or MXP; not that booking awards into MAD is necessarily going to be easy.

Max -

I'm of the opinion that if you book a OnePass award on a partner carrier, somehow it costs CO money. Mind you, it probably get balanced out, but my hunch is that the agents are specifically told to offer all CO options first. I used some miles for an award to Calgary last year, knew it would likely be NW metal thru MSP. Got offered an IAH connection first, which from CLE makes no sense! I'll only fly that far out of the way if I'm earning miles! Then I was offered the CO codeshare on NW metal thtu MSP. When I asked for an NW ticket, I was told "but the flights are the same". That's where my suspicion comes from... Held out for the NW tickets, which were 5000 miles les, BTW...

Ditto here... was trying to go to the World Series in PHX last year. CO wanted 90k for a FC seat, they made no mention of HP/NW availability.

After applying some pressure I got them to check HP and viola! EWR-DEN on CO metal, DEN-PHX on HP metal for 40k miles.

As others have stated, that is a somewhat unconventional routing, but it got me there and wasn't too far out of the way.

So what you all are telling me is that any reasonable combination of CO and partner flights is allowed on one award, and it's a matter of me convincing the CO agent that this is so... right?

What are all NW/KL US gateways to Europe? I know SFO, LAX, IAH, ORD, JFK, MSP... any others?

What are CO gateways? EWR, Cleveland and IAH, any others?

Thanks! I'm glad I found this site http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

You can add: DTW, MEM, SEA and I think MIA.

KL gateways in the US are at the moment:

JFK ( one late flight on 23456 )
IAH
SFO
LAX
DTW ( NW 53 changed to KL 617 5 days ago )
MEM
MIA ( NW metal right now, will be operated by KL from September )
ORD ( make sure to ask for ORD, first !! More a Cargo flight for KL operated by 747 Combi, normally lots of availability in coach )

Canada:
YUL
YYZ
YVR

Perhaps you can get seats via Canada !!

Good luck !!

It's good to hear that KL is picking up a couple of the NW flights. I was getting sick at the prospect of flying a NW DC-10 -- have a much better chance of a 747 with KL. . . .perhaps better service too. ..