Booked awards for LAX-FCO next June.

Seems to be a 772 configuration and the front of the plane is called Magnifica class?

Personal TVs and lie flat beds. Only bummer seems to be Empower since I don't have the adaptors.

I was actually hoping to get SFO-PMO but there weren't any low awards so this is the best they can do, which means I need to buy round trip flight from the Bay Area to LAX. Not ideal but beats using 200k miles instead, which has been typical of what DL flights to Europe cost.

Or are there other problems with the AZ product which should make me hold out for something else? Or at least keep searching and even eat the $150 redeposit fee?

It's been about two years since I've spent time on AZ flights, but I always found their BE product to be good, and the food and vino were excellent.

Service in the back cabin is rather, um, shall we say do-it-yourself (self-service) but up front it was good.

I don't know if anything has changed since the AirOne merger.

There is no "BE" on any airline besides Delta. Business Elite is Delta's terminology for their premium international cabin.

AZ has just started to come out with a new product in a 1-2-1 set-up on their A330s. View that here: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/ru...gnifica-w.html
These are just starting to roll out however. The remainder is in a business class seat similar to what DL offers on their BE equipped 752's.

In general, AZ service is on-par or worse then AF. It can be HORRIBLE, but it can be good.

So worth rolling the dice? The one time I had an AZ flight in an itinerary, it was canceled. But that was around the time when there were questions about the viability of the airline?

I have to spend about $200 to get down to LAX (round-trip) in addition to $110 in taxes for the BE award ticket.

With Italian labor issues, strikes and cancels are always part of the picture. Too bad you failed to start with a DL/AS segment domestically here in the US. Then, in the event of an AZ labor disruption, the orgin DL/AS ticket counter could have rerouted you away from AZ at the start of the itinerary.

As it stands now, you will be flying separately Bay Area to LAX. In case of AZ issues, you will have to present yourself at the AZ counter LAX to resolve.

Hmm, didn't realize that. Can I still cancel within 24 hours without a redeposit fee?

What they had was a 8 AM flight out of SFO to LAX and then the LAX departure was like at 3:25 PM.

So I thought it would be preferable to take a later flight on my own out of SJC, which is much closer to where I live.

Watch the domestic inventory for award tickets, including crazy connections and especially flights that arrive in LAX the day before the AZ flights. when you see something at a reasonable price in miles, call and ask that the segments be added to your award tickets. Even if you must pay the fee, it's better than being stranded because technically you have separate tickets. Similarly for the return connecting segments, although they are probably lower priority to put onto your ticket versus purchasing a separate ticket. Chances are very good that something will become available at a reasonable price in miles as the dates of your trip approach. Paying for a hotel night in LAX in order to ensure a free (almost, but of course the miles aren't free either) trip to Italy.

Well if I could add segments to SJC or SFO for the $150 re-deposit fee, it would be worth it because the cheapest flight to LAX would cost about that much.

But can they add segments while keeping the segments I have, especially the TATL segments in business class? Because those are the ones which are really rare.

To modify the itinerary, I thought I was technically relinquishing all the segments, meaning I might not be able to get back the TATL segments, even if I'm trying to re-issue them right away.

I've done this through DL on SQ award tickets, although I stressed to the agent first that she was just to add the flights and not change or disturb the rest of my booking. The tickets were then reissued by an international reissues person. This was as a DM using the SLC call center.

I've never tried it with other tickets, but my understanding on FT is that some do this a lot....which annoyed Jeff and "justified" the award change/redeposit fees for PMs.

Well looks like if you want to fly SJC-LAX, you have to go through SLC, making it a 4-7 hour trip.

So I have to drive an hour to SFO to get the direct SFO-LAX flight and then for awards, there are only a couple of flights which are low awards, like 7 hours before my LAX flight or hours after.

Would they cancel the flight on the day of? The previous AZ segment, they changed a few days before so it wasn't a big adjustment.

I had a flight change for another trip in December and just got the email notification.

Oh but if they have to put me on a different flight, it might leave LAX at a much different time.

So it may make sense to take the SFO-LAX flight, even if I have to hang out in LA for 6 hours. The thing that I can't abide is on the return, if they can only get me on a LAX-SFO flight several hours after I arrive in LAX.

QX and MQ fly SJC-LAX and have a codeshare with DL. I did MQ last year and while it's not the greatest, it does get you there. You just end up in a really ghetto terminal.

I'll look out for those but I just searched on ITA and QX and MQ doesn't even show up on a search.

Can SM members get awards on AS flights? Because there are a number of those from SJC-LAX. The schedules aren't the greatest though, but nice to have it as an option.

Look for SuperSaver awards on www.alaskaair.com, in coach or first. It maps very well to available award inventory on delta.com when seaching by schedule.