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Why cant I book an award flight and a paid flight on the same itinerary

Why cant I book an award flight and a paid flight on the same itinerary

Old Feb 16, 2019, 12:44 pm
  #1  
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Why cant I book an award flight and a paid flight on the same itinerary

I wanted to take by brother and mother on a trip to Europe. I was able to find a LAS-LAX-BOS-CDG for 78,000 miles each and BUD-AMS-LHR-LAS for 86,000 miles each. Most of the flights were 280,000 or more round trip. The LAX-BOS leg has lie flat seats.
I tried to find the same flights as paid fares but nothing showed up with a BOS connection. Nothing was displayed for the 5 pm BUD departure nor via LHR.
Delta was unable to find anything either, but they could construct the fair point to point fare for about $10,500 each, about $7,000 more than I wanted to spend. No flights at any price with a BOS connection.
I couldnt find anything on KLM or VS.
I did finally book a flight LAS-LAX (same as above) then LAX-JFK-CDG, returning LHR-LAS. I had to book the BUD-AMS-LHR on the KLM website as a separate ticket. We wont be on the same flights from LAX-CDG but well get to CDG an hour earlier. Neither of the other passengers are experienced travelers which is why we wanted to be on the same flights.

Why cant Delta make it easier possible to book the two itineraries?
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Old Feb 16, 2019, 1:00 pm
  #2  
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You were able to book the same segments as on the award ticket by calling DL, but you didn't like the price.

An alternative might have been to use EF to research fare class availability and to consider booking your flights as separate tickets, for instance originating at BOS with a separate ticket to BOS for you. DL will check bags through and protect over separate tickets, especially for elites, so this might have been a solution. However, in this case, I suspect that purchase of a separate ticket for the transcon with flat beds would have been very expensive.

IIRC there can be different fare rules regarding legal routings for award tickets versus tickets paid with money, or sometimes searching for award tickets shows you additive pricing or broken fares. [Of course, searching for tickets to be paid with money can also show broken fares, sometimes in cases where there's an available through fare that's cheaper.]
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Old Feb 16, 2019, 7:55 pm
  #3  
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Actually the return with a 5 pm departure from BUD didn't show up at any price with the DL desk. Earlier flights were available at the >$10k price.
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Old Feb 16, 2019, 8:02 pm
  #4  
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I don't know any carrier which allows one to mix form of payment, e.g. cash vs. redemption into the same ticket or PNR with the exception of specially-published miles/points + cash fares.
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Old Feb 16, 2019, 8:05 pm
  #5  
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I'm sure somebody else will be able to explain it in more detail, but, I think all passengers on a single record have to be on the same flights and in the same class of service. I don't believe it's a Delta thing. I'm pretty sure it's an IATA thing.
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Old Feb 16, 2019, 8:50 pm
  #6  
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Not want all on same itinerary, just want to book cash and award with same flights. Separate PNR/purchases. What shows up as cash flights doesn’t show up as award at any price and vice versa.
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Old Feb 16, 2019, 9:12 pm
  #7  
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In that case, since a phone agent was actually able to get a price, even though it was an outrageous price, it sounds like a lack of married segment availability in a lower fare bucket for the routing you want.
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Old Feb 16, 2019, 11:26 pm
  #8  
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Award ticket routing often breaks routing rules that paid tickets may have in place in the lower fare buckets.

My guess is DL/AF/KL/VS don't have routing rules that permit you to fly BUD - AMS - LHR - LAS on a single ticket -- it probably requires end to end ticketing.

AFAIK, VS and KL don't have a codeshare for something like this. Why would KLM allow someone to fly BUD - AMS - LHR - LAS instead of flying BUD - AMS - XYZ - LAS on revenue neutral DL/KL metal? It may be coming once the JV is finalized with AF/KLM/VS/DL -- I think it just finally got regulatory clearance a couple days back so my guess is no codeshare routings via LHR have been put into place yet.

So when you actually go to ticket it, I bet DL is giving you full fare pricing on BUD - AMS - LHR and then LHR - LAS which can definitely get to $10k very quickly on one way J tickets.

Awards don't have this problem since DL lets you combine partners solely based on award availability without similar restrictions (though we are seeing similar restrictions pop-up on all DL routes where OW tickets cost more than half of the RT ticket).

Last edited by Duke787; Feb 16, 2019 at 11:31 pm
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