Roamin'Around

Sorry if I don't use the proper acronyms. I booked two business class seats using 280,000 miles each for a 'round the world award.

My wife and I are flying out on Oct 3 from IAD as follows:

Air France:
IAD-CDG, CDG-IST, IST-CDG; connecting with
Air Kenya
CDG-NBO, NBO-BKK

Korean Air:
BKK-ICN-HNL

Alaska Air
HNL-SEA; connecting with

Delta
SEA-MSP, MSP-IAD

All seats are either BE or Business except that I am still trying to get 1 seat on KE 51 changed from Econ to Bus.

I feel great about getting all those tickets but it took a lot of time and several change fees to accomplish this. Most difficult part was returning from HNL-IAD just before Thanksgiving (which I had to figure out myself because two Delta agents said there was nothing available).

I used ExpertFlyer to help with the AF flights. I learned the hard way not to try for exotic places such as Nepal or Tahiti; just wasn't going to happen within the time frame that I had.

I started booking about 320 days before my first flight using temporary flights to complete the RTW itinerary. Made 2 changes just because of the temporary itineraries and I don't think that there's anyway I would have been able to get all these flights if I waited until 331 days before my return (Nov 22).

I booked the trip going Eastward around the globe because of the climate and temperatures of the places we're going. It probably would have been easier the other way because **I BELIEVE** that you can book Air France awards through Delta up to 360 days in advance.

I feel very fortunate to get these tix considering the devaluation (IMHO) of Skymiles.

natas43

Last week I was able to get 6 tix, all on the same flight PHL>ATL>BRU for the end of June 2011. 60k each, plus~$50 tax per ticket. Priced the flights afterward and they were looking for $1317 each. I'm pretty happy to be getting $7902 worth of tickets for ~$300

jiejie

Unless something has changed very recently, my experience with CZ international intra-Asia awards didn't have fuel surcharges. If it was a YQ, I doubt CZ would have agreed to remove it.

SirJman

I flew the same routing last month, and after the big 'fee' was removed, the taxes ended up being within 1$ of each other for both reservations.

CZ has never charged for fuel surcharges. They have tried to say CZ, CI and MU do, but the only partner I know of that does is MH.

cbdg

i want to fly from SFO to ATH, business class using miles. UA is telling me no business class seats are available for biz saver (this is for May 2011). only want to do one stop (it's our honeymoon). any suggestions?

jredknapp11

WOW, I'm a Nugget .

Switch Y for J and the above is correct. My bad.

GTEnvCO2

I'm probably not posting this on the right forum - perhaps need the lack of success forum Have 4 traveling, booking on SkyMiles Platinum for reward, into Brussels - have that for the 24th of Dec on saver fare (looking to get the 60k economy since it's 2 adults and 2 small children). Using the delta engine (terrible) and KVS tool (just starting to learn how to use this) and can't seem to get anything back around Jan 1, 2, 3, 4 at saver rate out of BRU or any European cities nearby (e.g., AMS, Dusseldorf, etc.) KLM doesn't seem to be showing up in KVS tool either, so maybe there's a glitch there. Any tips? Would prefer a direct out of BRU or AMS, if possible given the two children. I'm a relative newbie at being creative with booking routes - wouldn't mind a stopover somewhere but not sure how to engineer that other than calling. Guess I'll get on the line with a Delta agent. Oh, and I guess I should mention I'm going out of ATL. I forgot that bit

Nocturnal

Just booked 2 BE tickets to Zurich in May for low (100k each) award.

Would have prefered a flight into Paris, but for the price it works.

wco81

What routing though?

Donna49

I just booked business on AF, SEA-CDG-ARN departing in 2 days, and back in 6, for 100k rt. That seemed like a really good deal, so I did the booking.

Not sure if I can go yet, and have no experience flying AF or transiting CDG, but this was too good to pass up.

I'm going to search for reports of experiences in business on AF on tatl thru CDG, but if anyone can send me toward a good thread describing business class on AF, I'd appreciate it.

wco81

Business class on AF is terrific, lie-flat beds (at least on the A340 and 747s which fly from SFO to CDG) and generally the consensus here was that AF had better food.

Well champagne and 2 or 3 choices of wine, last time poured from a real bottle, not one of those mini bottles with the twist off cap that they serve in economy.

Best of all, you will save at least 3 hours of flight time going SEA-CDG direct rather than take DL through JFK or ATL.

trek87

Two roundtrip tickets on KE TPE-ICN for 20K + $35.40 each this coming November. On my preferred days of travel (Sun./Wed.), every direct flight of the day was available ^.

nwa330

scored 2 MCO-HKG 60k each for travel in November. First time I've seen low tier to HKG in a long time.

OLYflyer

Scored 2 seats to Morocco from Bay Area + 2 week stopover in Europe for Honeymoon.

100k x 2 people in Biz/First

ALL DONE via Delta.com (Amazing enough!)

Toughest part was getting the Delta Domestic availability

Depart
June 15
OAK-SEA-IAH (AS - FIRST)

June 16-17
IAH-CDG-CMN (AF - BIZ)

Return
June 24
CMN-CDG (AF BIZ) stopover

July 10
CDG-IAD ( AF BIZ)

July 11
DCA-SLC-SFO (DL FIRST)

One of best parts was able to max out the 24hr rule domestically for time visiting friends in Houston & DC. ExpertFlyer is worth every penny.

Thanks to all who post here for helping me keep the faith in Skypesos.

dravi

4..correct 4 J class txts AF (1seat)Sept (1seat)Aug (2seats) Oct 2010 MIA-CDG-DEL-CDG-MIA on low miles 120K/ea....EXPERTFLYER defintely worth the 10bucks/month..got all of the direct mia-cdg's and back through EF's email alerts works great!