david55

Planning a big trip to Greece in early April 2005. A lot depends on being able to get two BE award seats ( preferably on the Delta non-stop). I have been reading this board for a few years now and I know the difficulty in obtaining award seats. I plan on calling 331 days out... what are my chances of scoring these seats on the day I want give or take a few days.....

I guess I need to know if I am counting on the impossible... then I need to re-think an alternative for using these collected skymiles.

KyRoamer

Interesting question. Anything is possible. When you call 331 days out you can get seats over but may have to wait to see about coming back. However, since you can move dates around once booked, if you are flexible off-season this far out you ought to be able to get seats.

I usually set a travel window of say 25 days for a 14 day trip and take anything from 12 to 16 days within that window. I've done Rome in May on Delta that way and used US Airways to London and Sydney (Qantas) with American Express points.

Good luck.

BTW on my last flight I paid coach ($1,100) and saved or earned 50,000 miles. At about 2.2 cents a mile I paid for my coach seat and locked in my medallion status for another year. Seems that people here value points at a bit less and I am sure many who have excess miles think I overpaid. Guess it depends on your situation. Sometimes upgrades are available when pure FF seats are not.



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Louisville, KY
Delta Gold

Marq

1 Oct 04, I have two Biz seats to ATH with the return from IST on 11 Oct. I was on the phone 331 days in advance at midnight. Actually, I was a few minutes early and the agent kept hitting the enter key until the system turned over. I put the outbound on hold and did the same thing 10 days later for the return. This is the second year in a row I have gotten Biz seats to Europe in this manner. Last year's return I had to change routing so that caused a bit of a headache; ended up returning on AF.

This is a no brainer. If you can plan 331 days in advance you will get your award seats.

marc

PrivatePilot

I was able to find availability for JFK-ATH 331 days out for the Olympics (but not many days after) so I doubt you'll have a problem 331 dats out...

masonuc

Find a good agent and you can always get a seat. I just got two for THIS June to Athens. This was a couple of weeks ago. A few agents swore they had nothing. You just have to call like 20 times. 90% of them are morons but the 10% that will take the time to help you can find you a seat anywhere, anytime. You just have to be patient. Why Delta makes it most loyal customers spend 20 hours on the phone is beyond me... (not to mention tying up its agents).

bdschobel

I always call 331 days out and get whatever I need. I have two BE award seats to ATH later this year.

Bruce