miamiflyer8

You are indeed correct. OLCI in the app always works for my USA departures at least ex-HEL and allows me to input passport data fairly seamlessly. I even once was able to get a mobile bp with the haraSSSSment marking on it which usually requires a printed one.

OH-LGG

I called today Lumo hotline and tried to solve my problem how to get out from LHR tomorrow with award ticket. All AY flights are max. 1 seat left in Y or C, depending when checking situation.

Lumo line said they could release one seat for award but due to weekend in Finland they dont have any supervisor in the house until Monday who can say yes and release one seat.

This is amazing and absolutely insane.

So if any need to upgrade or need of award ticket and no instant availability, do it between MON-FRI Finnish office hours. BS!

If I need ticket out of LHR, I'll take SK revenue.

intuition

I guess regular lumos will buy revenue without thinking twice.
Who on earth (outside FT) tries to get an award with 24h notice?!

intuition

AY1342 has 3 seats in J. 400-ish for a oneway J. Real Lumos wouldn't blink an eye if they truly needed to get out of LHR tomorrow.

OH-LGG

You mean those real Lumos (who they are?) are stupid?

1342 is too late. I Need to make revenue tomorrow.

Funny how they tell us they have 19 Asian destinations and 7 in NA but weekend in Finland paralyzes some operations. Like SovietFInland in the '80s.

ffay005

And this is also not true, according to my experiences. They have a department (AY+?) that closes at 6 pm on weekdays. But there's some other department that is available 24/7, and both my award trips to DXB have cleared via this secret department. On my first trip, I intentionally called AY CS in the evening, maybe 8-ish, and Janica, who first informed me that the "other department" was closed, was friendly enough to talk to this secret other-other-department, who then cleared my seat. On my second trip, I called during business hours only to hear that they couldn't clear me at that time, but then maybe 9 pm the same evening the reservation cleared. So clearly they can release that seat if they want to. Call again and hope for a better janica!

intuition

SK for 190€ seems pretty affordable then.

I mean: those who fly lumo-much command a substantial budget. If they find themselves in LON with a pressing need to get to HEL within 18h, their first though will be to get a revenue ticket. They won't find 400€ to be out of their pricerange.

I also think it is very rare that they would even think to use points for an award to solve such a situation. No one will re-imburse them the points.

ffay005

I guess it's not that uncommon. Actually it seems that many airlines release last-minute award seats, especially in F where seats might otherwise not be available. At least LH and SQ come to mind from reading blogs. And I guess AY does, too. I'm flying to LPA next week (on an award booked months ago) and just out of curiosity I checked availability for my flight online this morning. It showed X5 for both HEL-LPA flights on that day. I bet they didn't open 5 award seats on those flights originally.

Also, on Thursday I was thinking about joining some friends on a Stockholm cruise this weekend. My idea was to fly to ARN today and sail back with them since work prevented me from joining them from HEL on Friday. In the end, I didn't go, but there was X availability on three flights HEL-ARN today. In the meanwhile, DY wanted almost €200 for a one-way.

OH-LGG

I never thought there would be difference if I want award or revenue ticket for the departure in next 24hrs and never seen any rules you can't book award ticket for quick getaways.

Once I missed my DY HEL-ARN and I saw AY leaving in 45 minutes to ARN. Call to Plat line, award ticket and I was in that AY plane.

intuition

Are you sure this just wasn't the robot?

I am thinking the clearing is done by revenue management, not AY+. While they do have analysts and managers, they are relying heavily on software. Seems odd to have a person on call 24/7 to manually handle special requests from CS (and apparently only from a few of the staff in the know of this secret department).

To me, the clearing of waitlist on odd hours indicates even more it is machine based.

ffay005

The latter could very well be robot-based. But the former wasn't. Janica talked (for a good 5-7 minutes) to someone, apparently pleading them to clear the seat, during our call.

OH-LGG

But now this turned good, First flight of OH-LWM (to London) was switched to A333 so no reason to LHR.

I'm glad I couldnt buy that award ticket.

Ed Size

Deboarding an A330 from the door in the very back with stairs, even if you have a stand arrival in Hel, and bussing the people to the terminal is just stupid. Looks like the construction in HEL makes things unpleasant. Anyway gave me the chance to see the AY eco seats in RL and realised even the water bottles in Y are smaller....

goldnext

Now you have to go to Tokyo :-)

FFlash