Continental Air Reward Code?
 

I just called HH and they didn't have the codes for CO award booking.

Now I've booked a number of airline rewards, and the usual procedure goes like this:

For example, on AA you call meeting services at 1-800-433-1790, use ticket designator ICY73, and star file HILUS. It requires a 14 day advance, and N class availability.

The procedure is similar for other airlines, and there is no different between air only rewards and VIP packages (like GLON or TEAO) and air only rewards.

But for CO, two different reps said there is no such codes in their files. And of course CO reservations has no idea what to do without a code!

So, does anyone out there have experience booking HHonors reward travel on CO?

[This message has been edited by Rut Dog (edited 11-15-2002).]

Has anyone redeem an award with United? What's the process? Is it hard to redeem awards with United(i.e. inventory controlled)? Thanks.

To head off lots of questions like the above, below are all my notes. Terms are from HHonors website.

Most of this deals with domestic awards. Primarily FF2 unless noted (85,000 points for RT US). FF1B is domestic companion fare (40K points). Companion fare is with any paid coach fare (it does NOT have to be Y class unrestricted coach).

I have mostly flown UA on companion fares. I have "tested the water" by calling HP and AA with results as shown below (didn't fly HP or AA because I either found a real cheap flight or plans changed).

DL doesn't do flight rewards. US and SW do not serve my area, so I haven't had occasion to get their info.

America West Airlines
Rewards: FF1B/FF2
Terms: Valid on America West-operated U.S. flights only. Must originate in mainland U.S.
old (doesn’t work): drs ggffhilton
new: F8 Hilton
G class (frequent flyer award class)
Notes: found easy to book once they figured it out, based on FF availability

American Airlines
Rewards: FF2/AP3/AP5/FF6B
Terms: Travel on FF2, AP3, AP5 must originate in the mainland U.S.
"*All American Airlines certificates require 21-day advance purchase and Saturday night stay. No exceptions. FF2 and AP3 travel excludes Alaska."
Now requires only a 14 day advance.
800-433-1790 Meeting services
ticket designator: ICY73
star file: HILUS (14 day)
N class
The agents at Meeting Services really know the program well.

Continental Airlines
No booking codes for CO. Can somebody help???
Rewards: FF2/AP3
Terms: Travel on FF2 must originate in mainland U.S. Travel on AP3 may originate in the U.S., Caribbean or Mexico. Travel on AP3 is also available between the 48 contiguous U.S. and Caribbean.
Certificate number from HHonors, Continental promo code HHAP2
14 day advance
1-800-525-0280

Northwest Airlines
Rewards: FF2
Terms: FF2 travel excludes Alaska and Canada.
Ref Code: NK439

United Airlines
1-800-241-6522
Rewards: FF1B/FF2/AP4/AP5/FF6B
Terms: Travel may originate at either end of the itinerary. FF6B excludes Canada.

See profile S*MPI/promos-MPH01X
Booking Class Q, V

Reward code FF2
Ticket designator MPH2

Reward code FF1B
Ticket designator MPH1

Notes: Takes a long time for some reps to figure things out. Hang up and call back if they don't seem to catch on. Good reps can figure it out from the above codes.

UA agent has told me that the reward flights are time and date changeable without penalty, but not re-routable. Of course, the paying companion is subject to restrictions. I have not had occasion to test this, but it seems consistent with Partner T&C on HH website.

[This message has been edited by Rut Dog (edited 11-15-2002).]

Rut Dog summarized the proccess pretty well in his post above. These rewards are inventory controlled, but (at least in the past) they come from a different inventory than regular UA MP awards and in my experience, availability is better when redeeming HH awards.

I believe with UA there is not any special inventory control other than seat availability in Q or V class and probably a 14 day advance requirement. FWIW, I've never been told there are no seats available when redeeming on UA (at least 8 times now).

Now, back to the topic here....

Has anyone redeemed on CO? How about those codes?

If nobody comes up with them I'll order a CO cert and post the codes myself. Cert's can be easily redeposited, another nice thing about HH. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

That's called "inventory controlled"... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Q and V represent some of the lowest booking classes in coach (another one being "T"). If this is the case, the inventory is really really high since normally most of the flight seats are sold in these classes nowadays. That might explain why Rut Dog never have a problem using a HH cert to book on UA flight.

Another question comes to mind is whether any airline other than AA will routinely award flight miles for the HH award tickets? Can anyone educate us here?

I guess so, but I see the FF "inventory" to be much more onerous, much like the HH hotel reward room inventory.

So often we are told their is no more award inventory (seats or rooms), while there is plenty of purchasable inventory.

But the UA class restriction has essentially turned out in application to be "if you can buy it, you can get it with an HH reward".

I have extensively perused previous posts, and it seems the answer is that only AA is so generous. (Shhh, maybe they don't know about this.)

I know UA does not accrue.

It's too bad that AA doesn't offer FF1B, the companion reward. But I will be flying AA soon, hopefully, as part of a TEA0 which is nothing more than two discounted FF1's -- 62,500 each, instead of 85,000.

When I convert the AA miles back into HH points, the "kickback" will bring the net cost of the tix to less than 57,000 points each. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Good point. FWIW, I didn't have any trouble finding availability on UA with an HH reward.

That's the spirit of HH Double Dipping! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

That was my experience as well (and note also that I got the last two FF seats on the same flight, as I wass booking a total of 4 seats - - 2 via HH and 2 via DL).

Can an AP3 award be used on Continental, if one of the flight segments is actually a Continental code-share operated by Northwest?

No.

http://www.hilton.com/en/hhonors/par...ml#continental

Using Hilton rewards - can you book something other than a coach ticket (like Biz or F)? Say on UAL for instance (and yes, I know the transfer ended a few weeks ago, but I earn Hilton points at a rate faster than I can burn them).