flyfaraway

I originally had tickets booked to Asia, but my travel partner can no longer travel. I don't want to stay at home for Christmas. I'm now trying to find the following:

2 tix (1 bus and 1 econ is fine. Just one needs to be in bus or higher)
From anywhere in USA (I'll position from DFW)
To anywhere in Europe (trying to get to Munich, but I can position using Easyjet or BA Avios)

I cannot leave until 12/19 and need to be on the ground in Germany by the 21st (Christmas markets for a few days)

Return is the same deal, but more flexibility.

I have a decent stockpile in AA and UA and can move points from CSP/Amex.

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I am striking out. I have manually tried every city combination and nada at the saver level. It's also a really busy time of year for me and I'm trying to figure out a way to automatize this.

Should I give up and start looking more aggressively 2 weeks out? 1 week out? I'm not worried about hotels right now, as I'm sure I can find something. Intraeurope shouldn't be too bad either (worse case I can take the train).

I've never used Expertflyer...would that help?

Thank you! I'm used to booking 11 months and not having a problem.

MDFFlyer

From my limited experience using expertflyer, I think it's a superb tool. However, I do find it does have a learning curve to it.

You can setup notification alerts so when award seats do become available you are immediately notified - pure gold

sdsearch

I don't know whether it holds true for late December flights, but as an example, Lufthansa often makes nonstop LAX-FRA (Los Angeles-Frankfurt) flights available in business class a day or two before the flight. I was able to switch from an Air Canada connection (LAX-YYZ-FRA) to the LAX-FRA nonstop on LH because of this. (This was booked using UA miles.)

But it doesn't do it every day of the week. I was watching for days leading up to it, and about 2/3 of the days (including luckily the day I was traveling) got this at some point, but whether they got it all, a day out, or two days out seemed unpredictable.

I've also seen next-day inventory on AA for its own metal LAX-LHR nonstop in business.

I wasn't looking for economy, so I have no experience with that. And since I live near LAX, I have no experience with flights from other cities. I simply mention this as examples of how there may not be anything until a day or two out, ie, one or two weeks out may not be "last minute" enough.

But it's one thing if you have a connection already and simply want a more direct routing. It's quite another to count on something like this showing up before the day you need to depart, if you have no backup plans (such as using "standard" awards, at double-or-so the "saver" award level, if nothing "saver" appears by the evening before the last day you could leave).

Unfortunately, travel changes quite a lot as you go deeper into the holiday season, and what works in February or June or October may or may not work the same for the second half of December. It would be helpful if you had watched such availability on your routes last year around the same part of December, that might be a better clue.

You should think ahead of time about how much you're willing to pay in fees. If BA flights with high "YQ" fees is all that shows up, having thought about this ahead of time will make making a decision about them easier.

ExpertFlyer will only notify you if award seats are available on specific flights. You cannot search all airlines in an alliance with it (not in one step, in some cases not at all). ExpertFlyer works great for AA metal awards; IIRC it doesn't work at all for UA metal awards any more.

You may want to try (instead, or in addition) www.awardnexus.com. Click on "more signup options" under green Purchase button to get to a screen where you can sign up for some searches for free as a FlyerTalk member. If you want to specify your real departure airport and MUC as your destination, it'll look for all the routings on oneworld alliance and/or on Star Alliances in one search automatically, and you can do many dozens of those searches for free. But if you want to manually search to different European destinations, you'll have fewer repeats of each search before you'll have to pay to "reload" your points. It's not expensive, but it can stop being free if you're doing the kind of search you described every other day for the next month.

dukerau

Depending on how many Chase/Amex points you have, SQ has availability IAH-DME: 2 seats in F, 1 in J, (at least) 2 in Y, on 12/20. You can connect to a Lufthansa flight DME-MUC, but you'll be arriving into Munich at 6:20pm. Whether or not you're comfortable doing a connection in Russia is up to you. I did this connection in September but connecting to Austrian en route to Vienna and had a shorter connection with no issues. You just need to ENSURE that your bags are through-checked to Munich. If you have to get your bags in Moscow, then you officially enter Russia and you must have a visa, which you are not able to get at the airport (it must be applied for ahead of time and takes days(weeks?) to process). As long as you're transiting (< 12 hours, don't have to leave terminal), no visa required. Definitely confirm this, but note that when you check in in Houston (or wherever your itinerary starts), the airline may ask where your visa is even if you're just connecting. We had to have the UA agent call their main office to confirm we did not need a visa. It's an interesting experience. You won't get your boarding pass for DME-MUC ahead of time as you must get that in Moscow. You go to a transit area where there's a desk that you show your documents to and ask for your boarding pass. Most people on the SQ flight are continuing on to Singapore, and they do have to deplane and go through the airport, but you have to peel off before security in order to get your BP. Sounds confusing, but you'll be informed if you do it wrong

Since the flight would include a partner, it is not bookable on SQ's website, so no 15% online booking discount. So you'd be looking at 80k in F one way, 65k in J, or 27.5k in Y. There are fuel surcharges, but not terrible (~$225 one way). I greatly enjoyed SQ F on the 777, even though it's not Suites, but I will say that SQ J is one of the nicest J classes I've seen. The difference between SQ J and F on the 777 is mainly in the food/drink quality and the service. Both seats are very spacious, plenty wide though a bit short for my liking.

JDiver

AA will charge you $75 if you book less than seven days out.

flyfaraway

Thank you for sharing that option duke.

Diver - definitely aware of the close-in fees on both UA and AA.

Sdsearch - yes, it is a bit nerve wracking to gamble on something popping up a day or two out. Right now I have a flight on hold to Paris...if I can't get to Germany on the 19th, then I'll likely scrap that part and just get to Rome and Paris. But I really want Germany. I am seeing more availability post-21st, but that cuts down on ability to spend a few days at the markets. The flights back seem to be less problematic (flying back around the 31st).

The actual flights on UA are empty...a rational person would think they would open up some saver awards, but I know there is nothing rational about airlines

Standard awards make me cringe, where I start thinking paying cash is a better option.

MSPeconomist

You can always take a train from Paris to Germany.

LondonElite

How do you know this? Has US revenue management or sales department let something slip? Expertflyer and KVS will only tell you how many seats are left in a particular class. You cannot infer anything really accurate from the published results, other than that you may purchase x seats in fare category y. UA's seat map will also not tell you anything about the loads on that day, just how many seats have been assigned/selected. Even if the agent on the phone tells you 'the flight is wide open at this stage', you're really not any wiser, because that is a meaningless statement beyond 'there are enough seats that we're probably not going to sell in case you plan on booking something in a couple of hours.'

HouFly

try less than 21 days out. hate these unnecessary fees on the domestic carriers. highway robbery esp considering many of the seats only open up way closer to departure!