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Awards for June 2020

Awards for June 2020

Old Mar 31, 2019, 8:16 am
  #1  
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Awards for June 2020

Hi,

Lookng to book a business class ticket for both my husband and I using miles. We would like to fly business or first class from BOS to BCN. We have enough miles on our credit card to at least fly one way in this class of service. Should I book 335 days out, or wait? Seeing that it is for June of next year, I was thinking that these awards go fast. I am not sure if the awards are high at first, then decrease in a few days. Any insight would be great.

Thank you

ML
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 9:09 am
  #2  
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Originally Posted by Mary Louise
Should I book 335 days out, or wait?
I book awards as soon as I can find them. I am almost always looking 11 months in advance. I start checking a few days in advance of the awards opening for the day I hope to travel. Hopefully, I have some flexibility so that if I see award seats a day earlier or a day later but not the day I wanted, I can book them. Award seats are often gone with a few days of them opening up. It is highly unpredictable as to whether or even if award seats become available again for that route.

Good luck!
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 9:41 am
  #3  
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Award seats are not like prices: they never go down. (There are a few exceptions, when an airline runs special promotions to persuade people to give up some of their miles on flights that fewer people than expected are willing to pay for, but those are rare and tend to happen at the last minute.) Airlines allocate a small number of seats per flight at their lowest mileage requirement level and make others available only for more miles. If you know when you want to fly, get on the airline site on Day 1 and grab seats in the first, low-mileage allocation before someone else does. You snooze, you lose.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 3:11 pm
  #4  
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Thank you
You just confirmed what I was thinking.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 3:36 pm
  #5  
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Originally Posted by Mary Louise
Looking to book a business class ticket for both my husband and I using miles. We would like to fly business or first class from BOS to BCN. We have enough miles on our credit card to at least fly one way in this class of service. Should I book 335 days out, or wait? Seeing that it is for June of next year, I was thinking that these awards go fast. I am not sure if the awards are high at first, then decrease in a few days. Any insight would be great.
Some ffp's have low cost saver awards and very high cost any time awards
You may find that a cash price for one way is expensive.
For BCN also consider MAD and then train to BCN
There are recent posts in the AA forum on trying to get award USA - MAD/BCN

Great Circle Mapper
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Old Apr 1, 2019, 6:37 am
  #6  
 
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Originally Posted by Mary Louise
Hi,

Lookng to book a business class ticket for both my husband and I using miles. We would like to fly business or first class from BOS to BCN. We have enough miles on our credit card to at least fly one way in this class of service. Should I book 335 days out, or wait? Seeing that it is for June of next year, I was thinking that these awards go fast. I am not sure if the awards are high at first, then decrease in a few days. Any insight would be great.

Thank you

ML
It's not clear from your post if you and your husband have enough miles to fly one way in business and one way in economy, or only enough to fly one way in business. Nor is it clear what program the miles would be in. If you don't have enough miles to travel both ways on award flights, you should be aware that one-way transatlantic tickets purchased with cash are typically much more expensive than round-trip transatlantic tickets. And if you plan on using Delta miles, you should take into account that DL imposes hefty surcharges on transatlantic award tickets originating in Europe, even though it imposes no surcharges on such tickets originating in the USA.
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Old Apr 1, 2019, 1:16 pm
  #7  
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Thanks. We have enough miles for the two of us to fly one way business or RT economy. The miles are from a credit card that has several airlines associated with the miles. Glad to know about the extra surcharges.
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Old Apr 1, 2019, 8:03 pm
  #8  
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Originally Posted by Mary Louise
Thanks. We have enough miles for the two of us to fly one way business or RT economy. The miles are from a credit card that has several airlines associated with the miles. Glad to know about the extra surcharges.
Some airlines, such as American, only offer one way awards, with no stopovers exceeding, at most, 18 hours (you can secure a round trip, but its really two one way awards). Others offer round trips. And on some airlines you can put awards on hold - AA uses five days - giving time allowing your credit card instruments to transfer.

Other cards essentially give you credits redeemable toward travel.
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Old Apr 3, 2019, 8:14 am
  #9  
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xxxxxx

Last edited by sfo; Apr 3, 2019 at 7:00 pm
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Old Apr 3, 2019, 8:28 am
  #10  
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Originally Posted by JDiver
Some airlines, such as American, only offer one way awards, with no stopovers exceeding, at most, 18 hours (you can secure a round trip, but its really two one way awards.)
On most international award itineraries, AA offers 24 hours to connect. You get up to 18 hours to connect on domestic (and U.S.-Canada) award itineraries..
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Old Apr 3, 2019, 11:36 am
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Note that different FF programs can book at different times. E.g. anywhere between 330 and 365 days typically. So the program with the longest window is often a good bet. This is mostly not the US ones.
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Old Apr 3, 2019, 2:53 pm
  #12  
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Thank you

I was not aware of the timeframe for none US Carriers.

ML
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