Effective 6/30/2005 - NO MORE GlobalPass Awards [miles for money]
Jun 21, 2005, 1:38 pm
#61
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Coppell, Texas
Posts: 1,014
Can I make reservations and then change the names for the $35 fee. On hold for 33 minutes still no answer. Hope they will expediatee this tickets would not do so on other tickets.
Jun 21, 2005, 3:34 pm
#62
Suspended
Join Date: Nov 1999
Posts: 24,153
Was overseas the past 2 weeks and didnt have my info with me. I thought Id have enough time when I get back to use up the miles (alot) still in the acct.
I called Taca twice just now and 2 different reps said that they are accepting GP Miles for free tkts. I hope hes right and will see what happens when I call back shortly to make the res
I called Taca twice just now and 2 different reps said that they are accepting GP Miles for free tkts. I hope hes right and will see what happens when I call back shortly to make the res
Jun 21, 2005, 10:52 pm
#63
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: United States
Posts: 37
Summary of Global Award Procedures andWhat I've Learned
Summary of my knowledge gained during redemption over the last few days. All information is for tickets originating in USA for south of the border and return to USA. Information for intra Central/South America will be different:
1) All miles in your account can be used. Doesn't matter whether they are "real", transfer, or bonus miles. No annual redemptions limits like there had been in the past.
2) There are no transfer out options. Your miles must be used for a Global Award by June 30th 2005 or the ONLY available option after that will be miles as money.
3) As stated earlier, one real or transfer mile releases one BONUS mile if you use miles as money after June 30th.
4) The web airlines booking, miles as money, and the programs they have left after June 30th are working well for them. According to Global Pass they are changing their business model because the Global Award portion was marginally effective. Therefore, according to them, the changes haven't come about due to financial difficulties.
5) You can pay $50 for the expedite or $15 if your booking is for more than 21 days in advance. As of June 21st, they are allowed to PROMISE tickets about 6 to 8 weeks prior to travel via FedEx to your house. Unofficially, they want to get them out and they have a large number of tickets, so you should receive them "soon" after June 30th. They will process the expedites, the tickets under 21 days as normal, and all the bookings more than 21 days out will be processed and charged to your credit card when you call, but they will actually be written June 29th/30th. All tickets will be paper. Because of the way the tickets will be processed, all travel must be completed by June 29th 2006 (I note this because if you called them and booked your reservation June 17th 2005, for example, and took the normal $15 delivery, your ticket will actually be written June 29th/30th and be valid until June 29th 2006.)
6) Airlines that can be booked are ONLY TACA and Lacsa. Aviateca (GUA to Flores for example) can't be used. No other airlines available--including KLM!
7) To book, call TACA at 1-800-400-TACA. Option 1 for English, Option 3 for mileage awards, Option 2 for "other information". You will then get a distancia qualified TACA representative. Don't worry if they answer in Spanish, all the distancia qualified reps I spoke to were more senior types and spoke excellent English. Tell them you would like to make a booking and that you want to make it in T (for coach) or D class (for business) for Global Pass award travel. I had some problems initially asking for a distancia award booking and was told distancia was closed (they wanted to transfer me to the frequent flyer desk the way I phrased my request). I made bookings with and without mentioning Global Pass and had excellent availability so it didn't appear at all like they had modified any availability to tailor the availability to the type of award mileage used. Make your booking, verify with the agent that all segments are in T or D class, verify the spelling of the name, and ask for the confirmation number or record locator. Then verify that the booking will be held until June 30th--they are aware that this is the proper date to hold the reservations. You can then immediately go to www.taca.com, select "my itinerary", enter any last name on the booking and the record locator. You can expand the booking that comes up, or print it out and can verify that everything is exactly as you want it.
8) Mileage required is based on Central America (CA), South America 1 (SA1) and South American 2 (SA2). Oddly enough, SA2 and CA are the same mileage Coach (T class) is 35k, Business (D class) is 50K. SA1 mileage required is Coach (T class) 45k, Business (D class) 65k. (Note SA1 coach is different than an earlier post here, but I triple checked this as 45k is correct.) CA and SA2 include all of Central America, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Columbia. SA1 includes Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.
9) Charges assuming greater than 21 days advance booking and standard processing for tickets that originate in USA. Taxes are $17.60 per person regardless of CA, SA1, or SA2 destinations. Visa charges and airport departure taxes that must be paid at the airport are not included. There is ONE $15 charge per record locator--not per person in the booking. Therefore a two person booking from DFW-EZE-DFW would be charged $17.60 x 2 plus $15 for a total of $50.20.
10) After June 30th 2005, any name changes, destination changes, and/or redeposits are NOT allowed. Loss of the paper ticket=too bad. The ONLY thing you can do with an award ticket after June 30th 2005 are date changes. These date changes are valid for completion of travel up to June 29th 2006 and they are made directly with TACA with no involvement from Global Pass. TACA may or may not charge a fee--there has been mixed info on that, but from reports it is $35 or less per person.
11) TACA releases award inventory 330 days in advance. Therefore, if you are booking award travel with them on June 21st, 2005, your award booking must have travel complete by the end of day May 17th, 2006. The only way to book award travel between May 27th and June 29th, 2006 is to make a booking and make a date change later. If you need to reach Distancia for any reason, the email address [email protected] works well, with a couple day delay in response.
12) Travel may be open jaw, but no stopovers permitted. Layovers due to no connections available are permitted provided the first flight out the next day is scheduled.
13) My experience with TACA showed that if one was booking from USA to Central America then the booking was easy. They would query the availability of DFW-GUA-DFW, for example, and would get plenty of award seats. Whenever I wanted to book to South America I was initially told everytime that nothing was available on any date (I suspect this is why some initial reports said award availability was low). Whenever I wanted to book something that required a layover to connect to the next morning's flight, there was initially no availability. The secret here is asking them "Could you check the availability of D/T class if you manually check each individual leg", and viola, lots of award seats. Everyone was always mystified why the "normal" way of doing it didn't work. With that process, all of South America opened up, albeit with one or two (!) layovers for lack of connections.
14) To complete your booking with Global Pass, call them at 1-877-946-4537 Monday through Friday 0900 to 1800 Eastern time. Be prepared for a wait (it's never been shorter than 25 minutes). Be prepared with your record locator, your global pass number, and your credit card. They will call TACA on the spot and get the record locator "processed". They will read back your Passenger names, destination, and dates of travel. They will have already verified that it was all booked correctly and in the proper award class (T or D). You'll have to ask them how many miles they plan to deduct to verify it's done correctly as the process isn't automatic and math errors are always a possibility. They will manually come up with the charge, but you know what it will be by reading above if you want to verify it. Give them your credit card number, contact phone in case of processing problems, and the shipping address for the tickets. Except for the wait on the phone, it was all very professional, cheerful, and competent by both TACA and Global Pass. Frankly, the award availability was almost easy to get plus or minus one day of request; name ANY US carrier that has that many award seats with such good availability?!?
15) If the phone hold is a problem for you, there are two other ways to contact Global Pass to make sure you beat the June 30th deadline: email or fax. Log in the Global Pass website and email them via "customer messages". My response time was 1.5 business days. You can also fax them at (305) 870-7555. Provide them the record locators, your global pass number, your name, a contact phone for you, shipping address, standard or expedite shipping, and your credit card number (if you wish). You may ask them to call you for payment or to call you to complete the transaction because you have questions.
16) If you find yourself short a few thousand miles, for $15 per 1000 miles you can purchase miles on the website under your log in. The miles are INSTANTLY credited, so you can use them same day for ticketing.
17) Within a day of Global Pass processing, you can see, while logged in on their web site, your ticket information. When the tickets are written by June 30th, you will be able to see the names and all the itinerary details on the Global Pass website (for that warm fuzzy). The Global Pass system will also email to your Global Pass profile email address that your are ticketed, so you don't have to check the website constantly.
I hope this helps someone. I don't know much more than what I've put down here, but I'll look for questions and see if I can clarify something if needed.
Good Luck on spending those last miles! (or saving them for the miles as money
)
1) All miles in your account can be used. Doesn't matter whether they are "real", transfer, or bonus miles. No annual redemptions limits like there had been in the past.
2) There are no transfer out options. Your miles must be used for a Global Award by June 30th 2005 or the ONLY available option after that will be miles as money.
3) As stated earlier, one real or transfer mile releases one BONUS mile if you use miles as money after June 30th.
4) The web airlines booking, miles as money, and the programs they have left after June 30th are working well for them. According to Global Pass they are changing their business model because the Global Award portion was marginally effective. Therefore, according to them, the changes haven't come about due to financial difficulties.
5) You can pay $50 for the expedite or $15 if your booking is for more than 21 days in advance. As of June 21st, they are allowed to PROMISE tickets about 6 to 8 weeks prior to travel via FedEx to your house. Unofficially, they want to get them out and they have a large number of tickets, so you should receive them "soon" after June 30th. They will process the expedites, the tickets under 21 days as normal, and all the bookings more than 21 days out will be processed and charged to your credit card when you call, but they will actually be written June 29th/30th. All tickets will be paper. Because of the way the tickets will be processed, all travel must be completed by June 29th 2006 (I note this because if you called them and booked your reservation June 17th 2005, for example, and took the normal $15 delivery, your ticket will actually be written June 29th/30th and be valid until June 29th 2006.)
6) Airlines that can be booked are ONLY TACA and Lacsa. Aviateca (GUA to Flores for example) can't be used. No other airlines available--including KLM!
7) To book, call TACA at 1-800-400-TACA. Option 1 for English, Option 3 for mileage awards, Option 2 for "other information". You will then get a distancia qualified TACA representative. Don't worry if they answer in Spanish, all the distancia qualified reps I spoke to were more senior types and spoke excellent English. Tell them you would like to make a booking and that you want to make it in T (for coach) or D class (for business) for Global Pass award travel. I had some problems initially asking for a distancia award booking and was told distancia was closed (they wanted to transfer me to the frequent flyer desk the way I phrased my request). I made bookings with and without mentioning Global Pass and had excellent availability so it didn't appear at all like they had modified any availability to tailor the availability to the type of award mileage used. Make your booking, verify with the agent that all segments are in T or D class, verify the spelling of the name, and ask for the confirmation number or record locator. Then verify that the booking will be held until June 30th--they are aware that this is the proper date to hold the reservations. You can then immediately go to www.taca.com, select "my itinerary", enter any last name on the booking and the record locator. You can expand the booking that comes up, or print it out and can verify that everything is exactly as you want it.
8) Mileage required is based on Central America (CA), South America 1 (SA1) and South American 2 (SA2). Oddly enough, SA2 and CA are the same mileage Coach (T class) is 35k, Business (D class) is 50K. SA1 mileage required is Coach (T class) 45k, Business (D class) 65k. (Note SA1 coach is different than an earlier post here, but I triple checked this as 45k is correct.) CA and SA2 include all of Central America, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Columbia. SA1 includes Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.
9) Charges assuming greater than 21 days advance booking and standard processing for tickets that originate in USA. Taxes are $17.60 per person regardless of CA, SA1, or SA2 destinations. Visa charges and airport departure taxes that must be paid at the airport are not included. There is ONE $15 charge per record locator--not per person in the booking. Therefore a two person booking from DFW-EZE-DFW would be charged $17.60 x 2 plus $15 for a total of $50.20.
10) After June 30th 2005, any name changes, destination changes, and/or redeposits are NOT allowed. Loss of the paper ticket=too bad. The ONLY thing you can do with an award ticket after June 30th 2005 are date changes. These date changes are valid for completion of travel up to June 29th 2006 and they are made directly with TACA with no involvement from Global Pass. TACA may or may not charge a fee--there has been mixed info on that, but from reports it is $35 or less per person.
11) TACA releases award inventory 330 days in advance. Therefore, if you are booking award travel with them on June 21st, 2005, your award booking must have travel complete by the end of day May 17th, 2006. The only way to book award travel between May 27th and June 29th, 2006 is to make a booking and make a date change later. If you need to reach Distancia for any reason, the email address [email protected] works well, with a couple day delay in response.
12) Travel may be open jaw, but no stopovers permitted. Layovers due to no connections available are permitted provided the first flight out the next day is scheduled.
13) My experience with TACA showed that if one was booking from USA to Central America then the booking was easy. They would query the availability of DFW-GUA-DFW, for example, and would get plenty of award seats. Whenever I wanted to book to South America I was initially told everytime that nothing was available on any date (I suspect this is why some initial reports said award availability was low). Whenever I wanted to book something that required a layover to connect to the next morning's flight, there was initially no availability. The secret here is asking them "Could you check the availability of D/T class if you manually check each individual leg", and viola, lots of award seats. Everyone was always mystified why the "normal" way of doing it didn't work. With that process, all of South America opened up, albeit with one or two (!) layovers for lack of connections.
14) To complete your booking with Global Pass, call them at 1-877-946-4537 Monday through Friday 0900 to 1800 Eastern time. Be prepared for a wait (it's never been shorter than 25 minutes). Be prepared with your record locator, your global pass number, and your credit card. They will call TACA on the spot and get the record locator "processed". They will read back your Passenger names, destination, and dates of travel. They will have already verified that it was all booked correctly and in the proper award class (T or D). You'll have to ask them how many miles they plan to deduct to verify it's done correctly as the process isn't automatic and math errors are always a possibility. They will manually come up with the charge, but you know what it will be by reading above if you want to verify it. Give them your credit card number, contact phone in case of processing problems, and the shipping address for the tickets. Except for the wait on the phone, it was all very professional, cheerful, and competent by both TACA and Global Pass. Frankly, the award availability was almost easy to get plus or minus one day of request; name ANY US carrier that has that many award seats with such good availability?!?
15) If the phone hold is a problem for you, there are two other ways to contact Global Pass to make sure you beat the June 30th deadline: email or fax. Log in the Global Pass website and email them via "customer messages". My response time was 1.5 business days. You can also fax them at (305) 870-7555. Provide them the record locators, your global pass number, your name, a contact phone for you, shipping address, standard or expedite shipping, and your credit card number (if you wish). You may ask them to call you for payment or to call you to complete the transaction because you have questions.
16) If you find yourself short a few thousand miles, for $15 per 1000 miles you can purchase miles on the website under your log in. The miles are INSTANTLY credited, so you can use them same day for ticketing.
17) Within a day of Global Pass processing, you can see, while logged in on their web site, your ticket information. When the tickets are written by June 30th, you will be able to see the names and all the itinerary details on the Global Pass website (for that warm fuzzy). The Global Pass system will also email to your Global Pass profile email address that your are ticketed, so you don't have to check the website constantly.
I hope this helps someone. I don't know much more than what I've put down here, but I'll look for questions and see if I can clarify something if needed.
Good Luck on spending those last miles! (or saving them for the miles as money
)
Jun 21, 2005, 11:20 pm
#64
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Monterey, California
Programs: Affiliated with all, participate in some
Posts: 2,188
Fantastic summary Flight_Hound ^ .
Jun 22, 2005, 7:52 am
#65
Join Date: May 1998
Posts: 3,062
Originally Posted by satori
Fantastic summary Flight_Hound ^ .
Jun 22, 2005, 8:45 am
#66
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: USA
Posts: 237
Excellent post! Can we use our miles on Aeropostal?
Jun 22, 2005, 9:31 am
#67
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
Posts: 70
WOW, THAT'S THE BEST POST OF ALL TIME , I've booked 15 tickets and I concur with all information in your post... thanks a lot.
tom
tom
Jun 22, 2005, 12:47 pm
#68
Join Date: Jan 2000
Programs: UA 1k, AA EXPLT, NZ GE, VA PLT Hyatt Diam, Marr Plat, HH Diam
Posts: 3,445
Originally Posted by Thomas Gregory
WOW, THAT'S THE BEST POST OF ALL TIME , I've booked 15 tickets and I concur with all information in your post... thanks a lot.
tom
tom
Flight_Hound: In my 5? years on FT, I can easily say that you've made the BEST POST OF ALL TIME!!!!
Last edited by SFO_FT; Jun 22, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Jun 22, 2005, 5:24 pm
#69
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
Posts: 70
my on hold times have been quite short for the most part.. usually between 3 to 10 minutes.
I tried to book tickets for next June , but award space is only open up to the end of May, 2006 now
tom
I tried to book tickets for next June , but award space is only open up to the end of May, 2006 now
tom
Jun 23, 2005, 12:03 pm
#70
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Soddy Daisy, TN USA
Programs: Former DL GM, NW Platinum, UNITED PREMIER, STARWOOD GOLD, RG, LP, US, AA & OTHERS
Posts: 99
Excellent!
^ Good info Flighthound!
I just cleaned out my GlobalPass account and got a r/t MIA-GRU-MIA.
It was fun while it lasted, and they were very good to me.
I just cleaned out my GlobalPass account and got a r/t MIA-GRU-MIA.
It was fun while it lasted, and they were very good to me.
Last edited by BOA VIAGEM; Jun 24, 2005 at 11:31 am
Jun 23, 2005, 12:43 pm
#71
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posts: 103
Is GIG a TACA/Globalpass Destination
Originally Posted by BOA VIAGEM
^ Good info Flighthound!
I just cleaned out my GlobalPass account and got a r/t MIA-GIG.
It was fun while it lasted, and they were very good to me.
I just cleaned out my GlobalPass account and got a r/t MIA-GIG.
It was fun while it lasted, and they were very good to me.
Jun 23, 2005, 1:05 pm
#72
Suspended
Join Date: Nov 1999
Posts: 24,153
I was amazed when I also didnt see Rio as a destination, seems they Only serve Sao Paulo. with the exception of Cuzco, it seems Taca/Lacsa only goes into Biz Cities or Capitals which down there is usually one and the same.
please do inform us on how we also can score tkts to GIG
please do inform us on how we also can score tkts to GIG
Jun 23, 2005, 7:40 pm
#73
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Hyderabad
Posts: 4,843
FlightHound, thank you very much for the PM and for the post above.
I just got off the phone with TACA and it seems that (and this was also noted in another post in this forum) award travel to South America is now blacked out. I tried a lot of dates, and the very nice agent checked economy and business class availability for each segment individually. None of the segments to EZE (I think from SAL, but might have been SJO) were available. My desired dates were Dec 25 to Jan 2 (wishful thinking I know), but every other date I tried was also not available. I tried random dated in Dec, Feb and March.
Has anyone been able to book an award ticket to South America within the last day or so using these miles?
I just got off the phone with TACA and it seems that (and this was also noted in another post in this forum) award travel to South America is now blacked out. I tried a lot of dates, and the very nice agent checked economy and business class availability for each segment individually. None of the segments to EZE (I think from SAL, but might have been SJO) were available. My desired dates were Dec 25 to Jan 2 (wishful thinking I know), but every other date I tried was also not available. I tried random dated in Dec, Feb and March.
Has anyone been able to book an award ticket to South America within the last day or so using these miles?
Jun 23, 2005, 7:46 pm
#74
Join Date: May 2000
Location: Coppell, Texas
Posts: 1,014
I got Sao Paulo from Dallas on Tuesday. Took almost 1.5 hours they said iligal connection I said only choice based on flights they said OK. Really sad thing is TACA must be taking a massive bath on this Global Pass thing.
Jun 23, 2005, 11:50 pm
#75
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Sacramento, CA
Posts: 101
Do I Need 2 Record Locators for Miles from 2 Accts?
My wife and I each received the Million Miles. We each have just under 300,000 to burn. We are going to Belize with our 2 year old and another couple in business class, are sending my parents to Nicaragua in January, and going there ourselves with another couple with young son in May.
If I have 50,000 miles in each of two accounts, do I need to get two separate record locators for Global Pass, or can I do it with just one? The itineraries will be identical.
It's been a great ride for my wife and I. Initially thought we would end-up losing this last chunk of miles when I happened to log onto this thread (hadn't checked it for probably 6 months!) a few days ago. Reservations with TACA have been a breeze so far. Now it is just getting the flights booked and receiving those tickets.
Is the current thinking that the expedite is not necessary?
If I have 50,000 miles in each of two accounts, do I need to get two separate record locators for Global Pass, or can I do it with just one? The itineraries will be identical.
It's been a great ride for my wife and I. Initially thought we would end-up losing this last chunk of miles when I happened to log onto this thread (hadn't checked it for probably 6 months!) a few days ago. Reservations with TACA have been a breeze so far. Now it is just getting the flights booked and receiving those tickets.
Is the current thinking that the expedite is not necessary?