n3l15

Hello Everyone,

my situation is:
I am trying to book ticket for miles on an open-jaw route between WAW and two nice carribean island with Hilton Hotels (I am diamond with them) in November/December.
Examples are: BGI (Barbados), CUR (Curacao), AUA (Aruba), POS (Trinidad/Tobago), etc.
that means I look for e.g. WAW-BGI and around 10-12 days later CUR-WAW. (the flight between BGI and CUR I will book separately).

M&M website shows me jackshit. Nothing possible on any date. Nada.
I called service center - they told me it is waaaay too late to book such routes for Nov/Dec (hey, is that true? May just started? until now i was booking intra-Europe award tickets and that was possible 2 or 3 weeks ahead).
Lady wasn't very nice, but after a while she found me routes such as WAW-MUC-FRA-BGI - interestingly FRA-BGI is flown with Condor, which is NOT part of *A - but miles booking is allegedly possible. (can someone confirm that?)
The flight back from AUA or CUR she said is not possible - I checked there are direct flights with AC to YYZ (where LO has got also direct connection) - but she kept repeating "sold out".

I am silver with M&M (many many miles) and gold with A3 (not so many miles) - if that would magically open to me any seats for miles.

Would you have any recommendations to me? Any airports/routes to try?
Is there any working website which would show possible routes which I could quote her?
How to be sure lady is right? (I had impression she wants to get rid of me as soon as possible)

Thanks in advance
n3l15

malmostoso

The M&M website will only show you the availability on M&M partners (which includes DE). In order to have more availability, you have to search on UA's website (right on the homepage, tick "award travel"). If you find availability, call back M&M and feed the information you have to the agent.

Concerto

Would connecting through YYZ first on AC, then on LO, cause "married segment" problems? It is possible to interline two airlines, I believe. Possibly try calling the M&M service center again? Typical example of HUACA (Hang Up And Call Again).

There must be some decent agents at the M&M service center, or are we totally out of luck these days?

malmostoso

UA shows plenty of availability WAW - YYZ - BGI in december, so definitely HUACA after having done some homework.

Concerto

Yes, I'm afraid HUACA is really the way to go these days. Although, in fairness, I can remember it having been the case back in bmi Diamond Club days, Qualiflyer days, and so forth. I suppose you don't have any qualms flying UA after their terrible behaviour of late. Probably doesn't make any difference at the end of the day, although it's a horrible airline (been avoiding them for a long time). After the recent fiasco, there's just a chance there might be quite a bit of award space opening up! :-)

n3l15

Many thanks for these suggestions @Concerto and @malmostoso... I will most definatelly apply HUACA strategy.... I will tell them UA shows award availabilty so they should as well... I will let you know how it went!

n3l15

all right... UA website worked... HUACA worked... (to some extent at least).

I managed to book the route WAW-LHR-YYZ-BGI (to Barbados) - ***BIG THANKS*** to you guys! I still have a problem with either: CUR-PTY-FRA-WAW, or AUA-PTY-FRA-WAW. While everything is fine with segment serviced by LH: PTY-FRA-WAW, agent says he/she has problem with segment CUR-PTY or AUA-PTY serviced by Copa Airlines. (I tried both options, and multiple dates - no luck with any combination)

I tried HUACA couple of times - all agents were saying they CAN see free award seats, but they are not able to book them. Noone of them were able to understand why is that... they were digging in conditions, etc - they were helpless, suggesting to connect at later time and saying "maybe it is a system error".

I have active booking valid until May 8th for bits:
WAW-LHR-YYZ-BGI
and
PTY-FRA-WAW

trying to book flight to PTY (Panama) from either AUA (Aruba) or CUR (Curacao) - with this unfortunate issue with Copa Airlines.

anyone can suggest what is origin of the problem?
I have following thoughts in my head: some codeshare situation outside of *A not allowing miles booking? maybe Copa did not "open" award seats yet?

Once again: many thanks for all the help until now,
n3l15

n3l15

ok, time to give something back from me.
thanks to great help from @Concerto and @malmostoso - I have booked my holidays thanks to you. (United award ticket search engine is of great value)
Finally I have booked outbound flight with: M&M WAW-LHR-YYZ-BGI and return flight with A3: MBY-YYZ-WAW. (interestingly carribean islands and north america are ONE region with A3, so it costed me only 30k miles per person, in comparison to 50k miles with m&m).

Now important detail, which I cannot understand till now, but may be worth checking for colleagues having flight awards with Air Canada and M&M:

when I called German service center I was told taxes and fees for ticket WAW-LHR-YYZ-BGI will be 166 EUR. I tried HUACA few times, always same price.
when I called Polish service center I was told it would be as cheap as 230 PLN - which is around 54 EUR for exactly the same routing (WAW-LHR on LO metal, LHR-YYZ-BGI on AC metal) . Again - I called few times, to check some options, always quoted same price. All Polish agents were all saying that flying with Air Canada is extremely cheap with award tickets - they seemed to be aware of this fact before.
I obviously booked ticket with Polish center.
I still cannot understand how price can be undetermined... and differences are so huge.

noticeable difference was also, with Polish service center they could create a reservation and hold it for 3 days, without charging me, so I could fix my return ticket and hotels. I could see this reservation in checkmytrip, etc - also to confirm in written that it is what I asked for.

in German service centers two separate agents told me it was not allowed / not possible to create a reservation, and when I gave them reference code made by Polish branch, they could not understand it how that's possible.

All the best, and thanks for your help,
n3l15

tormapleaf

My miles were going to expire in February so, I booked an award on a partner. I'm not sure if I want to travel on the dates I booked.

If I cancel the award and pay the fee, will the miles go back into my account and be valid for 3 years?

malmostoso

No, only until the end of the quarter.

Concerto

I seem to remember reading somewhere (can't remember where) that if you are based in Poland and book your award ticket there, then different taxes apply. The German call centre will just add the taxes that apply to Germany. Certainly, LO redemptions have very low taxes generally. I'm glad it worked out well in the end. It sounds like an good redemption with an interesting routing.

Try and use the ticket, even if it means changing the date. You'll lose the miles otherwise. Remember, the ticket is valid for 1 year from the date of issue, not the date of travel. So if you made the ticket on 28th February, it will be valid until 27th February next year. I think there are wriggles for getting around that restriction, but I'm not sure what they are.

tormapleaf

Try and use the ticket, even if it means changing the date. You'll lose the miles otherwise. Remember, the ticket is valid for 1 year from the date of issue, not the date of travel. So if you made the ticket on 28th February, it will be valid until 27th February next year. I think there are wriggles for getting around that restriction, but I'm not sure what they are.[/QUOTE]

If I cancel the ticket, the miles will not be redeposited into my account?

n3l15

good stuff... since it is zero problem to change mailing address in M&M profile to a random Polish address, and in Polish branch, all agents speak fluent English - it would be interesting to confirm this theory by someone else...

W Nippert

yes - this would indeed be interesting.

This reminds me of that I recently booked an award flight and the waiting screen informed about the fact that it is NOT possible - only - for Polish residents to pay tax+surcharges with those 15.000 miles.

So maybe in Poland there are indeed other "rules"...

n3l15

This one is very true - I had this message some time ago while booking award tickets WAW-CDG-WAW, so I changed my mailing address to random German, paid with miles for taxes, then switched it back to mine.
Everything worked with no issues.