Which route/airline did you book and which class?
STR(LX C)-ZRH(LX F)-JFK (stopover)/LGA(UA F)-ORD(LX F)-ZRH(LX C)-STR

How many pax and how many award miles?
2, 140k miles (just in time to go with the old chart :D) (+370 EUR in fees/taxes) per pax

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
4 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Yes.

Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
Yes, by phone.

How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
Did research with M&M, EF and KVS tools beforehand, called once, friendly agent quick in booking my requested flights and seats ^, call took about 10 minutes at max.

F Award: TXL-FRA-SIN-DPS-BKK-ZRH-TXL
 

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
TXL(LH C)-FRA(LH F)-SIN(SQ C)-DPS(TG C)-BKK(TG F)-ZRH(LX C)-TXL

How many pax and how many award miles?
1, 180k miles (just in time ...) (+ 476,58 EUR in fees/taxes)

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
10 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Yes.
(Sort of, as for November 2011 exact dates did not really matter.)

Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
Yes, by phone.
(Two calls, first call to check general availability/to get a feel, second call to finalise.)

How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
Checked with LH/SQ/TG website and seatguru beforehand, got all my preferred seats during finalising the award booking.

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
MUC-xDUS-EWR-MUC (LH I class)

How many pax and how many award miles?
2, 135k Miles plus EUR301,12 per person

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
2 1/2 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
yes


Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
everything worked fine, it just took a single call to hold the seats for a couple of days until we were able to finalize everything and then one more call to book it.

How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
got the seats on the very first attempt.

*****

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
MUC-DEL // BOM-MUC (LH I class)

How many pax and how many award miles?
2, 135k Miles plus taxes/fees

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
10 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
yes


Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
everything worked fine, it just took a single call to hold the seats for a couple of days until we were able to finalize everything and then one more call to book it.

How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
got the seats on the very first attempt.

*****

Plus, booked a Star Saver Award with UA, trying to get both TATL sectors on LH (MUC-SFO and LAX-MUC) 6 months in advance. Took me two calls to the SEN line to confirm availability of O-Inventory and two more calls to UA to get the seats booked (no StarNet Blocking this time).

Overall:
^^^^^

- Which route/airline did you book and which class?
ZRH-VIE(LX)-IAD(OS)
CVG-EWR(CO)-ZRH(LX)

All C except CVG-EWR in Y (no C operated)

- How many pax and how many award miles?
2 Pax, 180'000 total

- How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
10 months

- Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Yes

- Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)? How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?

Only available via phone. Agents were helpful (spoke to 2 - 1 to query award availability, 2nd later to book). Would have preferred ZRH-IAD direct on the outbound, but no awards available on that route.

2 F awards to BKK booked for end of 2011...hopefully by then with new F on the 747...

- Which route/airline did you book and which class?
ZRH-MUC (LX C)-LAX (LH F) // SFO-ZRH (LX F)

- How many pax and how many award miles?
2 pax, 210'000 miles total + 2x CHF 373 in taxes

- How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
3,5 months in advance

- Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
For the outbound, yes. For the inbound, not really, we wanted to return at a later date, which would only have been possible with FRA/MUC connections on LH, so we settled for the direct LX flight and are hoping for more availability on later direct flights to open up closer to departure.
A lot of F availability I had found a week ago was gone today. I guess a lot of people are burning miles at current levels while they still can. ;)

- Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
First I checked online on the M&M website, then called the SEN hotline, hoping they would be able to see more availability. In vain, as it turned out. They didn't even see the ZRH-MUC-LAX flight that I saw on the M&M website. They said they could only see ZRH-FRA-LAX one day later and did not believe I could see more than them ("we are closer to the system"...).

So in the end, I booked the trip online and it worked.

- How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
Checked availability on the M&M website, called once, they couldn't book it, so I booked online (see above).

- Which route/airline did you book and which class?

18 december BRU - GVA - JFK in C
27 december JFK - GVA -BRU in C ( opup to F )

All on LX but BRU-GVA was carried out by SN.

- How many pax and how many award miles?
2 pax 1 SEN + girlfriend
135k miles

- How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
Booked arround 20th of September

- Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
YES

- Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
Online booking, didn't call for the booking. everything went very smooth. Got the exact dates we wanted + seats I wanted.

How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
Got the required seats during booking but double checked it every week before we left :)

To avoid the increase in mileage on 3rd Jan
 

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
LHR/ZRH/JNB on Swiss then to Maputo on SAA
Maputo/JNB/LHR on SAA

all in C

How many pax and how many award miles?
2x90000

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
8 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Yes.


Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
Yes, by phone. but the 10p a minute is a bit steep especially since it took 25 minutes.


How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
Checked with LH/ANA website first so was specific about the flights; although ANA showed no availability JNB to LHR so was planning on Swiss but the call centre found seats direct.

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
GDN-FRA-BKK-KUL-SIN-FRA-GDN
in C/F/Y.

How many pax and how many award miles?
2 pax, 270k miles (companion).

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
4 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
No. Couldn't find seats on the prefared travel dates due to the first class reconifig - I could find them online but the agents couldn't see anything. Web engine doesn't handle such "complex" booking so had to change dates.

Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
I was quite happy once I found a skilled agent that could see availability and ticket the itinerary (German SEN line). Polish was useless as they couldn't ticket it before Jan 3 (so higher charge) and US agent's couldn't see the seats.

Another award trying to beat the 3rd Jan deadline
 

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
MAN-FRA-NRT-FRA-MAN, LH A380 in F & shorthaul in C

How many pax and how many award miles?
1 pax, 180K miles plus €531.60 taxes

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
5.5 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Not really (see below for details)

Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
Not exactly (see below). This is the second F award on the A380 and I thought I knew how it should work but...

How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
Since my plan is flexible I picked dates in late July/early August when F availability appeared to be good and called a German HON hotline number just before Christmas. The agent knew about waitlisting but didn’t seem to be certain how it would work and told me to call again after Christmas when her colleagues could check.

After Christmas I called a couple more times trying to make sure the agent knew how to waitlist for A380 F awards correctly. On Day 3 or 4 I was told that the reason why the waitlist hadn't cleared was because it was not possible to waitlist for F awards (on A380 or in general – it wasn't made clear) more than 180 days ahead. I asked the dates to be changed to June but the waitlist still didn't clear. The agent commented that this time the waitlist request wasn't rejected straightaway (as it did when the flights were more than 180 days in the future).

I had nearly given up by this time but decided to give one more call before abandoning the idea of securing another F award before 3rd January or opting for F awards on LX which could be booked online. The agent didn’t seem to recognise me from the number I was calling from and asked for the reference number. She then went on…

A: It's no longer possible to waitlist for F awards.
Me: Excuse me but what do you mean? F awards on A380 can only be waitlisted...
A: Let me try something else.
(tap tap tap... on the keyboard and a few seconds later)
A: It's cleared!

The experience hasn’t given me much confidence whether these agents know the rules, or if there are rules at all! Without FT (and VFT) how are we expected to know that SEN and HON can waitlist for F awards on A380?

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
FRA-JNB-FRA-FLR, LH A380 in F & shorthaul in C

How many pax and how many award miles?
2 pax, 210K miles plus ??? taxes-need to check

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
5 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Sort of. We were trying to coordinate award availability dates and certain lodges in Botswana. Initially had confirmed reservation in June but had to change due to a scheduling conflict. Ended up waitlisted for FRA-JNB and confirmed for JNB-FRA. Called backed to see if we can change or be waitlisted on FRA-JNB to earlier date and was confirmed in within a few minutes.

Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
Not really. I'm in the U.S. and the Senator office in the U.S. can't waitlist flights on A380, so I had to wait and call Germany at night. The agents were very nice, but even some agents in Germany wouldn't waitlist flights on A380. I had to hang up and call again to talk to another agent who was able to waitlist us. Several agents were more than helpful and put me on hold to call the revenue office to clear waitlist.

Our initial dates cleared almost immediately in a few seconds, but we had to change our date to another month. We were waitlisted on the FRA-JNB leg for three weeks, but I had to change the date. Luckily, the agent was great and called someone to clear the waitlist.

This whole A380 waitlisting process is pretty exhausting. I got different answers regarding waitlisting, but after many phone calls the reservation is finally confirmed.

Which route/airline did you book and which class?

LH C. EWR-FRA-EDI-MUC-EWR


How many pax and how many award miles?

4 Pax. 105K each, Companion award (50%), 2 Child Awards (75%)

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?

3 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?

Yes, exactly.

Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?

Yes, by phone.

How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?

One call

Which route/airline did you book and which class?

LH C. EDI-FRA-HKG-PEK-FRA-EDI

How many pax and how many award miles?

2 Pax. 135K each

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?

3 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?

No. Had to move +1 day to get availability on the A380 from PEK.

Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?

Yes, by phone.

How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?

One call

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
BOS-FRA-ZAG-FRA-BOS

How many pax and how many award miles?
2 pax for 157k and 535USD/pax

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
2 month

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Yes.

Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
Yes, by phone.

How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
I did few checks (was waiting for my miles to post), but seats were always available

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
GVA-ZRH-MIA-ZRH-GVA (Y to C upgrades)

How many pax and how many award miles?
3 pax: 1000 CHF per pax + 2 * 50'000 miles + 2 evouchers

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
9 months

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Yes.

Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)?
Yes perfect, all by phone.

How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
Seats were available at the time of booking