cas_de

Mhhhh... see the following two posts from Oliver2002 somewhere above:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30764613-post655.html

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/30765990-post657.html

Vixit

oliver2002

Vixit's case is different as there is SQ involved. I you book pure LH group and just add someone in the same class you would have a case.

AJLondon

DEL-FRA/x-LHR-FRA/x-DEL

Got within t+1 days of my ideal travel date.

170k miles + INR 58k (~ euro 750) in fees/taxes.

thbe

- Which route/airline did you book and which class?
FRA-HND-FRA (LH716/LH717), LH, O

- How many pax and how many award miles?
2 pax, 315.000 M&M award miles, EUR 1.145,90

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

- Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Yes, for Easter holidays 2020, chance for cherry blossom

- 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?
Yes, booked tickets online, prefered seats were available (1A/K), no waiting list, no checking/calling

GalaxyChris

It's still 8th may 2019 (23h30 German time)... but on MM website it's already the new rates (71K (+4K) OW for Business Europe-Asia and 111K (+6K) OW for First Europe-Asia).

Nice job Lufthansa !

I hope that now the availability will be better, because I can find many flights December-January via Aeroplan/Krisflyer and some via Lifemiles... but nothing on MM (and not better in the phone, called 3 times).
It's a real game change.

NewbieRunner

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
LX MAN-ZRH-ORD oneway in C ( I )

How many pax and how many award miles?
1 pax, 52k miles, �431.50 (of which �172 is UK APD)

How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
5.5 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?
Booked online. This is the first leg of a mini-RTW trip to visit the US and Japan. ORD is not my destination but is a relatively convenient entry point and awards to ORD are more readily available.

NewbieRunner

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
SQ LAX-NRT oneway in C ( I )

How many pax and how many award miles?
1 pax, 67k miles, and a princely sum of US $5.60

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

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

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?
Booked online. This is the second leg of a mini-RTW trip to visit the US and Japan from the UK. I was looking for a Business award from any US gateway to TYO and LAX-NRT was the only option I could find on my date. I could have chosen NH LAX-NRT but opted for SQ to save US $100 in taxes and charges. I will have to find a domestic flight to LAX without breaking the bank.

NewbieRunner

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
LH HKG-MUC-MAN oneway in F/C (O/I )

How many pax and how many award miles?
1 pax, 105k miles, 979 HKD (~111 EUR)

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

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
A few days later than ideal date.

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?
Booked online. This is the last leg of a mini-RTW trip mostly on awards. I need to fly back to the UK from Japan after visiting the US. Plenty of Business awards available between Japan and Europe but I have flown the route many times and there was nothing that inspired me. I had just enough award miles for a oneway F award before the devaluation of M&M miles and had considered an F award on NH203 HND-FRA (00:55am departure) with a reduced service and an option for pre-flight dining. In the end I decided I wanted to sit in 1A on the A380 again and booked HKG-MUC-MAN on LH. I�ll have to burn some avios to fly HND-HKG on CX.

cas_de

Which route/airline did you book and which class?
MUC LH (I) YYZ AC (I) YHZ [stopover]
YHZ AC (X) YDF [destination / open jaw]
YYT AC (I) YYZ [stopover]
YYZ LH (I) FRA LH (I) MUC

How many pax and how many award miles?
3 pax (2 adult, 1 child), 112k miles, €603 p.P. (no companion award and child discount possible because it's a mixed LH & AC award)

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

Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Yes, except for the following two segments:
YHZ-YDF: there are two flights per day. I would have preferred the daytime departure, but there was/is no award availability, therefore I had to settle for the evening flight.
YYT-YYZ: I had to pick a flight 3 days earlier than originally planned in order to avoid a 5 a.m. departure in economy. This way we can depart at 4:30 p.m. and in business class with the positive side effect of getting a 3 day stopover in YYZ on the way back.

Since we are tied to very specific dates I am extremly happy that I could get this itin booked.

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?
I did research all the flights using the M&M homepage (which is a big PITA) and Expertflyer. I did call in to make the reservation.
1st call (Canada call center) - the connection got dropped while booking the last flight of the itin.
2nd call (Canada call center) - agent was able to reserve all the flights and put the reservation on hold.
3rd call (South Africa call center) - agent was able to change YYT-YYZ from X to I, but was struggling to finalize the reservation (I was on hold for approx. 30 mins). Agent offered to finalize everything and call me back. Which she did.
4th call (South Africa call center) - same agent called back as promised and she got the reservation ticketed.
5th call (South Africa call center) - same agent called back again (voluntarily) to offer to make seat reservations.

Overall the agents in Canada and South Africa have been really helpful and great, given the rather complex nature of this redemption and the fact that I needed an award for 3 pax. As stated above the M&M homepage is a disgrace and the fact you can't really book open jaw / stop over / mixed class itins online is really frustrating.

The agent of the 2nd call had to use the SEN waitlist to get seats for the YYZ-MUC portion of the itin, despite the fact that I could see availability for the same flights online. Given the fact that I made the reservation 11 months out, the WL cleared instantaneously.

Concerto

- Which route/airline did you book and which class?
With a start point in Bangkok, Thailand, a layover at Osaka and Kobe, Japan, and an end point at Sapporo, Japan, the routing was as follows:
BKK-SIN SQ C
SIN-KIX SQ C
(Layover)
UKB-CTS NH(HD) Y
Singapore Airlines (SQ) BKK-SIN-KIX and ANA All Nippon Airways (NH) operated by Air Do (HD) UKB-CTS
SQ segments in Business Class (I), NH operated by HD in Economy Class (I).
The transit in SIN is very tight with just 50 minutes, so I hope that will be doable (visions of a lost hotel night in Osaka). I chose the day flight option, in order to be able to enjoy the service en route.
The layover in Osaka is overnight, arriving Kansai (KIX) and departing the next afternoon from Kobe (UKB). It seems that KIX, ITM and UKB airports are part of the greater Osaka area (like the London area airports), so there was no problem arriving at KIX and leaving from UKB, although Kobe is a separate city I think.

- How many pax and how many award miles?
3 passengers, 35,000 miles each, EUR29.81 taxes and surcharges. Amazing deal!

- How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
2 months and 11 days.

- Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Yes, in the end these were exactly the dates I wanted. Part of the work in making such bookings is somehow optimizing the dates to suit everybody. In this case, the layover in Osaka and Kobe is absurdly short, arriving at 21h35 in the evening and leaving at 17h50 the following day. The point was to have the onward flight to Hokkaido included in the mileage price of 35,000 miles without having to pay it separately. I deliberately chose the ANA flight operated by Air Do, because Air Do was originally the airline of Hokkaido and I thought it would be nice to give it a try because my final destination is Hokkaido (I'm not likely to fly much on Air Do in the future). The other options left from KIX airport (ANA Wings) and ITM airport (ANA mainline). All available flights were late in the day (17h50, 19h45 and 20h30, the Air Do one leaves at 17h50). Obviously, I hope to see a bit of Osaka while there, however brief.

- 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?
I landed on a smart agent immediately and the whole thing was booked and ticketed in less than 10 minutes. No issues whatsoever piecing together the itinerary segment by segment and inputting the layover with onward travel from a different airport in a different class. So they still have really brilliant agents out there. I called around about 10 o'clock in the morning.
I haven't been able to price up the itinerary because it is difficult to price flights that have mixed classes without calling the airlines. But I could see that BKK-SIN-KIX on SQ in Business was about EUR560. Separately, OSA-CTS ranged from EUR104 to EUR170 for a one way ticket, but that one flight I booked which is operated by Air Do did not show up at all.

One final observation is that, while searching a multitude of flights in and around Japan, you can spend miles on ANA tickets operated by at least half a dozen other airlines. As I remember, other airlines included ANA Wings and Starflyer, the others I can't quite remember just now. I presume these are wet leases or franchises, like in Europe, but they seem to fly more under their own colours and brands. There doesn't seem to be a Business class option within Japan, on M&M at any rate. By the way, what's Air Do like?

NewbieRunner

Technically I believe Air Do flights are ANA codeshares. There is no business class on Japanese domestic flights and whether revenue or award, domestic segments always book into Y when connecting to/from international business flights.

I have flown Air Do once or twice in the last few years. The main difference between Air Do and ANA is the former does not have any premium cabin and does not have free onboard wifi like most domestic ANA flights. They only serve tea, coffee and soft drinks in Y (and sell overpriced snacks) on Japanese domestic flights but I once had some clear onion soup on an Air Do flight made with Hokkaido onions. They have been known to serve potato soup as well (another specialty of Hokkaido).

Concerto

One of the things about Japanese domestic flights having Economy class only is that it's very difficult to price up award tickets (or even revenue tickets for that matter) without calling the call center for help. So do Air Do (and presumably ANA flights too) have BoB service then? I notice that my flight to Hokkaido (CTS) lasts 1 hour 45 minutes, so we will see.

Checking some of the threads in the Japan forum, one poster, who was asking for advice about visiting North Hokkaido, mentioned he was flying in and out of Hokkaido through airports I had never heard of. Does that mean I could have been smarter and tried somewhere else in Hokkaido as an entry point? I chose Sapporo CTS because it seemed like the main city and a logical place to start a visit to Hokkaido. (As an aside, some of the answers seemed to indicate other posters thought there wasn't much worth seeing in Hokkaido apart from one or two other places, but this belongs in the other forum, obviously).

Concerto

As for the itinerary above, I was unable to price it either with Singapore Airlines or Miles & More. It would require two separate tickets, which sort of makes sense. Amazing what we can achieve with award tickets! Singapore Airlines quoted me EUR3,971 on the phone for BKK-SIN-KIX in Business. Although I saw a figure of around 2,000 Euros on Expedia that could be misleading because Expedia often reprices at the last stage and that ticket might not contain any flexibility. But Miles & More tickets are flexible, despite the is a 50 Euro fee, and valid for a year so the higher figure is probably the right one. When I tried Erstattungsf�hig Fl�ge on Expedia, SQ wouldn't price at all. We are talking only as far as KIX here.

As for the flight from Kobe to Sapporo, I worked out a value of EUR370 for a flexible ticket. It was a it difficult to tell on the ANA site, but none of the lower economy tickets seemed to come with any flexibility. Ignoring ANA SUPER VALUE, the figure for ANA VALUE was JPY36,470 (�303) and for ANA FLEX was JPY44,670 (�370). Whichever, these partner award ticket can sometimes represent amazing value, not that I would ever had paid the values demanded. So I suppose the value is variable, but it's still an amazing deal.

NewbieRunner

ANA has Premium Class and JAL has Class J and First Class on domestic flights. Air Do has a very limited BoB service (onion soup with rice and can of Sapporo Classic beer with cheese according to their website). Travellers can and do buy food and drinks at the airport before boarding from convenience stores where they don�t have to pay �airport price�. A couple of FT friends flew from CTS to OKA (the longest domestic flight in Japan of 3.5 hrs) earlier this year and took food from a supermarket with them. Incidentally they only paid US$98.51 each for the ticket!

Hokkaido is a very popular tourist destination but it all depends on what you want to do/see there. I flew to MMB (Memanbetsu) and out of SHB (Nakashibetsu) from HND a few years ago to visit Shiretoko Peninsula - somewhere I would like to return and spend more time. Last year I flew to HKD (Hakodate) for their fish market and the view of the city at night from Mount Hakodate. Earlier this year I organised a FT Japan Do in Sapporo with visits to Otaru, Noboribetsu Onsen (hot spring) and the Historical Village of Hokkaido.

If I want to fly one way within East Asia I book an award with avios. I�m flying HND to HKG on JL in business later in the year for 20K avios and 36.10 GBP. M&M award for HND-HKG on ANA would cost 30K miles and 45 GBP.

I think you found a very good deal if your destination is Hokkaido. Some FT friends didn�t make it to the Sapporo Do because it was impossible to find an award to get there. Most of my domestic flights in Japan are on ANA�s Experience Japan Fare of approx. UD$100 (10,800 yen) per segment. The ticket is not flexible but the price is hard to beat. The fare for a shorter distance such as within Hokkaido (e.g. CTS-MMB) starts at 5,400 yen.