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Originally Posted by emptiness
(Post 19454795)
so if my flight is in mid jan 2013, I try calling to extend 21 days before the flight date?
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Thanks balima, those links are helpful.
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Originally Posted by capitolm94
(Post 19457500)
I just booked lax-cdg 8 weeks ahead but was travelling on weds & monday, which helped. This was with oneworld (aa, ba and ib).
The AA 5 day hold is nice & easy too, you just select "hold" instead of purchase on the final screen. |
Originally Posted by emptiness
(Post 19454801)
what you mean "AS A 1K"?
Originally Posted by emptiness
(Post 19455234)
What's AA EXP?
Higher-tier status members typically have many fees waived, policies loosened, and award inventory more plentiful, though not to the extent they were in the good old days. |
Originally Posted by emptiness
(Post 19458801)
i plan to fly to bangkok on December 30th, 2012(international flight) but I am not 100% sure of our trip yet, so if I book AA award flight today, I only have 3 days to finalize? If I cancelfrom oct 12th, I will pay $150 fee to get our miles back?
If you cancel then you can pay $150 to have the miles re-deposited to your account. Unless you're sure that you won't be able to use the tickets, rather than cancel outright you could try to find availability up to 1 year from the date of booking, just to delay a final decision. Once you've made the actual booking, if you decide to cancel the reservation then you will have to pay the $150, whether it's on Oct 12th, 2012 or Oct 11th, 2013. It sort of sounds like you're a bit lost here and, while FT is a great resource, you really should review all the conditions related to award travel. They're listed on AA's website or you can call AA's award reservation number and ask an agent. Just a suggestion. |
Originally Posted by uszkanni
(Post 19460403)
I believe AA will hold your reservation for 5 days.
If you cancel then you can pay $150 to have the miles re-deposited to your account. Unless you're sure that you won't be able to use the tickets, rather than cancel outright you could try to find availability up to 1 year from the date of booking, just to delay a final decision. Once you've made the actual booking, if you decide to cancel the reservation then you will have to pay the $150, whether it's on Oct 12th, 2012 or Oct 11th, 2013. It sort of sounds like you're a bit lost here and, while FT is a great resource, you really should review all the conditions related to award travel. They're listed on AA's website or you can call AA's award reservation number and ask an agent. Just a suggestion. |
Originally Posted by emptiness
(Post 19460566)
My knowledge is if i book today for December 30th flight and I can't travel for any reason on that day, I can call early december for a date change up to one year like in December 2013.
If I want to travel in Mid 2013, I can call again to have the date moved from Dec 2013 to travel date of June 2013 ? travel date can be changed within the year? You still seem confused. I would suggest that you review the comments already made here and, if necessary, call AAdvantage reservations with your questions. |
Originally Posted by balima
(Post 19454149)
I believe that the extension is only good for 1 year from the original flight date. Otherwise people could extend forever.
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Great info in this thread. One thing I'd like to mention is you need to know what regions fill up fastest. For example, Europe on holidays/summer goes relatively early, as does Hawaii over the holidays.
You can often book Asia on United without much warning, even for the holidays, but not Hawaii/Europe. It might be different on AA or Delta (I think everything is tough there). But with that said, as soon s you can narrow down date/location, book! |
I have not been able to plan vacations too far ahead. The challenge that I face is then getting 4 tickets on awards. part on rewards and other purchased often does not make sense as the purchased tickets may be more expensive than others available for the same route, and I dont really want to break up the family. Any idea whether they keep on adding availability (so as to not sure more than say 2 tickets at one go), or do they normally show all available reward tickets at the same time.
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Originally Posted by goku001
(Post 19461473)
I have not been able to plan vacations too far ahead. The challenge that I face is then getting 4 tickets on awards. part on rewards and other purchased often does not make sense as the purchased tickets may be more expensive than others available for the same route, and I dont really want to break up the family. Any idea whether they keep on adding availability (so as to not sure more than say 2 tickets at one go), or do they normally show all available reward tickets at the same time.
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One related general question I have is with regards to awards with a planned stopover (e.g. Hawaii - Continental US (stop) - Europe), especially if the planned stopover is a few months long.
Am I correct in understanding that one would need to wait until the entire itinerary was within the 330 day booking window? If so, are there any best practices to getting such an award at a lower level? In my experience, Hawaii would be long full by the time I was in the window for the full trip. I'm currently in the early planning stages of such a trip on Star Alliance and am just trying to gather as much strategy as possible. Thanks. |
You can always change your itenerary as it becomes available. Probably costs $75-150 to add a city or whatever, but waived for elite members. What you can do, esp for UA/AA, is to do your trip and add Hawaii for whatever dates are available. Both allow free date changes outside of 21 days (AA all date changes are free, I think), so when your dates are open, call and get them to change for free.
Also, outside of holidays, Hawaii is often available a few months or even weeks out. |
Originally Posted by zeddy218
(Post 19461702)
One related general question I have is with regards to awards with a planned stopover (e.g. Hawaii - Continental US (stop) - Europe), especially if the planned stopover is a few months long.
Am I correct in understanding that one would need to wait until the entire itinerary was within the 330 day booking window? If so, are there any best practices to getting such an award at a lower level? In my experience, Hawaii would be long full by the time I was in the window for the full trip. I'm currently in the early planning stages of such a trip on Star Alliance and am just trying to gather as much strategy as possible. Thanks. For a round-trip award booked at the 330 day window, I've also been able to call and add the return when that date becomes available. It all depends on the carrier, of course. |
Originally Posted by TGGDEL
(Post 19453330)
I'm curious as to how most people prefer to book award tickets and how they see inventory go up and down.
I understand it varies from person to person, planning ahead or not, how flexible you can be etc etc. Basically, I'm interested in understanding when most people book award tickets. I've been looking over inventory for a number of routes recently, with a number of miles programs. I think I'm in a middle ground which seems low on inventory - looking now for a trip end of Dec 2012 to either South Asia, EZE or NBO/JNB/DAR. It seems if you book early, close to one year out for example, inventory is available, conversely, if you book two weeks out inventory seems to open up again - two weeks seems to be cutting it pretty fine, hotel availability is usually more limited. Am I right in this conclusion? Or does *A/OW open up sporadically day to day? I normally book my award flights very close to departure date as I don't normally know where I am in 30 days. |
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