When to book awards?
 

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 either book around 300 days ahead, if I am sure of the schedule, or maybe 90 days ahead if not. I never gamble on last minute availability, but that's just me.

I too usually book 280 - 300 days ahead. I make plans ahead of time and usually know where I want to go 2 years ahead of time. At about 360 days out I start looking at earlier dates and try to get a sense of where the trends lie. I book as soon as dates are available. No sense kicking yourself later when availability disappears.

Now a disclaimer. We usually book 3 people in business class. These tickets are sometimes harder to come by because of the number of seats we want.

I just booked to Hawaii for next July - I was surprised inventory was available based on past experience (only UA had low-level awards). So I guess I'm in the 250-300 day camp. For flights that have been later in planning over the last year - Tahoe, Bahamas, Alaska - no inventory was available when I looked, usually 90 days out.

I try to book as far out as I can, but seldom as far as 300 days; maybe closer to 6 months. I have the luxury of flexibility (and miles in several FF programs), so I can usually find something that works for me. I monitor availability and adjust my travel dates as my plans firm up and availability opens up (often only within a week or two of the flight). There is typically no charge just to change dates.

When I reserve an award ticket I always know that, for some reason or other, I may need to cancel it. If that happens, I just pay the redeposit fee and consider it to be akin to trip insurance.

Just an aside. I tend to "purchase" award tickets as 2 one-ways rather than a RT. This allows me the added flexibility to change one leg without affecting the other. The downside is that if I cancel the whole trip I have to pay double.

WHAT IF YOU CHANGE MIND< don't you have to pay fine/fee or mile forfeiture?

You can cancel your trip and pay a redeposit fee to have all of you miles redeposited to your account. As previously stated, you can consider it the same as vacation insurance.

I did this 3 years ago after my husband lost his job and going to Europe for 2 weeks would not have been the smartest move. We couldn't rebook since we didn't know when he would get a job. At the time I believe we paid $50 per ticket to have the 90K miles (per person) redeposited. I rebooked 6 months later.

i booked a trip to NY in Jan 2012, travel date is Jan 2013,I am not traveling though.
I actually made some mistake cos I never knew much about how to book award miles back then. I wasn't sure NYC or Buffalo NY at that time. I couldn't change the destination so I had to book another award miles to Buffalo and trip finished in Feb 2012.

What can I do about the award flight to NY in Jan 2013?
Can I call to cancel and get my 12.5k miles back by paying $50 redeposit fee?

I have travel plan to Thailand in late December/Jan 2013, Should I book the trip now? If for any reason, we couldn't travel, we can have our AA miles back by paying the redeposit fee?

Interesting, so it looks like the vast majority of you book way ahead!
Some trips I know I'm going on, Xmas, Tgiving etc. The bigger vacations - Asia, EU etc I don't really know until about 1-2 months before.
Sounds like maybe I should just start booking things way out and then if it works, great, if it doesn't then just cancel.
Thanks for the feedback!

Yes, you can call to cancel and get your miles back by paying a fee. Below are links to the big 4 and their redeposit rules. Most are now charging $150 dollars, unless you have status.

Some airlines will not charge if you just change the date and not the actual itinerary. Again, check the links below for details.

If you are reasonably sure you will be travelling to Thailand and are willing to eat the redeposit fees, I would book. If tickets are still available, jump on them since they may disappear. But only you can judge whether you want to eat the fees if plans don't pan out.



http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...ticketing.aspx

http://www.delta.com/skymiles/use_mi...fees/index.jsp

http://www.usairways.com/en-US/divid...mberguide.html

http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/pr...Conditions.jsp

Yes, I remember now, I was told that the fee would be $150 by AA to cancel that one way trip to NY.
So I didn't think it was worth paying $150 fee for 12.5k miles and just extended the trip to Jan 2013.

once you book an award ticket online or on phone, you have 3 days to hold the ticket? No risk if you decide not to book and ?

Is there a limit on how many times you can extend or a limit on how many times you can extend? If not I guess you could just keep extending until you actually want to take the trip.

I will try another extension :cool:

Your best bet is to hope that there is a schedule change to your flight. If this happens you can call AA and say the flight no longer works for you and you will need it to be refunded and they should do it for free

I believe that the extension is only good for 1 year from the original flight date. Otherwise people could extend forever.

once you book an award ticket online or on phone, you have 3 days to hold the ticket and not actually have to purchase it? No risk if you decide not to book and ?

Yup. There have been a few times where I was scared to pull the trigger and I let it sit there for 48 hours before finally booking. But, remember to confirm by the date and time they tell you, or you will lose the booking.

It depends on carrier. On AA it's 5 days. Then, if other tix are still available, they will extend the hold. If not, then it can be cancelled and immediately reheld, but with no guaranty that the tickets will be immediately available once released.

I think it is 1 year (365 days) from the date ticketed, not the flight date.

As a 1K, I can re-deposit for free. But seeing that it's our bi-annual use of our owned timeshare on Maui, my confidence is pretty high. I've cancelled/re-deposited 1 award flight in my life, of 30+ award flights booked.

And yes, you have to pay a fee if you change your mind. Whether you book 330, 180, 90, or 5 days in advance. But you won't find award flights to Hawaii 90 or 5 days in advance, ime.

I don't know about others, but I don't think UA has a way to hold award tix anymore. I found gleff's work around, but even that doesn't appear to work anymore.

so if my flight is in mid jan 2013, I try calling to extend 21 days before the flight date?

what you mean "AS A 1K"?

One of the nice perks of being AA EXP is that they waive any reinstatement fees. This allows you to book trips at 330 day window and change your mind later if need be. Of course it also requires a plentiful supply of redeemable miles as they are zapped immediately from your account.

We typically book 300 days out for international trips

About 10 to 11 months out.

This is a great perk which we have taken advantage of many times. We sometimes book 330 days for high season or very hard to get and then keep trying to perfect as we get closer to the date. We do a lot of awards that are more than one flight so it is also good if one piece isn't available at time of booking it can be added or subtracted at a later point in time. We are going to Africa next month and after months of looking for jnb to Victoria falls availability it opened up last week and we had the awards rebooked. Since it was an end point there were no extra miles and a very nominal tax.

What's AA EXP?

It is their status for flying over 100k miles in a year.

I like the ability to change date for free as long as the departure city and arrival city are the same (and there are stopovers) I do this a lot. I will leave on a Monday but if availability for Saturday opens up I call and change it.

For domestic, I usually book 1-2 months ahead when on award. There's usually some availability if you're somewhat flexible with dates/carrier/cabin class.

For international trips, I did one last year when I booked 3 months before (in economy) and another one (I think 6 months, again in economy) ahead of time (as you gathered, there are usually seats if you don't care as much that it's in coach for a long haul...) I have also booked a one-way segment in F on another carrier on an international segment when my original travel plans fell through, due to a strike. That was pieced together literally two days prior to the flight, but of course, I got dinged with the close-in award fees (which evens out the baggage fee I would have to pay otherwise, anyway)

I have an upcoming trip in J, and this is the only one I've ever booked roughly 300 days out (only because it's for a party of 5). And even then, not everything was where I wanted it due to availability when I booked it. It required monitoring and tweaking once award availability opens up. The worst part - to me - about booking so far is advance is that it's quite a wait until the actual trip. ;)

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.

As JamesQ said, the award ticket is valid for 1 year from the date of ticketing (on AA.) So if you booked an award ticket on July 15th, 2012 for travel on January 15, 2013, you could extend the flight by as much as 6 months. That's the one downfall of booking award flights 300+ days in advance...if something comes up and you need to delay, you don't have much time remaining to do so as your year is nearly up.

Thanks balima, those links are helpful.

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?

1K is a status level with United Airlines, typically earned by flying 100,000 miles in a qualifying year with United.

EXP is Executive Platinum, is a status level with American Airlines, typically earned by flying 100,000 miles in a qualifying year with American.


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.

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.

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?

No.

If you book today, you can't extend the travel date to Dec 2013. You can move it to June 2013 because that's less than one year out from today. This assumes you can find availability in June. If you cannot find an award seat on another date - one that falls within 1 year from the day you booked the original trip - you are out of luck. You will either have to pay $150 or loose the miles.

You still seem confused. I would suggest that you review the comments already made here and, if necessary, call AAdvantage reservations with your questions.

Typically original booking date, not flight date.

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.