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

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.