First Award Flight Booking - Suggestions?
 

Hi guys,

I apologize in advance if this isn't in the right forum... I'm new to the site.

So I am trying to book my first ever award flight, and the number of options are a bit daunting. Here is my situation:

I am looking to travel to Thailand / SE Asia from about 12/15/13 to 1/12/14 and would want to take advantage of a free one-way flight, probably from 3/15/14 to 3/23/14. I would be flying out of ORD and probably to BKK. Also, I don't need or want to travel in anything better than economy.

I have the following airline / reward miles:

AA: 68,900
United: 66,500
US Airways: 40,000
Delta: 24,000
Chase Ultimate Rewards: 49,000

Can you give me some tips on how best to book this tentative itinerary? Some questions I had are:
- What airlines offer free one-ways?
- What are the limitations on them? How far can I go on a free one-way?
- What sort of change fees are involved if I want to change the date of the free one-way, both before and after flying the SE Asia portion (if possible)?

Thanks

how about some detail, like airports you will use, like bos-bkk-bos....

aa & ua allow 1 way awards.....check their award charts for mi needed....

free 1 way? maybe you are talking about a layover at an intl arrival or departure city in the usa....aa has this....

I would likely go ORD - BKK - ORD.

I have read that with certain airlines (I know United for sure) you can fly, for example, ORD - BKK - ORD - SFO... and the last leg to SFO doesnt cost any extra miles

First Award Flight Booking
 

Since you are very new to points redemption, you might want to look into one of the award booking services. If you don't want to do that, then you should research each airline to see what restrictions they have on award redemptions.

Since you're asking for free one-ways, there's a blogger who's written extensively about them you might want to check out. Everything you need to know is there. I won't mention him explicitly, but the guy sure does know how to get value out of a mile.

drummer5829, welcome to FlyerTalk!
As you're planning to use a mileage redemption (award travel), I'll move the thread to the more apt MilesBuzz forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

United does allow 1 stopover in a round trip flight. So you could do ORD-BKK(destination)-ORD// ORD-SFO.

Search for availability on ANA/UA for each segment separately and you should be able to go from there.

Hint to the OP. There is a clue to the blog being referenced in the last sentence. The same blog also offers award booking services.

We did Thailand and used Cathay with AA miles. We went First but the details are the same. We wanted a stopover in Hong Kong but AA does not allow stopovers outside the country.

We booked the outbound JFK-HKG-BKK. Used BA miles to go BKK-HKG and then a separate Cathay ticket HKG-JFK

But like you said, we heard about AA allowing stopovers in the US. We have a trip to Palm Springs next week so i called AA and asked if JFK could be a stopover with the final destination LAX and it was no problem - basically a free First Class ticket to LAX from NY! I don't see why you would have any problem.Truly feel like I got something for nothing.

And BTW - arrived JFK January 30 and departing for LAX on May 2nd! Some stopover!

Here is the thread that lists most of the top award booking services: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ices-list.html They tend to charge ~$100/person. Probably worth it for a novice.

I disagree award booking service is necessarily the way to go.

If you want to do this once, then yes, use an award booking service. But I think a better time investment is to learn the ropes and ins and outs of stopovers/open jaws/different rules. This is not the last trip you're taking and the time investment will be well worth it in the end. You'll know where to collect miles for next time and being able to construct bookings yourself will open up far more options.

Many of us will tell you what you need to know for free and help you walk through the award booking process. Don't feel overwhelmed. Each airline forum has threads on routings and stopover rules so feel free to read through those and post there. Since you have United miles and Ultimate Rewards points, I suggest you start with the Stopover/Open jaw rules thread in that forum and I can almost certainly personally guarantee that many of us are happy to answer any routing questions you have once you've read a little bit. :)

Personally, I'd use the United miles since AA and US will combine into one pool soon, and you'd have a good critical mass ready to go there. If you use AA, you'd also have to make ORD your first North American city on the return itinerary (not terribly difficult, I suppose, since CX does HKG-ORD, but constricting nonetheless) to get a free one way.

I also believe United will suffer the next devaluation, though that's based on nothing concrete. I'd want to burn them first.

I can also tell you that having done an ULH like ORD/JFK-HKG on CX, that even being in CX it's still way too long to be in economy for me--and I like flying. I would consider routing via ICN or NRT and using Asiana, ANA, etc. Or via Europe and routing via FRA/MUC on Lufthansa. They'll take good care of you, and you won't have the super long haul flight.

I believe the reason people were suggesting a booking service was because the OP had not done any real investigation / research on his own. The questions that the OP was asking could be answered with very little searching either on FT, MP or the airline web site itself. I know that to me, the OP was basically saying that he had received all these miles from CC signups and that we should spoon feed him all the ways to book an award trip.

I see your point. I guess it should have been presented as "You should read and research. If you don't want to, use an award booking service." Not the reverse. But I think how I said it is how you meant it, which is fair :)

First off, I would reiterate what previous posters have said -- read what is available out there, particularly the blog hinted at in Post #5.

However, since I remember how daunting it seemed at first (and because I flew to HKG/BKK/HKT on AA miles last year), here are my thoughts on your planned booking:

1) AA miles may be the best choice here. North American to Thailand is 35k miles each way, so you have almost enough. In addition, you will get to book a stopover in ORD (aka "free one-way") on BOTH sides of your trip, whereas United only allows it on one side.

2) For basic searches, you can use the British Airways website to check oneworld availability. You may have to search segment-by-segment, as the tool will often exclude long layovers. Then call American Airlines with the flights you have in mind to complete the booking. FYI there is ample availability on oneworld partner Japan Airlines around the dates you mentioned, with minimal layover time.

3) Yes, there are rules governing AA "free one-ways." A Google search of "The Five Cardinal Rules of American Airlines Awards" will explain all.

4) If you want to see other cities in Asia, consider an open-jaw itinerary, which will avoid having to transit BKK a second time. Depending on where else you want to go, you can either buy cheap flights on Thai Air or other low-cost airline, or consider BA Avios to fill in the gaps.

Hopefully that's enough to point you in the right direction. Enjoy.