Help with booking award travel?
 

Hi all,
My first post, so be gentle. :-)

I found a site a couple of weeks ago that offered to assist in booking award travel when it would seem that the airline had no available award travel seats. The price for the service was $39.95 USD/trip. Of course, now that I'd like to try the service, I come to find that I didn't bookmark the site. Anyone have any idea of the site I'm referring to?

Thanks!

pka

i think it's a site that Randy actually owns. i think it's called AwardSaver or something like that. i forget the name, also. they run banner ads on flyertalk every so often.

i subscribed last year and they couldn't book me a single reward ticket. sure, maybe the reward simply wasn't available, but i have to say they weren't terribly proactive. i gave them a couple of trips that interested me and had to regularly email them to follow-up. i got replies that "yeah, yeah, we're still looking." didn't give me a ton of confidence so i kept looking myself (which defeats the purpose of paying for the service).

^ ^

Thanks! That's the one I was looking for!

I assume you only pay the subscription if they successfully find you a ticket?

Do they have access to award inventory that others don't? If not, what's the point?

The consumer (the OP in this case) presumably knows (a) what airline/hotel etc. they have points with, (b) where they want to go, (c) when they want to go and (d) how flexible their dates are. Why try to explain all this to someone else, rather than just call the airline directly? I guess if you believe paying $39.95 for someone else to call the airline for you is worth it, then go for it ..... :)

no, you pay for a whole year up front. so, i got nothing out of it. nada. and, no, they don't have access to extra inventory. they just do the leg work...which i don't think they did very aggressively.

Did you let Randy know?

My understanding is that they have the same access to award inventory as everyone else, however they do know the ins and outs of award redemption ... special offers, partnerships, etc.

They probably aren't the service of choice for the median FTer who enjoys the challenge of coordinating award travel.

But busy business traveler who flies alot, accumulates lots of points, and just wants to use them without figuring out all the ins and outs of award charts, stopover rules, etc. may find this the perfect service.

For that matter there's an upcoming trip that I was thinking of asking for their help with -- involving two premium class int'l award tickets, two different award hotel stays, and some paid travel on top. I've also been thinking of asking them to help with another trip... trying them find a use for some Continental miles, where I just don't have the patience to check tons of destinations over several months.

I've heard some good reviews of the service, and some folks who couldn't get a reward (though I sure doubt they'd have done better on their own). A search or 'awardplanner' will yield several results.

I also bet that anyone who feels they received poor customer service will find a very interested ear in Randy...