Skymiler - you ignored the email I sent you and continue to spam threads with this skymiles nonsense.

I have also done it both with Continental and United.

As a 1K, I have found United to be particularly accommodating for last minute award booking even when the flight is really full. Last year, I managed to get two XF round trips between NRT and BKK; the route that is said to have over 90% load factor yeararound, and both times it was done very last minute. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

I believe AS does not charge MVP and MVP golds for expedited AS awards and can do them right over the phone. For other awards its 60 bucks. Thats not bad considering I needed to book a BA sea-fco business class award on one day's notice and it would end up costing 60 bucks for the expediting and
another 24 in taxes. All that for a 7700 dollar walk up ticket-- well, that an 80,000
miles....

lalala

Haven't tried to even expedite an award on TWA- they really don't go anywhere I want to go. I just use all those miles for upgrades.

A friend (and periodic poster to this board) just emailed the following to me. A family friend passed away. Flight departing less than 24 hrs. after he did this on US.

"Gold Prefered agent open up a seat in the "Award" inventory bucket for tomorrow's flight, waived the Saturday night stay requirement for the low off-peak domestic award (20k miles), *and* waived the $75 fee they charge for issuing award tickets
within 3-days of travel, or something like that. I guess status helps..."

This is a clear case where competition should drive every airline to do the best thing, but it doesn't seem to.

UA CLEARLY leads the industry on this one. No fees, no "hoping" you get the right agent on the phone to waive the fee for you. While I don't use CO or NW, sounds like they may have it right too. But why do others like AA, US & DL persist in these stupid policies? Releasing inventory at the last minute for award travel is a version of Priceline or E-fares... they should be JUMPING to release unsold inventory and let people chew up miles on them.

I have always found the UA system to work flawlessly and painlessly. On the other hand, with 2 years running as gold at US, I have yet to see them even so much as FUDGE a rule in my favor.

**LONG LIVE UNITED!**

I guess if you are CP instead of Gold, maybe US will be more helpful http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif. I swapped a flight credit voucher on US for a rt from my business destination back home and back again to a business destination the next day in order to take care of a traffic court matter in Raleigh back in July. I basically told them I wanted to apply the voucher to flights I had reserved in the system at the ticket counter and they obliged.

[This message has been edited by outoftown (edited 12-03-2000).]

I am an AA EXP and they waive the same day service fee for last minute award travel. I have arranged over 20 free trips (mostly for family/friends visiting us or travelling with us) almost all with very short notice without hassles. I have not been denied atleast one choice in award travel even for trips planned with 1 hr notice. I had travellers pickup tickets at the airport with service fee waived for confirmed awards with notice of less than a few hours.

I must say that UA has been quite good too, but there were far too many cancellations on my trips and I am avoiding them for the next month or two.

Last minute tix are one of the main things I use my miles for. In the last month I've done one on US and one on AA. The US one I was able to call in 10 hours before departure. The AA one I literally called the service center from the line to check in, less than 1 hour before departure. In both cases I got excellent service, and the exact flights I wanted were available. They both charged me $75 (no status on either carrier) which I agree is kind of a sham for etickets since processing costs are no higher. I would like to see them drop this, but it's still a small price to pay compared to full Y. I find that last minute travel is a great use of my miles because of 1) the otherwise prohibitive cost and 2) the fact that they release seats that would not have been available had I called in a week or two in advance (And yes, I have tested this, on both US and AA).

Yes, I feel obliged to chime in about UA as well. Their policy is that there are no fees just because you book late. I have every once in a while flown myself or friends all over the world on a couple of hours notice just for the heck of it, on miles. Saver awards, not the increased mile Standard Awards, mind you.

This is a good policy because nobody has to make up sob stories to get around a dumb rule. I like that. There's nothing more sad than watching people relate sob stories for upgrades/reduced fares/seats when you know they're fake. If they're real, hey, that's cool... but I refuse to believe that half the plane I was on last week was either people going to funerals or on their honeymoon... :P