Last minute award bookings
 

Which companies provide last minute award bookings (electronic) without any fees.

I have personally done it at:
- United
- Continental
- Northwest
- Starwood

Soon to join this list - Holiday Inn.

Any others?

I have done it fairly close to fly date with both US and AA. Some times it has worked, and some times no seats. Hit or miss.

Djlawman

When my mother died, I was able to acquire five (5) same-day adjacent transcon seats on the same NWA plane, using AS miles.

Purchasing these tickets would have cost me in the neighborhood of $3,000.00@ (a total of $15,000.00) and I was amazed that the Alaska MVP staff went way above and beyond the call of duty to find us free right now tickets in an emergency.

This act of kindness cemented my loyalty to AS for a good long time to come.

[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 11-23-2000).]

Djlawman, I'm surprised to see American Airlines on your list - according to my most recent statement, anything less than three weeks notice will cost $50 "delivery" fee (even if you pick them up yourself!), or $75 if within a day or three.

But United definitely belongs - just last month I reserved a friend's flight on a Tuesday, signed for the miles on Wednesday, and he picked up the [e-]ticket 750 miles away on Thursday an hour before his flight...all at no charge (and it was a saver award to boot!)

American is most definitely not free, but $75 is a reasonable price to pay in a true emergency. I have kept at least 25,000 miles in my AA, UA, and NW accounts for emergencies.

A really dedicated AA staffer spent about an hour with me researching options for ORD-ATH on a day's notice when my grandmother passed away. Since AA doesn't fly to ATH, it was a challenge, but she found me business class seats for my dad on SN/SR. He ended up not using the reservation as my uncle found them consolidator tickets on DL for $600 in coach (not bad for the next day).

Where I object to paying $75 is for last minute *upgrade* awards, where I've already paid revenue for a ticket.

Read the original post too fast. Yes, fees on AA, but I think they are reasonable.

...........................

Have done it myself on American.

Clarification - I checked and there WAS a fee involved.

Southwest has no last minute fees. And, no capacity controls. If there's an available seat in their inventory, it's yours! Very few blackout dates, too.

Cathay are very good re last minute bookings.

I've had good experiences with United and Delta -- for United, due to a medical emergency, I needed to fly from SFO->JFK as soon as possible -- I called at 5 pm, and was on the redeye that night (no fees). I get the impression that on the day of the flight, if there is unsold inventory, they will release it (even if it wasn't available a few days before).

While Delta does charge a $75 fee, they were able to get me from the Bay area (had to fly out of SJC) to Lima the next day (again, a personal emergency). The weird thing was that my flights were actually overbooked -- they had to kick somebody off both legs of the flight so that I could be on it. (So the $75 didn't even come close to covering their costs...)


[This message has been edited by danM (edited 11-30-2000).]

I found United more than willing to help in an emergency. AA on the other hand was not helpful. I guess it could have been the agent?

UA will do an award ticket at the drop of a hat if it's available. And if you need to cancel, they will put the miles back, at least that is my experience. No muss, no fuss. I don't use miles very often to buy an award ticket but I know if I need to I can and avoid what is sometimes a $2300 r/t.

And please add your positive comments to: http://www.saveskymiles.com