What day of week do I have the best chance of success for obtaining FF seats for a flight to the Caribbean?

In October and November? Any day you want.

Airlines try to make award seats available when they don't otherwise expect to sell seats. And when award seats are available, there are some times that there's just going to be more competition for them.

I'd say the hardest days to get an award seat to the Carribean during high season would be Thursday and Friday (especially), and the hardest days to get award seats back from the Carribean during high season would be Sunday (especially) and Monday.

Why?

First, people are going to buy those seats. Flights are likely to be full, so the airlines don't want to give them away.

Second, lots of frequent flyers are going to be competing to redeem the seats that are going to be given away on those days.

Shoot for Wednesday.

Seriously, though, I've redeemed awards to the Carribean in February heading down on Thursday, back on Sunday. Don't think it's impossible or even necessarily difficult.

That's what I would have thought too. i just checked Continental to see what type of opportunity there was for award seats (for many reasons I am switching my flying to them). Catch this, mid week departure and return, in November, ROC -GLA, NO standard award seats! This is not a busy time of the year - I go to GLA or EDI almost every Oct/Nov. Obviously some airlines have some interesting ideas of how to let us use our miles.

Larry

CO is not a good measure as their miles are almost impossible to use. There are no trips available to Europe until October, though they say they might add more later in the Spring. Try using your CO miles on the partners instead as you will have a better choice

I have found that if you are willing to spend the better part of a whole day travelling in each direction, you can get FF awards just about any day of the week (on UA and AA at least). The biggest problem I have had is trying to book that elusive hawaii trip in first class on UA where I cannot book just the outgoing (330 days in advance) and book the return flight when it opens up 10 days later. This is due to my lack of status.

Other than that, if you are willing to fly out at 6:00 am and sit in a connecting airport from 10:30 am 'til 6:30pm then arrive at your destination around midnight, you can most likely find an open flight 6-9 months in advance of where you want to go.

I just booked 2 different flights to the carribean for this fall. I booked one for 2 to Freeport using skymilesin Dec. I had take a Sunday flight down instead of Sat.as I wanted. I also wanted to use up my dividendmilesso I booked usair for 2 to St Thomas in Nov. with no problem getting the dates I wanted. I hope this helps. Skymiles are definitely hard to get dates you want.

We will be going in mid-May of 2006. Any other comments on best day to get reward flights?

In Continental US - Saturday, at least for me.

As a general rule of thumb, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday are the least busy days for airlines. Always try to shoot for those.

Mike

Tuesdays have always worked best for me on Delta to the Caribbean and Hawaii, followed closely by Monday.

Why is November so available? Doesn't Hurricane season generally end mid October?

Oct & November are usually wide open. Those months are considered low season (except for Thanksgiving) in just about every major resort area. I never have trouble getting FF seats to Hawaii in November for a Fri or Sat departure. Hotels are less expensive too.

Schools are in session and it's right before the holidays. You really want a good chance - plan to go the first & second week in November. You can get a seat and the resorts won't be half full.

Hurricane season ends Nov 1, but it's generally a very rare occurence for one to blow through that late - It starts in June, and you also never hear of one at that time either.

As a rule, I try to think in terms of midweek travel (Tu, W, Th) because many people on vacations tend to travel in week segments (taking a full work week off), meaning that there is lots of competition for awards on Fridays and Sundays, which spills over to Saturdays and Mondays.

So, rather than competing with all that, I try to schedule vacations Th-Th or something like that, and have found awards to be more readily available as a rule.

I presume the same ideas apply for an award ticket to Europe. Am I right?