I've noticed this in my own fantasy bookings, and I've seen others mention it as well.

It seems that you can get award seats (US -> Europe) fairly easily transatlantic, but it's really tough to get them coming back.

Is this because there's a net influx of people into the US (and all frequent Flyers to boot ), or is it the case that the airlines are more restrictive on inventory coming this way?

If so, why?

i was on iad to cdg 2 weeks ago
here is a sample of their problem

3 flights per day IAD to CDG
but only 2 flights per day CDG to IAD

i'm unsure if there whole capacity is off balance like this
but it does point to availibility problems on certain routes

I think they use the same consultants that the hot dogs companies use. You know, the ones where you have to buy 8 hot dogs and 12 hot dog buns?

Doesn't this lead to a whole bunch of planes stacking up in Europe?

no, the planes will fly
but it leads to people stacking up in europe - sometimes

in general anytime the lf going over is above .67, there are problems

this is what happened to me

on the way out, i was on the 7 pm flight, the 2nd flight of the day
it was overbooked
i voluntarily gave up my seat
and got a 300 euro credit for a future flight
they immediately issed me the credit and told me to check back in an 90 minutes

90 minutes later they returned my ticket and told me to board
apparently not all the overbooked people had shown
or those who showed up late were denied boarding

but on the way back
i was one of 20 people who were denied boarding
they gave a choice of 600 euros cash or 800 euro credit
i took the cash
we were all sent to the express by holiday inn at cdg for the nite
- a terrible hotel by the way
returned the next morning
and was offered another 300 euros to give up my seat and take the night flight

i wonder if the fares they charge are high enough to offset caused by their overbooking policy?

i paid $601 roundtrip for my ticket
so i know they lost money on me
as i got
600 euro in cash and 300 euro in credit

If you are talking about AF, I see three flights a day in each direction -

IAD to CDG - AF39, AF25, and AF27 departing at 5:05 pm, 6:45 pm, and 10:10 pm respectively.

CDG to IAD - AF28, AF24, and AF26 departing at 10:15 am, 1:20 pm and 4:40 pm respectively.

For UA I see one flight in each direction each day.

That makes very little sense...

Uh, yeah...I noticed it too.

But the original question is still unanswered.

On thinking about it, I'm guessing the airline's simply make less award inventory available coming the other way. I don't know why, unless they figure they can suck people in going over, and then squeeze more miles out of them to get back home. Or something like that.

In theory, it should be pretty much a closed system, with just as many going over as coming back (+/- 1% or so), so what would be the rationale for restricting availability one way?

'Tis a puzzlement.

I would think that the award inventory is the same in either direction. Maybe more people are chosing to come back during the days that you are checking for the return journey. Or maybe a net influx of students returning to school in the US.

I've run into the same problem with Hawaii awards. It seems I can always get seats outbound but I can't get the return.

I've had the opposite - got the return, but had trouble with outbound. Probably depends on the day of week, etc.

e.e. cummings?

Is that you?

This just happened with me trying to book a flight IAD-BGI in August on US Airways. Plenty of outbound availability, zero on the return. So it's not just Europe.

This would be on NWA, trying to book via my CO account.

In February had to do an open jaws, because there were no return flights from BKK, so flew back from MNL Decided to do that when the phone person told me that there wasn't a single seat through May - though in fairness I think I was trying to book in December or November.

But now I'm looking at meeting friends over Thanksgiving, and NOTHING to come back

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