skyauction.com
 

Hi there

Has anyone used www.skyauction.com
to bid for air tickets or hotels?
My question is if you win, are the air tickets eligible for frequent flyer miles?

tks..

In my three experiences with them the tickets were eligible for frequent flyer miles. If you want to know for sure before you bid, I believe that you can email them about specific auctions and they will tell you in advance whether the tickets will be eligible or not.

Just be careful most items are overbid!

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Viele Grüße

Oliver

I find the site menacing as it's pages load sooo veerrry slooowww. And I'm using either a a T-1 or DSL connection.

Beware of the fine print add-ons and taxes. Not always a great deal.

As always YMMV

I used Skyauction for a hotel in Rio.
It was a good deal for me and it was about 50% off the regular price.

Overall not bad and I use Priceline all over the world so this deal stood up for me.
Regards,
Robert

tks for the responses.
Now, that someone's mentioned it, are priceline.com tickets points eligible too?

In general priceline tickets are NOT points eligible. Also priceline hotels are NOT points eligible.

People have sometimes been able to use priceline stays to get stay credit (for frequent guest programs). The trick is give them your number and to charge something, anything while staying. even then, it's uncertain.

as far as skyauction, you do have to check. sometimes there is credit, sometimes not.

Do a search over on travel buzz for skyauction. There's quite a bit regarding this and other on-line travel auction web sites.

I had forgotten about this website because I used them a couple of years ago, won an auction that was a great deal, and then when I tried to book the flight, they came back with "Not available on that date" or something similar. Seems that if you win an auction at a certain price, if they're able to book it at that price you get it, if not it's said to be "unavailable" on your selected dates. I was not impressed.



[This message has been edited by whiteknuckles (edited Dec 22, 2003).]

I used it a couple years ago, and it seemed to work well if you're trying to travel to an expensive/remote location and don't care about what airline you take and what routing you take. You got to choose the dates and cities, and you earned miles on the flights. But chances are, you won't be taking the most convenient route.

I booked a trip from DTW to WAW (Warsaw) that was on UA and LH. But instead of DTW-FRA nonstop, we were on UA DTW-ORD-FRA. Flight from DTW to ORD was supposed to take off around 7 p.m. but was delayed multiple times due to heavy rain in Chicago. Finally, around midnight, the gate agent, flanked by county sheriff's deputies, announced to the already-irate crowd that the flight had been cancelled and that we should show up around 10 a.m. the next day to try again (and that anyone threatening the UA staff would be arrested). Not a great start to a long trip.

Not due to skyauction, per se, just a risk associated with each additional connection on a trip.

Before you bid, you can email them. The CSA will tell you if the airline will give you frequent flyer miles. Mine did.
Has anyone walked away after winning a bid? I won a bid for a Puerto Vallarta Hotel only to find that my there were no seats available using ff miles for the entire month of February.

Good advice and welcome to FT BertG that is what you have to do with Skyauction.

any007 there is a FT forum that deals with Online Booking and Bidding under the FT Travel section. All your questions re: Priceline and Skyauction have been answered more than a few times.

I used to use skyauction all the time when FF miles would accrue for UA, LH, TG and SA airlines. But sadly not one auction for the past year or so has allowed accrual of FF miles. Some of the winning bids I had were biz class tickets on Thai for under a grand from the US to Japan. There were some terrific bids on US to Europe travel as well.

We also won some bids for places in the Turks, Bahamas, and St. Kits. Most were all inclusive which I hate, but for the price we could not pass it up.

As an FT'er posted above, Almost all the bids are way overpriced above what the going market rate is. A must if using any bidding site is to find out what is the going market rate online before bidding.

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Skyauction treated me very well. A couple years ago I won an auction for 7 nights at a tropical hotel. The bidding information clearly stated there would be no refunds to the winning bidder. I won the auction, paid by credit card and eagerly waited to go. The day before our trip my mother-in-law died. I called skyauction, and was able to cancel and get a refund less $50 charge. I feel confident using them in the future.

And if you have a winning bid that is way under market rate, the dates you request for your trip seem to be "unavailable on that date". It's a little like Priceline, except if your bid is too low there, they'll just let you know up front it's been rejected. Skyauction has you believe you actually won an auction for a RT ticket such as LAX to LHR for $195. But try booking it and see what happens! I removed them from my Favorites list long ago.

[This message has been edited by whiteknuckles (edited Dec 24, 2003).]

IMO one of the best deals on Skyauction is J-class from the US to MNL/CEB on NW. In the old days, these tix went for around $800 all-in; today they're closer to $1200, still a great deal.

I don't realy want to re-live this nightmare, but here goes in hopes of warning someone off from the same experience:

I used them when they first came on-line a few years ago and 'won' a trip to Rio with air and 5 nights lodging in an "all-inclusive' resort in Buzios, about an hour north. It seemed a good deal , until the resort added charges for using the beach, using towels at the beach, having a safe in the room, etc. ... and the room was on the back of the resort, not the beachfront room advertised.

I pulled out all stops on the complaint trail upon return, to Skyauction, BBB, Atty general, the banckcard company, etc and got some refunds through the bankcard.
Skyauction mostly said "Tough ... It's not our problem."

I've used them a number of times (3) and actually taken the flights- all to Europe, received FF miles on UA.

I've probably "won" a total of 6-7 auctions. 2 couldn't be booked for the dates I wanted, and refunds were promptly given. I think I've "walked" from 2 or 3 others, with no repercussions, although they state fees, blah blah blah for no shows.

Yeah, you've gotta watch the fine print and know the pricess available elsewhere- AS WITH ANY PURCHASE!

Just curios what airlines people have flown on to Europe via skyauction and where you lefte from (ie maybe a us CARRIER to the east coast then an int'l one)

For instance when it says major British Carrier I assume they mean BA or Virgin, right?

What about "major US carrier"? Any idea who that is, or is it, as I guess a bunch of them?

For my 3 trans-Alantic trip, I was booked on United each time. AFAIR, 2 departures from Dulles and 1 from BWI.



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In light of the comments above, I have major reservations about skyauction. Regardless,before Christmas, I monitored a few auctions to see what will happen.

The auction I almost bid on was a NYC/Miami-Nairobi plane ticket which closed for $351 (+taxes of ~120) I think it's an exceptional deal - if one can actually reserve a seat at this price.

The flight was via London (and perhaps other points) and it was on Virgin and some African airline.

If one bookmarks an auction link, one can see more information after that auction closes.

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www.witold.org

I bought tickets to Spain from SkyAuction about 5 years ago, flew from Rochester, Ny to Philadelphia then directly to Madrid. Bought them around August for $420 flew in February during President's week.
I would say it was a very good deal! They also without any fees, let me cancel a second auction won for my son who changed his mind about going with me.

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Iliana D Blair

maybe rude, but it really is not Skyauction's problem it was crappy service by the resort.

All super low airfare I won on Skyauction I was able to book.

All the all-inclusive resort places we stayed at were fine. All-inclusives in general are usually pretty crappy with the food and rooms IMO.

if status or frequent flyer miles are not important to you, it is a great site. to clarify I don't work for them or any company they deal with.

not to veer off-topic, but because I think they are sister companies, I will ask in this thread.

Has anyone used Luxurylink.com to get hotels or packages? I understand they are the sister auction site to skyauction, but specialize in very high-end hotels and packages.

I've won 3 bids on luxurylink.com for resort packages in the Caribbean and can highly recommend them. I didn't realize that they're affiliated with skyauction.com. Are you sure about that? The process with luxurylink (and I only have experience with regular and best shot auctions) after you've won is that you contact the resort directly to make your own reservations. It gives you much more control over the process. Sometimes I contact the resort prior to bidding to check availability if I have specific dates I need. I passed on an auction for the Chateau Lake Louise once because they didn't have the dates I wanted. Calling the resort prior to bidding is not a 100% guarantee but I doubt that a particular room category would sell out during that short time frame. I've never won a luxurylink package that includes air, only accomodations, so with an air included package, the process might be a little different. I seem to recall in conversations with their customer service that air packages are booked through luxurylink. I wouldn't hesitate to use them at all. For regular auctions, you can check past winning bids. Sometimes, there's a big variance between closing prices from one week to the next.

Thanks Philc!

The weekend paper in my area seemed to link skyauction and luxurylink together under the same company, so that is where I got my understanding.

I will spend more time reviewing the site...it appears the auctions are "blind", so you have no idea where the bidding is at, which could make it trickier than most of the "merchandise" online auction sites. They have an awesome package at the Essex House in NY for a bed'n'breakfast suite. Looks like alot of good stuff there.

Not all of their auctions are blind. The Best Shot auctions are, but they also have regular auctions where the bidding is transparent. I've only bid once on a blind Best Shot auction and did pretty well. The way these work is that there are 5 packages available, so you have 5 winners (top 5 bidders) after the close of each auction. ALL 5 winners then pay the same lowest winning bid price. I had bid $200 over the minimum required bid, but I only ended up paying about $15 over the minimum as that was the lowest winning bid amount for that round. So with the blind auctions, it's possible to end up paying less than what you bid. As far as I know, you can't find out the past winning bids for blind auctions.

The regular auctions are pretty straightforward and self explanatory. Sometimes there will be multiple packages (usually 2) in a single regular auction, so the top 2 bidders win. In this case, both winners also pay the lower of the 2 winning bids. Having multiples usually works in your favor. There's usually a lot of bidding activity just before closing. If a bid is received just before closing, the auction will be extended for 5 minutes past that time. So sometimes you see auctions go 15-20 minutes beyond the original closing time. With regular auctions, you can check past winning bids going back about a week.

Exclusives and Best Buys which require no bidding are generally not good deals.

I don't think the Essex House package is a blind auction. Are you talking about the one for 3 nights in an Astor Suite that closes January 16th?

Read the instructions on the site carefully and call to ask any question before you bid. They've always been very good about answering any questions I have. Be careful not to overbid and good luck!

I bid and won an auction on a hotel in Rio. My mother wound up having emergency surgery and I had to cancel the trip. With documentation, sky auction did refund approximately half of the fee. I didn't expect it, but was pleased with the attempt.