I know we've covered similar topics, but I don't think we've covered this exact one.

Here's my situation: I would like to book three coach award seats from MCI to Northern California. I have enough miles to claim the awards on any of the Big Six. I am both date- and airport-flexible, but am looking for a way to quickly and easily modify my search if a date/airport is totally unavailable.

Right now, the only way I can think of to find availability is by going to six airline websites and navigating through six not-so-user-friendly search processes.

Question: is there a better way to more quickly research this - maybe via ITN or something similar? (My gut feel is that ITN doesn't show all fare classes for all flights.)

Mike Hoeffner is working on just such a tool. Or you could join AwardPlanner and they'll do the legwork for you.

Alas most airlines don't publish availability for award booking classes.

I loved AwardPlanner when I was a member. But they raised the rates over 100%(!) on me, so I didn't re-up.

If my trip were more complicated, I'd probably use their single-trip service. They did a great job with a couple of past international trips that involved overlapping awards, multiple hotel awards, layovers, etc.

I was also disappointed with that price increase. I did not renew.

I had joined last year to get them to help with an award to New Zealand.

I had no date restrictions... but they were unable to get me any saver awards....

So, not success story for me... and I am not renewing.

William

miletracker and things like that are great tools for showing mileage and getting into accounts quickly so i dunno if that is exactly the same thing as PP is looking for (what we really need out there is a secured site or place to put ALLLL our varied accounts and pins and access codes in life so we can get to them anywhere without having to scratch them down on postit notes, or try to keep them in memory!!)

Anyway, PP, what I went thru the other night pretty much reflects what you are trying to avoid, but after about 6+ hours of grueling 9but fun) phone calls and checks and re-checks to web sites and forums, I eventually did grab two award seats with rather comlicated itins using 3 airlines and two semi-partnered airlines. It was tough and i am STILL coming down from both the amount of time and work that went into it, as well as the elation from having booked these two nearly impossible tickets.

Alas, as I said to one CSR, I fear that airlines are losing money and customers because this level of rocket-scientist-like work just to get two award tickets is gonna scare away the layperson! that person will not fly, will think it's your fault, and you will have empty inventory you cannot sell, and cannot figure out why no one books it using miles!

I fear you too will have to do the 6+ hours in calls and try to book things that are so intricate, you cannot even get the online booking bonus for doing it because your plan, like mine, would be too complex for its own booking engine on the web! I had to make tonsssss of calls. (what bugs me most about NWA is that you can get all the way thru 3/4 of their prompts only to hear an annoying, rather stressful sounding man tell you that all lines are busy and to try the call again later. NO, I would rather wait on hold, like I had to with Alaska Airlines, who at least gave me the place in line... for a 30 minute hold time wait!)

So busy on the phone, I couldnt even make time to watch The Apprentice! Bummer that.

good luck in the search. Yes, I hope there is a better way one day too. But I did have some laughs with some CSRs.

MM

I hear you all on this issue. My sister-in-law wanted to have us meet in Yellowstone this summer but I could not find any available award to JAC. I have the miles. Yes, I could probably try SLC or DEN (probably no luck either though), but why should I waste hours accomodating a flight just to use miles.

The latest CSR told me to write NW online to complain. I did that, no response yet, but I think we have a legitimate complaint. And I will never use double the miles, that is absurd. If the local station sold gas and advertised $1.50 a gallon but 90% of the time you went to buy they told you that today it would be $3, would you just accept that it is $3 today? It is not like they share with you any rhyme or reason as to why the award is unavailable - 90% of the plane could be empty.

These programs is one thing these major carriers have over the discount ones, in that you can earn a lot of miles for international or first class trips, but at the rate they are going, I am less and less interested in miles. In fact I have switched from NW visa as a primary spending card to SPG Amex. The main reason? If I want a hotel in Milan on May 1, I call them and ask for it and get it. No capacity controls. With the airlines, I will end up spending all night on the phone in frustration after having to change the dates 100 times, that is, if I get any luck at all. Yes I can convert SPG points to miles and may sometime, but for the most part, I cannot get an air award easily enough to bother making a transfer at this time unless I book the air award 9 months in advance and have alternate dates.

Try www.yodlee.com You can register most of your credit cards and/or most of your reward programs there, and access them from anywhere on the web with a single password, see your balances on a single web page, and click through to the airline website, logged in and all, a la Mile Tracker. Mile Tracker lives on your computer, Yodlee lives on their computer. I use them both, as both have their uses.

I finally created two Yodlee accounts, one for credit cards and bank accounts, the other for rewards programs. I'm a believer.

[This message has been edited by 925 (edited Mar 13, 2004).]