Trying to book online LGA - HNL, Jul 24 - Jul 31. I want the 6:20am outbound flight, and the 5:30pm for inbound. NWA's site just won't give me this combination. It pairs a 11:20am outbound (arrive at 5-ish pm, too late) with the 5:30p inbound; or the 6:20am outbound with the 8:35pm inbound (2 stops).

Why?

Orbitz has no problem pairing the time that I want, and at the same price (with service fee). I don't want to go through Orbitz because I want that buy-online bonus miles.

Have you tried searching by schedule? It should allow you to pick the specific flights you want. NWA.com sells by the lowest fares available - it may be that the fare bucket isn't available on NWA.com & therefore it isn't the lowest available. Try pricing out that option & see what you get.

I have had similar problem on a BOS TPE HNL BOS trip. I can see the flights I want using search by fare but not in the combinations I want, but when I go to search by schedule, I get that NW doesn't have any scheduled service from TPE to HNL, but they do (via NRT). You might want to call to have a csr force the reservations.

Have you tried searching by specific times? I've had that problem before, but I was able to get around it by searching by schedule using flight times. Flight 22 TPE-NRT-HNL leaves at 9AM - try searching by that & see what happens.

Even after specifying certain times I can select Flight 1

Flight 1 Thu, Jun 17 From BOS to TPE

but for

Flight 2 Thu, Jul 1 From: TPE To: HNL
Flight 3 Fri, Jul 2 From: HNL To: BOS

No Matching Flight Found

No Northwest Airlines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, or codeshare partner flights were found between Taipei (All Locations), Taiwan (TPE) and Honolulu (All Locations), HI (HNL) that matched your request. Check our service destinations and routes.

There may be limited service to or from these destinations. Modify your search on nwa.com Reservations to the left, or search for alternatives on our partner sites, listed below.

I do get one step further by specifying times, I can see the options for flight 2, but cannot choose one, I still get the above message.

Of course what I am trying to do is get off the direct flights to up my miles.

It coule be because of lack of availability in Y:

TPE HNL JUL/01 0700 NW ->

[1] TPE HNL 01/0935 01/0935 NW22 J4 C4 Z4 Y0 B0 M0 H0 QC VC LC TC KC [CHG]
[JOURNEY TIME 1080 MIN.]
-------------------- SEPARATOR ------------------------------------------------------------
[2] TPE NRT 01/0935 01/1405 NW22 J4 C4 Z4 Y4 B0 M0 H0 QC VC LC TC KC [757]
[JOURNEY TIME 1035 MIN.]
NRT HNL 01/2035 01/0850 NW10 J4 C4 Z4 Y0 B0 M0 H0 QC VC LC TC KC [744]

I tried searching by schedule or by specific time for the LGA - HNL RT. And both said they don't have flight at that time (but they did). And it's not sold out, because both flights are listed in Orbitz, and by fare.

Something is wrong with their site. Strange.

Just because orbitz/expedia/travelocity show it as available does not necessarily mean that by time you hit the "confirm" button that you can book it. often they show the lowest fare that was available, but when they go to confirm it, you don't get it.

Second, the only on-line booking bonus I know about on NWA.com is for a first time booking. They have done away with the continual ones. If you have never booked on the site than you would get a bonus, otherwise there is no longer an incentive to use their site. Unless the $5 fee on the other sites is an incentive to you.