Using ECV Free ticket. In despair.
 

My wife and I got involuntarily bumped from a flight last August while trying to make it to a wedding. They gave us free tickets that we had to use within one year. They did not tell us how little chance we would have to find seats with the tickets. I have been checking and have not found a single flight with availability. I have searched many destinations, including ones that I figured were not popular. I have used flexible searches with the +/- 3 days option and the option of flying on any weekend in every month. I am not joking when I say that after 50+ searches I have not found one opening. I am not doing any better on the telephone.

So, I have gone from thinking that I could fly somewhere for free this summer to despair. Have I been had? Did I get something completely worthless? Thanks.

Welcome to FT...
 

:) Welcome to FT...
Like to be able to suggest some itins for you....
But need more info ...I assume for two passengers:
Which airports are you willing to depart from?
What time period (you say this summer) do you want to fly?
How long for your trip?
What are the cities you would like to fly to?.... name a few please.
With this info...maybe readers may be able to make suggestions.
Hope you are successful...Please be patient....seats will come available :-)
TravelerJim

Another option is to ask them to give you an ECV for a certain value ($300 is standard, I think), since you have tried to book it so many ways. You'll also get FF mileage and be able to use $ off certs as well.

If you were really involuntarily denied boarding (i.e. bumped off the plane because of an oversell and you did not volunteer), then yes, you have been had.

Involuntarily denied boardings have cash (not vouchers) payouts as compensation unless the passenger accepts other compensation (e.g. vouchers for free tickets or $ credit).

ECV "free" tickets are indeed very difficult to use. For future reference, I always recommend that people take the $300 ECV rather than the "free" ticket voucher (they'll almost always give you the $300 ECV instead if you ask for it). That way you can use it for any ticket to any destination (domestic, international, coach, first, business, etc.) regardless of availability. If the ticket is under $300 (including taxes), it's totally free. If the ticket is over $300, you just pay the difference.

But that doesn't help you much right now. If you provide some of the details Jaimito mentioned, we may indeed be able to help you search for availability.

Thanks for the help. I had never been bumped before. 2 tickets is correct.

I can travel almost any dates in June, July, and early August. Was looking at late July initially. Austin is the closest airport, but San Antonio and Houston are close. Dallas would be a distant 4th choice.

Possible destinations would be Anchorage, Atlanta, Lexington KY, DC, North Carolina, Denver...maybe even somewhere else. At this point I am not as picky as I once was. :D Thanks again.

DT

Personally I'd shoot for Alaska, as this is the most "bang" for the buck for your tickets. I'm not sure of availability though. I went in December and found Anchorage to be a nice place to visit.

It's good that you're flexible on what places you'll fly and where you want to go.

Yes, Alaska would be my 1st choice. 7/23-7/30. I will remember next time to take the credit.

When do seats open up? I am concerned because I searched for flights in April, May, June, July, and August. Thanks.

DT

how does one know what kind of availability exists using a 'free ticket'? does it correlate with standard award availability?

Yes it does. The infamous W class.

Summer months are a pain with finding standard award availability. As always, check closer as the departure date gets closer as NW will usually release seats during that time frame.

on NW/KL metal only? or is it like a true award ticket (can use partner airlines)?

too bad if can't use partners, as the onepass.com search calendar is extremely useful for situations like this.

http://www.nwa.com/travel/viewecv/ecvtandc.html says:

"Travel is permitted NW and KL designated flights that are operated by NW, Mesaba, Pinnacle, KLM, KLM TCV, Continental, and Continental Express." Whether you can actually find "W" availability on NW-coded CO metal is another story, since it doesn't correlate perfectly to CO's award availability.

The English language version of NWA.com Japan allows you to search for award availability in 7-day chunks:

www.nwa.com/jp/en/home.shtml

I did a few random searches at onepass.com and found terrific availability from AUS-SFO/LAX via IAH on CO metal, with 1 week returns, throughout most of July and August. If "W" does not correlate at all with CO standard award availability it won't mean anything. If there is some degree of correlation, then there should be many options for the OP.

Example: 16JUL AUS-IAH-SFO return 25JUL SFO-IAH-AUS.

etc, etc.

Using ECV Ticket - Secrets to Cracking the NWA Availability Code
 

I want to relate to you some of my experience with trying to get award travel tickets a few months ago (sounds like the process is very similar to finding availablity with your ECV). However, if the system is truly fully rigged for ECV tickets, than God help you. I can't check ECV availability directly because nwa.com requires one to have a code from their voucher to do so. You can do an "award travel" standard award only search and see if it seems to always show the same pattern of availability as you are getting when you do your ECV search.

First, yes availability is very limited these days; in fact, that's why I switched to United Elite from Northwest Elite last year (don't know how much better United will be, but giving it a go). Nonetheless, I was successful in getting some tickets during peak periods (trying to use up some of my Northwest miles). Here are some important points:

1. The reservation system may lie to you and tell you there is no availability when there is (in the case of award tickets they are often trying to get you to use twice as many miles for rulebuster fares, but I digress from your situation).

2. You can force the system to tell you the truth by using various time of day combinations for your outbound and return - Selecting "anytime" of day does NOT actually reveal availability for any time of day.
For example, I just entered in was - Bozeman (bzn) for Sept. 2 - 11 (a trip I was able to get reserved already for the exact times I wanted a while ago); it did show regular award availability today (although about 90% of the time I have checked in the past it says no availability). Nwa.com showed only morning flights available out of was when I select "anytime" of day departure; when I redid the search selecting a 5 pm departure, additional afternoon flights MAGICALLY appeared.


3. You can further hone in on what's available by doing multi-city searches. If you are willing / able to fly in to and out of different airports that will increase your chances of hitting pay dirt. I have personally found, e.g., availabilty pop up with something like a dca - mydestination - iad search when nothing showed up with a was - my destination - was or dca - mydestinatin - dca search (and was is suppose to include both dca and Iad!!).

4. Sometimes, obscure airports hit paydirt when larger airports won't (depends on where the bottlenecks are in the seats). For example, after much searching I found what actually turned out to be a perfect itinerary for 2 on Aug. 2 to 12 from dca to Cody, WY and from WYS (West Yellowstone) to dca. This worked even though cody - was - cody, was - wys - was, and all other combinations with larger nearby destination airports were unavailable for standard award travel (presumably ECV ticket searches are going to have the same kind of limited availability).

5. As suggested by others, if you can be patient, nwa will often release some seats 1 to 6 weeks before the flight (definitely not a given, but if you have multiple options, chances are good that this will happen on at least a couple of your options). Again, on the assumption that we are dealing with the same class of ticket as for award travel, those making award reservations have up to 30 days before their flight to make changes on line without penalty. So it is not uncommon to get some cancellations then (Of course, nwa does not have to make those seats available again, but at least sometimes they do).

6. Finally, I also agree that a trip to Alaska is tremendous value for your ECV and if you can get it - wow! There is some hope, but for an often overbooked summer destination like that - you had better get cancellable car rental and hotel reservations way ahead of time; then play the ticket lottery twice a week up until about 5 weeks before, and then daily until you have lost your patience (personally, I would do it up to about 2 weeks before my preferred departure date). That's when I would try for less desirable destinations. :)

keithguy is right... if you were involuntarially denied boarding, you've been screwed.

A few months ago, i was inline to get my compensation at the gate in MSP. Option was $300 voucher or free trip. Several people were debating which one to take. I encouraged everyone to take the $$ telling them that their "free" ticket would be very difficult to use. The $%#@head gate agent rudely asked if I would like to do his job for him. My gratification came when he gave me my $300 voucher and booked me on a non-stop home arriving 2 hours earlier.