As my sig says, I don't travel much, but I have finally accumulated enough miles in mine and my husband's WP accounts for us to get to our cruise departing from San Juan, PR on award tickets.

Background: before making a final decision on our sail date, I decided to check NW availability. I didn't have much luck . It looks like no MSP-SJU morning flights can be booked on either March 22 or 27, so we'll likely have to travel the day before and stay overnight in SJ -- not a big problem. The return date for the 27th cruise is April 1, a blackout for date for NW -- we don't have enough miles for RuleBuster. So that leaves our only option as flying on the 21st, for a cruise which departs on the 22nd and returns on the 27th. Thankfully there are seats for this return date.

Now my question: how likely is this availability to change in the next 2.5 months? The cruise deal for us (to get an employee discount because I work for its parent company) is that we won't be confirmed until 30 days before sailing. So it seems we have two choices regarding air travel:

1) Arrange everything now -- knowing that we may not even be able to sail on that date. This risk looks very low as cruises are not filling up these days -- especially the six-star luxury lines like RSSC (Radisson Seven Seas) -- but it exists nonetheless.

2) Wait until we're confirmed on board and then make air reservations. I have no idea how often or fast these award seats get "taken", and that's where you all come in. How big is the risk that we will get booked on the cruise and then find out that our WP seats have since sold out? The problem here is that we will then have to buy our tickets outright, which currently run $370 RT each, and will almost double the cost of the entire trip.

Any comments on this dilemma are welcome! And are there other avenues here to pursue? For example, can I redeem the NW miles at CO for possibly better availability?

Thanks in advance!

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An infrequent flyer trying to change that by earning my miles via alternate methods!
and webmaster at http://www.RewardsLookup.com

For the tiny bit it's worth, from a fellow MSPer:

American Trans Air has a promotion now: fly 3 round trips, get a free ticket; the free ticket includes MSP--SJU. MSP-MDW runs $128 round trip now, so if you have a few trips to Chicago that you'll need to make soon (or travel beyond Chicago and you can break the fare), it may be worth saving 35,000 NW miles.

A little more directed toward your original question: NW into SJU is hard because they don't offer many flights: I believe DTW and MSP flights are weekends only, although MEM is running daily. CO has a number of flights from EWR, but some leave in the morning; it will be hard to fly into EWR early enough to connect. CO has another IAH-SJU flight that may work for you.

Those dates are darn close to Easter, so I doubt seats will open later. Last year, CO offered CLE-SJU but I don't know if it was profitable. That may be another route to check.
Thinking of the ATA option I mentioned before, you could possibly fly ATA there and route yourself like so: MSP to MDW $128 round trip; MDW-MIA $148 RT; MIA-SJU $148 RT. Make sure you book each part as an independent round trip for them to count as separate trips for the promotion.

That's about $424 round trip for confirmed seats, and you will receive a free ticket for a future trip on ATA. That may be better than the 3 trips to Chicago to receive the SJU ticket. Plus, you save 35,000 from the NW tickets.

Not to advertise for ATA (I've been CO/NW elite for years, but ATA has better prices/schedules for my mom who commutes regularly MSP-Chicago), but it may be worth a look. Their site is www.ata.com

Good luck!

[This message has been edited by Viajero Joven (edited 01-03-2002).]

Thanks Viajero.

Unfortunately your very good suggestions may not help me much here. As my name says, I am an infrequent flyer, and the first idea of -- my husband and I both! --flying to Chicago three times before March is impossible.

The second is a bit more likely, although I don't know when we'd be able to use those free tickets after our cruise. But if the freebies have a decent longevity it could make a lot of sense. Perhaps my strategy should be to use the WP miles if the seats are still available at booking time, and have the ATA option as a backup if not. Definitely something to consider.

Oh, and regarding the scheduling of a morning NW/CO flight for departure: there are seats available for early flights the day before and the day after I need it...

Thanks again!

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An infrequent flyer trying to change that by earning my miles via alternate methods!
and webmaster at http://www.RewardsLookup.com

I would go ahead and book the tickets. You can always redeposit the miles for a $50 fee. Since award availability is always hit or miss, you should definitely book the tickets if seats are open.
Did you try to book the tickets on the web? If so, it may not show all of your options. Calling Northwest might help. When I do this, I am always given more flights than the web is showing. (of course you don't get the discount for booking online)

Good luck!

Another avenue which may put the seats in your hands would be the current Cash & Miles deal with Northwest. While I don't buy Cash & Miles myself (I'm wayyyyyy to addicted to miles to do it )... This might be perfect for your purposes. Often, there can be Cash & Miles seats available where there are no minimum level award seats:

http://www.nwa.com/features/Cash_Miles/domestic.shtml

Happy Contrails!

InfreFlyer, Go ahead and book those seats now. I'm using an award trip to Russia in April. I booked it in November, received a confirmation number, and gave NW my credit card number to pay the tax on the air fare. I haven't received the ticket yet, no credit card charges, and the miles have not been deducted. So get a confirmation number and ask NW to wait two or three weeks before sending out the tickets. If this doesn't work, it will only cost you $50 to redposit the miles back into your account.

You can always change the dates of award tickets without penalty, too. Award tickets are good for a year and can be changed to any day space is available if your preferred cruise dates don't work out but other dates come up for you later.