I was on the blower for about 90mins today with the award reservations people in the US trying to book a SYD-USA return. There seems to be limited availability in WHY for nonstop SYD-LAX trips, so I'll have to connect through BNE/MEL/AKL. That is undesirable, but fine.

While on the phone, I was also using the award booking engine to check other routings, and there was numerous times that I suggested a routing which the agent said was not available. We double checked dates and flight numbers, and she said no availability. Has anyone else experienced this, and is it normal? It seemed quite strange to me that there would be availability on the web, but not to the agents themselves. The other way around, maybe, but this way is just odd.

Anyway, the other tack-on to this post is that because of the additional transfers, I was told that I would have to do 2 tickets. Since the total for the whole trip is 110k, but the two seperate ones are 80k and 30k, I couldn't care less. But is there some reason why I should try and avoid ticketing seperately?

BTW, the proposed itin was SYD-BNE-LAX-JFK-BOS, with just the JFK-BOS on an AA jungle jet. Since I'm booking this for my NB brother, the 5 hour layover in JFK isn't desireable, but I'm sure he'll appreciate food and IFE in Y, which he wouldn't get on AA. The only routing possible on the return was with a 12 hour layover in LAX, and connecting through MEL.

Yep, I can remember this about four years ago when I was booking one of those round Australia trips Same deal, the agent could see different availability to what I could see and I was online beside the computer at the same time. In the end it didn't cause any problems, in fact the agent got me onto an intl. leg that I couldn't even see for one part of the trip.

You'd think in this day and age it would be sorted though, it makes the whole process look a bit hit and miss

qasr,

had the same problem when booking a couple of J tickets to the states.

I could see flights on some dates and the agent couldn't see those flights but could see others on different dates

As you are talking about economy class awards, and I note form your profile that you are a Gold FF member, when looking on-line you will be seeing the combination of X (standard economay award class) and T (a paid fare class that is also used for SG and WP member awards).

Perhaps the telephone agent you were speaking with was not award that SG and WP member's economy class awards can come from T fare bucket and was only offering you X availability?

I've experienced this - it turned out that there were exactly 2 seats available and because I was viewing them on-line the agent's system said they were booked.

I had to cancel my on-line viewing to make the seats available for the agent to book.

This was for dom upgrade seats.

Audrey

I'm with NM here. Quite a few times in the past It has been necessary to remind telephone agents that my status enabled access to more seats than they may have been looking at.

The Web booking engine works quite well in this respect.

NM gets the gold star today!

I called up again, and had access to much more availability. Still needs 4 sectors

Wooo hooo! Only 5 more :-: to get to reach Mr Noble esq.

Unless you shoose to trade in 3 :-:'s for a HP in the QP. Better to do it now, before the :-:'s get replaced by the "loyalty bonus"

How do you view availability of seats by fare class?

This sort of works for non CX routes: [CX ITN], but it does not show X class and not always T class. U Class is Award J, Z Class is Award F.

A few options for reward seats. If you are SG or WP status and looking for economy class award availability on-line at QF's FF pages, you will automatically see the combined availability of X and T buckets.

You can also use one of the various on-line availability tools such as the Carlson Wagonlit ITN system or Cathay Pacific ITN system. I also use the KVS Availability Tool. However, these don't always show all fare buckets and the buckets they do show vary from day to day. For example, none are currently showing X or T, while only the CX tool is showing U (business class awards).

But I am assuming the OP was using the QF web site to view available award flights. And since you use your FF number to sign into the system, it know whether to show the extra T bucket availability for SG/WP status or to just show the X availability for everyone else.

The 'Expert flyer' tool shows *all* award availability..Z, U, X & T. With the minor drawback of costing US$5/month (www.expertflyer.com).