mlm

There is a Star Alliance award that would work perfectly for our plans. You can travel up to 25,000 miles allowing up to 4 stopovers, must use several of the Star Alliance partners etc. for 150,000 Business Class. I have contacted USAir and several other Star Alliance airlines and NO ONE knows anything about this award (I read about it online).

I'm really getting frustrated. I just hung up from USAir and I couldn't understand anything this woman was saying because of her heavy accent. Can anyone direct where to book such an award?

AA also has a similar award (One World Award) and I had no problem getting the needed information from AA agent though Star Alliance partners may work better for me than One World partners. The majority of the miles are in USAir account so I had thought that was the logical place to begin...NOT. Anyone have a phone number? HELP!

SmilingBoy

Which frequent flyer program are you using?

SmilingBoy.

mlm

I have the miles in USAir but also have many points in Starwood AmEx that can be transferred to a Star Alliance partner (not UAL though because the conversion is bad at 2:1).

My itinerary includes LAX-an East Coast City?-Zurich-Capetown (final destination).
Return itinerary is Johannesburg-European City (maybe Frankfurt)?-East Coast City?-LAX

USAir and other airlines I've contacted don't seem to know anything about such a program.

starflyer

The best number to call would be international award reservations for the frequent flyer program that you plan to use to ticket your award.

You cannot combine frequent flyer miles from different airlines to purchase this award (I'm not sure if you understood this, since you stated "The majority of the miles are in USAir account...").

For US Airways, I would try calling international reservations at 800-622-1015.

It sounds like you're refering to a Round The World award ticket. US Airways lists such an award at the bottom of their partner and Star Alliance award chart at: http://www.usair.com/common/resource...wardtravel.pdf

However, that award is 200/300/400 thousand miles for coach/business/first travel.

It might help if you could provide a specific reference to the online location where you read about this 150,000 mile business class award.

mlm

The round the world ticket would not work for us as we will only be crossing the Atlantic. Maybe Star Alliance doesn't have the same ticket that One World does. The AA agent had the entire itinerary routed out for 150,000 miles pp Biz Class :
LAX -JFK
JFK - London
London - Capetown
Johannasburg - Madrid
Madrid - JFK
JFK - LAX
You must use AA and at least 2 of their partner airlines and can't exceed 25,000 miles or it requires more than 150,000 f.f. miles. What is so appealing about this reward is it allows multiple stopovers as well as open jaw which is worth the extra 30,000 f.f. miles pp.

This is what I read on the ANA website regarding Star Alliance Award which sounded similar:
************************************************** ****
Star Alliance Award Chart

Entire Itinerary Distance
(Total of sectors' basic mileage) Required Mileage
Economy Class Business Class First Class
0 - 4,000 25,000 45,000 65,000
4,001 - 8,000 40,000 65,000 85,000
8,001 - 10,000 50,000 80,000 110,000
10,001 - 14,000 60,000 90,000 120,000
14,001 - 20,000 90,000 120,000 170,000
20,001 - 25,000 120,000 150,000 230,000
25,001 - 29,000 140,000 190,000 280,000
29,001 - 34,000 150,000 200,000 300,000
34,001 - 39,000 160,000 220,000 330,000





Conditions

Eligible Flights

The flight must be operated by Star Alliance member airlines.

Itinerary

4 stopovers (stay exceeds 24 hours) other than destination are permitted. However, only 1 stopover is accepted for each city including the arrival destination and 2 stopovers in Europe are permitted.
Award travel must be in continuous forward direction between continents, no back-tracking permitted. In addition, returning back to the point of origin from the destination, backward travel toward the destination (making a detour) is not permitted.
Must be roundtrip and all sectors must be confirmed. Open ticket is not accepted.
One way is not permitted.
Maximum of 12 sectors (of those, maximum of 4 for domestic sectors in Japan) allowed.
If origin and final returning point differ, they must be in the same country.
Award travel going to destination via origin or country of origin is not permitted.
Stopover in country of origin is not permitted.
Ground transfer other than destination is considered as stopover.
Awards can only be used in 1 cabin class. If different class is used during the trip, the required mileage for the award will be the award mileage required for the higher class.
Domestic Super Seat is not applicable even though traveling in First Class.
Waitlisting is not permitted.
According to the prohibited transportaion rule between 2 points for USA, itinerary departing from continental USA or Honolulu to Guam including stopover in Japan, only by ANA is not accepted.
Itinerary including sectors departing from Guam to continental USA or Honolulu including stopover in Japan, only by ANA is also not accepted.
Example : Honolulu -(ANA Flight) - Osaka -(ANA flight) Guam (not applicable).

[ Round the World ] requires to meet following three conditions.
Either East bound or West bound is permitted, and may not travel backward. In addition, one transpacific and one transatlantic flights must be included.
Example) Tokyo New York Paris Tokyo is a valid route
Tokyo New York Paris Tokyo is not a valid route.



The last international flight returning to the country of origin must be later than 10 days of first international flight.
Only in case of Round the World trip, 8 stopovers between the origin and final returning point are permitted. However, up to 3 stopovers are permitted in Europe.


Validity

One year from the date of ticket issue.

Blackout Periods

Each carrier has blackout period. Please confirm at the time of reservation. Seat availability is subject to limitations (may not be applicable to some flights).

Changes

The changes to flight number and travel dates are possible only if the ticket is unused and contacted AMC Award Reservation is contacted during office hours prior to reserved departure date (passenger name, sectors, and class of service are not eligible for change). The changes are accepted from 330 days up to 7 days prior to departure date.(not including the day of departure). Open reservation or waitlist is not accepted. Changes are not eligible once travel commenced.
Reservation for more than 330 days prior to departure date cannot be accepted.
Once ticket is issued, the airline, passenger name, sectors, stopover point, transit point, and class of service cannot be changed.
************************************************** **
This is the actual website: http://www.anaskyweb.com/us/e/amc/gu...ar.html#keisan

Maybe such an award is only offered through ANA and not all Star Alliance partners?

Thank you for any information you may have.

henry999

That's what it looks like.

cheers,

Henry

SmilingBoy

This is the standard *A award when redeeming with ANA. The stopover rules are quite generous compared to other FFPs.

If you can transfer your Starwood points to ANA mileage club, that may be the way to go for you.

You might have to change some of the routings though as you would be using *A and not OW, but for your itinerary, things should be even easier with *A than with OW as SAA is part of *A.

Which are your stopover cities?

SmilingBoy.

mlm

Update.....I finally found someone at ANA who could help me. The itinerary we have in mind would work and ANA does not have to be one of the Star Alliance airlines flown even though the f.f. miles would come out of that account.

The problem (and why this won't work for us now) is that any booking made through ANA can NOT be put on hold. It must be ticketed right then. This is too risky to transfer 300k Starwood points to ANA miles (could take a few days) only to find out that the seats are no longer available and can not get the miles back again.

I'm giving this update so other may be helped. In our case, it is sounding like the similar program with ONE PASS is a better option since we can put the flights on hold for up to 2 weeks.

I could be wrong (often am) but was not aware of any airline that would not hold a reservation for several days up to 2 weeks. Now I've learned of one...ANA.

yycworldtraveler

You can NOT put award bookings on hold with AC either.

mlm

I can understand an airline not wanting to put a reservation on hold for any extended length of time but it seems a bit absurd not to hold it for at least 5-7 days. Many passengers transfer points into f.f. accounts but who wants to transfer the points into a f.f. account only to find out there are no available seats thus defeating the whole purpose of transferring them in the first place. Once points are transferred to an airline, there they stay! Seems a bit unrealistic to me.

rrgg

Well you're assuming that ANA cares about Starwood and the trade-off of its participation in many programs. A lot of people earn miles that just post directly, either through flights or credit card purchases. There's no decision made about when to transfer them.

TerryK

BA would not put award bookings on hold if it involves partners.

Artur

Your best bet, IMO, is to join ANA-FF club and transfer your Amex miles into it.
You have to transfer the miles first before you book. But it took only four days over a weekend.
I just flew first class to Germany JFK via YUL-MUC -via ZRH- JFK for 110K miles roundtrip on Lufthansa and Swiss. The nice thing about ANAs website they let you know which connection you can find seats and you can actually book online.

I hope that helped.

rrgg

By the way, thank you OP for mentioning the ANA award. I was wondering why SkyAlliance and SkyTeam did not offer distance-based awards the way OW does (except at the highest level). I guess ANA is the exception?

catandmouse

That's not my experience - I flew to S. America early this spring on Iberia using BA award miles. The BA reservation agent had no problem putting the reservation on hold for 48 hours initially and then extending it another 48 hours, whilst we confirmed our land (or to be more precise, sea) arrangements there. No problem, no pleading necessary.