cajunguy

Here is my review of my experience with Flight Fox Award Search Service.

I went with these guys because of the reviews posted here and other places. Initially you have to pay up front. This is not optional. The fee is about $150 and it seems there is a scale, it wasn't clear but I ended up paying that amount.

I was working with 1 agent to start then handed over to another agent. Thankfully all my specifics were passed on and I didn't need to repeat my wish list again.

The agent I worked with was in Europe, I'm on the US west coast, so emails, at times, had some lag time between sending and replies. I wanted to get to Europe late June early July so this was my biggest hurdle to deal with, which is why I went to a Award Search Service.

The back and forth to deal with dates and times went on for nearly 2 weeks until we found an outbound itinerary that worked. I was given steps, via email, on how to transfer points and how to let the airline agent know what I was going to do. This worked out well.

However, the return was becoming very difficult. When seats would open up the email from my agent was delayed getting to me and by the time I would look at the email the seats were gone. This also went on for almost 2 weeks.

I gave up.

I had to find my own way back home and managed to use miles and found seats segment by segment over the course of 2 days.

I won't be using another Award Service again. I've learned a great deal on how to search and piece together a trip. I can do this on my own.

The biggest problem is the time...the time between emails and being able to react quickly before seats are gone.....the time when you should have booked verses when you actually get around to it.....the time when you want to go some place that is extremely popular.

mutheta

The lag time described in returning e-mails is not because of the tireless work being conducted on your behalf, but rather due to the fact that these award bookers have other full-time jobs. I communicated with Matthew at upgrd.com and found him to be pleasant, but he responded sporadically. I later found out he was busy studying for the California bar exam. I received the same sporadic responses from the Juicy Miles representative who was a medical student.

durberville

Just announcing my new venture, Awarding Canada. I will be launching and accepting award booking requests starting May 11, 2015. This business is receiving funding from the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure, via the Ontario Summer Company program. I will be working full-time on this business over the summer. I will have a 9-5 EST 1-800 phone number. My fees are $100CAD for the first two passengers, then $50CAD for every passenger thereafter.

Lots of research, money, and time have gone into Awarding Canada, and I am excited to be working full-time over the summer doing award bookings. If anybody has any suggestions, comments, or concerns, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

durberville

I'm delighted to announce, on the occasion of the launch of Awarding Canada, I am offering 25% off until May 23, 2015, when you use the code FT25OFF in the "comments" field of the contact us form.

That means for one person, your total cost is $75CAD ($62.64USD as of today's date). I have experience with over 20 different programs, and can help anybody, anywhere, book an amazing, luxury travel experience.

flatseatlover

I just wanted to share my 2nd great experience with the folks at Awardadvocate.com. They reached back to me after my request within only a few hours and finished my request for my big Asia trip within a day. I was able to score first class tickets for one direction as well which I'm really looking forward too. I just wanted to share my experience and they also have a facebook site with other client experiences where I first heard about them.

https://www.facebook.com/awardadvocate/posts_to_page

Anyhow good look to all in this points game as sometimes I feel these free premium travels are too good to be true and I always want to take advantage while we all still can.

usdtoreros

I just wanted to summarize my experience with PointsPros:

Last week, I filled out their online form with an interest in using Delta Skymiles to try get 2 Business class tickets from MSP to SYD and/or New Zealand over the holidays. Knowing that award space would be sparse over the holidays (especially with it being July already), I didn't have high expectations for low level awards.

I received a quick response from Tiffany and after a couple of e-mails back and forth, she passed my request on to Matt.

Matt contacted me with some more questions about date and routing flexibility and after a couple of days, he was able to put together an itinerary of MSP-LAX-SYD-PVG-LAX for 197,500 Skymiles and $278 per person, all in first/business class. The dates even worked out so we'd be able to spend New Year's Eve in Sydney.

Once we settled on the itinerary, I sent Matt our account details and credit card information and within a couple of hours, he had everything booked and showing up on our Delta accounts. Since our miles were split unevenly between accounts, he also had to worry about splitting up the bookings from each account.

Both Matt and Tiffany were very helpful, courteous and responsive throughout the entire process. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend PointsPro to anyone I know and will definitely use them again after building my mileage accounts back up.

Charles21

Our Ideal Goal - Outbound: CMH - LIH on 2/8/13 in first and I don't care what cities we go through. It just needs to be in first because my husband is large, doesn't like to fly, so I need to get him in first. Return: 2/23/13 KOA - CMH and here I'd like to get in first on DL 836 (HNL-ATL) with the lie flat BE seats for the overnight return. He's never experienced the lie flat seats and I'd like for him to be able to do so on the return. If need be, we could come home a day or so later. I'm beginning to think I may have to give up on my return goal.

pkerr

You typically don't post your requests here... you contact one of the Award Services and let THEM know what you want to do.

HMPS

You have specific dates, airports , class of service requirements.
have you checked availability on your own ?

b8b

So many different services, and quite some variation in pricing. For a family of four, some expenses be considerable, like $500 for Points Pros. Also, it's difficult to determine who has the most expertise for certain programs like One World or Star Alliance.

I am trying to figure out who to turn to for using and optimizing AA miles for a family of four, and help come up with some creative ideas (we're pretty open to exploring the world, preferably places we haven't been).

If anyone has suggestions, please feel free to PM me. Thanks!

A5Audiguy

I just used the services of Awarding Canada. Avery was very professional and even suggested waiting three weeks to book as I was looking to book a year in advance and the airlines had not released flights.

Using Awarding Canada saved me time and most of all about $1,200!!

fuyao

AA is like the easiest program to search yourself, just go on aa.com and use their search.
You kinda need to narrow down your specifications, like dates, possible destinations, cabin class,...
If you want 4 passengers sitting together in 1st or biz class, it will be really hard to find space.

pkerr

It's easy but they don't include all the partner possibilities on their WEB site.

mihaid

Hello, does anyone know of an award booking service familiar with Enrich (MH) program? I would like to use such service to book an award ticket on oneworld (not on MH) using Enrich miles.
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

eccentricfusion

I just completed a booking with Book Your Award. It was a pretty fast process and I liked how the service ties into AwardWallet, which is already a service I use. I didn't have to provide any additional log in information to them. The website they use to track everything going on with the booking is pretty nice.

I originally contacted Award Advocate but it took a little longer than expected for them to contact me. I submitted a request on Thursday and the website said they would be in contact with me in 12 hours. To their credit, they did end up giving me a call on Saturday. I spoke to the gentleman who called and informed him I was already being taken care of.

My thoughts on whether or not the service is worth it - definitely, if doing the legwork starts eating up significant time. If I were to pay myself hourly for doing the research, it would pay for itself in about two hours of research, and two hours of free time I value much more than that, honestly. I had already sank an hour into it before deciding to go with a service. Most of my award travel is simple since it is domestic, but this one was international. For the budget traveler it might not make much sense, but I'm very happy with the service and I would use them again if I have a complicated itinerary or if I'm looking for the best way to use my miles to get somewhere first/business class.