Feb 3, 2014, 1:11 pm
Last edit by: PointsNmiles
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Members with 90 posts and 90 days on FlyerTalk can edit this Wikipost to update.
This list is not an endorsement of any particular award booking service.
Please do your research and read this thread.
Members with 90 posts and 90 days on FlyerTalk can edit this Wikipost to update.
This list is not an endorsement of any particular award booking service.
Please do your research and read this thread.
Please refer to the FT Disclaimers for disclaimer of responsibility for use of these services, etc.
Please feel free add other services and options you are aware of to this wiki.
Also, please post any personal experiences you may have with any of these services in this thread.
Reviews which appear to have been solicited by the service providers based upon content and posting history will be deleted. If you are a brand new or a member with a low post count and wish that your post not be deleted, please be sure to include the following details in your review: program(s), number of miles or points and the desired destinations and hotels. Please also include the itinerary booked by the service including the airlines, routing and hotels, the number of points needed to book that trip and the fee charged.
Award booking services (alphabetical):
- Award Advocate - Domestic $100 p/p International $125 p/p, no additional charge for last minute. Changes $50. Also 10% discount for families traveling with children and active military
- Award Booking Service - $25 up front search fee plus $150/ticket & $49 per 30-minute skype consultations (ask anything!)
- Award Butler - Award Search: $79 for up to two passengers; flight info provided but does not include booking. Booking starting at $149 for first two passengers.
- Award Chaser - Search fee starting at $79. Itinerary only - no booking provided
- Award Expert - (MatthewLAX on FT, Live and Let's Fly blog) $150 first passenger, $100 each additional passenger; $250 per person for RTW; $50/ticket booking fee.
- Award Flight Assist - Specialising in Australian frequent flyer programs; from AU$199 for the first passenger, additional charges for complex itineraries and more passengers
- Award Planners - One way $129, additional person $99; Round trip $199, additional person $99; Multi City $249 additional person $149
- Award Travel Consulting - Award Search: $125/person; Booking ticket: $75/itinerary; changes: new trip
- Awardmagic - $179 per person OW/RT plus one stop or $279 per person for three or more destinations
- BoundlessMiles - (Dominik Żmuda/Travelling the World): Booking: starting at $50 per passenger; Changes: half of award flight service fee paid
- CabinChief - Bookings are $49 per pax
- CatchUsFlying - $125 CAD/person for round-trip, $225 CAD/person for complex round-the-world. Consulting available at $75CAD/hour. (loganre17) on FT
- Chatflights - Use app to chat in real time with real travel hackers to book travel for points or cash. Booking fee $295 pp coach and business, $395 pp first class.
- Cranky Concierge - $75 per person each way domestic; $95 per person each way international
- First Class and Beyond - "Concierge-style" bookings. Fee is based on the value of the retail ticket, $250/person minimum.
- Flightfox - Consultative flight searching; fees start at $100 (requires credit card authorization up front)
- Flyermiles - (Graham / YOWgary) $150 + 50 per additional person, $250 for RTW awards. Offers detailed information on how to book your own award.
- iflywithmiles.com - (Mike/Melissa): 150 USD first person, 85 for additional person on same itin. Change fees vary.
- JJ Award Travel - FT Member since 2012 - No upfront fees. Basic one-way or round-trip air award travel consisting of a total of 8 legs or less for the entire itinerary: $250 for the first person and $125 for each additional person. Complex one-way or round-trip air award travel consisting of a total of 9 or more legs per direction is additional. FT members get a 10% discount.
- Loophole Travel - Award Travel Coaching $150 for first passenger and $100 for each additional passenger. Points Earning and MS Coaching also available.
- Luxury Travel Consulting - (Jasper2009 on Flyertalk): $150 per person per ticket
- Miles Help - Domestic: $100 OW; $140 RT/complex. International: $150 OW; $200 RT/complex. $50 each additional person
- Miles Momma Booking Services - Airline Booking: $200 up to 2 passengers. $75 additional passengers. $50 non-refundable up front. Changes $50
- MileValue Award Booking Service - (Scott Grimmer): Booking: $125 per person per award; $15 up front. Full payment required for successful search even if not booked. Change fee not currently listed; previously $79
- PMM Travel Consulting - (Miguel R. Quinones/AwardWallet Blog): Booking: $125 per passenger for the first two, $99 for each additional. Additional charges for complex itineraries. Credit card advice and travel planning services.
- Point.me - merger of services formerly provided by PointsPro (Ben Schlappig/One Mile At a Time) and Juice Miles
- Reward Flyer - Domestic: $50 first person; $25 each additional person. International: $100 first person; $50 each additional person
- SFO777.com - (SFO777 on FT) Booking: $200 first passenger, $100 each additional passenger; change fees vary
- Travel Codex - Per person pricing: $50 for North America award / $100 for International award.
- The Flying Mustache - $100 per ticket; additional fees for more than eight segments. Change fees vary
- The Short Final - $100 per person. $100 upfront deposit that is fully refundable if no itinerary found.
- Travel Is The Point - USA, Canada/Mexico & the Caribbean – starting at $50 per person. All Other International Destinations – starting at $100 per person.
- zainman - FT member since 2009. Booking: $200 first passenger, $100 each additional passenger; change fees vary, consultant services for $ as well
- Zero Hassle Rewards - $100 per person. Discounts for domestic and one-way
Award booking services - a list and some reviews
May 29, 2018, 3:50 pm
#631
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: DAY
Programs: Marriott Platinum, HHonors Diamond, AA ExPLT
Posts: 116
TLDR: I used Juicy Miles to help book a trip to New Zealand in premium cabins for the Mrs. and me. James was very helpful, and if I really needed assistance I would use Juicy Miles again.
I am taking my wife to New Zealand next March. I looked through this thread and also did some internet searches and made a few phone calls trying to pick a booking service. I settled on Juicy Miles because the price was reasonable compared to most other services I looked at, and I figured that since it is affiliated with a blog that they wouldn’t want bad press since it would affect a couple of income streams (if they were awful the blog would likely lose sponsorships- maybe I’m wrong on that). Juicy Miles charged me $250 for the round trip service.
I contacted them more than a year out and gave James my parameters, my various points balances, and tried to be flexible in my available departure airports (I’m on the East Coast in the mid-Atlantic region) and James got back with me fairly quickly with some “masked” itineraries. East Coast City – Asian City (or middle East city) – Auckland, cost of XXX Chase/Amex points and approx. XXX dollars in taxes and fees. He had four options going each way. At that point I paid the fee and he got back with the unmasked data, showing airlines, itineraries, etc. A real jerk could probably figure out what the itineraries were based on the masked data, but if you have that kind of time just search for them yourself rather than trying to cheat someone who’s trying to make a living.
After some discussion based on the initial options, and some changes I made based on what James said was available once we could talk freely about the various options, we figured out that I would be able to fly onto the North Island and leave from the South Island, which was something I really wanted to do. I settled on a Korean Air outbound (in business) from IAD-ICN-AKL. I needed to pick up some additional Chase points to make that happen, so James put the itinerary on hold for 30 days (which he eventually extended to 60 while I waited for the points to post). This required 195k (97.5k each person) Chase points transferred to Korean Air, and a little over $600 in taxes/fees.
For the return I’m going with CHC-MEL (QF) in domestic first, then MEL-NRT (in J on a JAL 787), NRT-ORD (JAL F on 777), and then ORD-DCA on AA. The return was booked with AA points, which I had plenty of. This priced as two awards, but if it was all in J it wasn’t that much more than a direct, which NEVER seems to open in sAAver (I had watched that a little on my own- that’s what led me to look for a booking service). This way I’ll get to try out JAL’s F, which I’m excited about. It’s ultimately going to be four legs when in a perfect world 2 or 3 might have been possible, but I went into this with my eyes open and I’m comfortable with it (and happy to try JAL’s F). This cost me 240k AA miles (South Pacific - Asia 1 in J, 40k each; Asia 1 - US 48 states in F, 80k each) a little over $200 in taxes.
Everything was done over email. James was very communicative- overall there were 38 emails back and forth (according to my iphone) and I rarely had to wait very long for a response. I asked a lot of questions about different options before deciding what was best for me. He walked me through setting up a Korean Air account and how to set up the family member stuff (you can only book tickets for direct family members on Korean), and worked with me extensively on getting my itinerary as close to ideal as we could. I recommend these people if you're looking for something out of your normal expertise; just understand that they aren’t miracle workers.
Also the payment to Juicy Miles coded as travel, so I (unexpectedly) finished the last $80 of my CS Reserve travel credit on the transaction.
I am taking my wife to New Zealand next March. I looked through this thread and also did some internet searches and made a few phone calls trying to pick a booking service. I settled on Juicy Miles because the price was reasonable compared to most other services I looked at, and I figured that since it is affiliated with a blog that they wouldn’t want bad press since it would affect a couple of income streams (if they were awful the blog would likely lose sponsorships- maybe I’m wrong on that). Juicy Miles charged me $250 for the round trip service.
I contacted them more than a year out and gave James my parameters, my various points balances, and tried to be flexible in my available departure airports (I’m on the East Coast in the mid-Atlantic region) and James got back with me fairly quickly with some “masked” itineraries. East Coast City – Asian City (or middle East city) – Auckland, cost of XXX Chase/Amex points and approx. XXX dollars in taxes and fees. He had four options going each way. At that point I paid the fee and he got back with the unmasked data, showing airlines, itineraries, etc. A real jerk could probably figure out what the itineraries were based on the masked data, but if you have that kind of time just search for them yourself rather than trying to cheat someone who’s trying to make a living.
After some discussion based on the initial options, and some changes I made based on what James said was available once we could talk freely about the various options, we figured out that I would be able to fly onto the North Island and leave from the South Island, which was something I really wanted to do. I settled on a Korean Air outbound (in business) from IAD-ICN-AKL. I needed to pick up some additional Chase points to make that happen, so James put the itinerary on hold for 30 days (which he eventually extended to 60 while I waited for the points to post). This required 195k (97.5k each person) Chase points transferred to Korean Air, and a little over $600 in taxes/fees.
For the return I’m going with CHC-MEL (QF) in domestic first, then MEL-NRT (in J on a JAL 787), NRT-ORD (JAL F on 777), and then ORD-DCA on AA. The return was booked with AA points, which I had plenty of. This priced as two awards, but if it was all in J it wasn’t that much more than a direct, which NEVER seems to open in sAAver (I had watched that a little on my own- that’s what led me to look for a booking service). This way I’ll get to try out JAL’s F, which I’m excited about. It’s ultimately going to be four legs when in a perfect world 2 or 3 might have been possible, but I went into this with my eyes open and I’m comfortable with it (and happy to try JAL’s F). This cost me 240k AA miles (South Pacific - Asia 1 in J, 40k each; Asia 1 - US 48 states in F, 80k each) a little over $200 in taxes.
Everything was done over email. James was very communicative- overall there were 38 emails back and forth (according to my iphone) and I rarely had to wait very long for a response. I asked a lot of questions about different options before deciding what was best for me. He walked me through setting up a Korean Air account and how to set up the family member stuff (you can only book tickets for direct family members on Korean), and worked with me extensively on getting my itinerary as close to ideal as we could. I recommend these people if you're looking for something out of your normal expertise; just understand that they aren’t miracle workers.
Also the payment to Juicy Miles coded as travel, so I (unexpectedly) finished the last $80 of my CS Reserve travel credit on the transaction.
Last edited by T. Sanderson; May 29, 2018 at 7:00 pm Reason: Typos
Jul 28, 2018, 3:02 pm
#632
Moderator: Travel Safety/Security, Travel Tools, California, Los Angeles; FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: LAX
Programs: oneword Emerald
Posts: 20,631
Moderator's Action
A recent question about booking two saver award seats from Europe to the US using AS/AA/UA/LifeMiles was moved to the following thread in the Information Desk:
TWA884
Moderator, Travel Tools
TWA884
Moderator, Travel Tools
Aug 1, 2018, 7:13 pm
#633
Join Date: Aug 2018
Posts: 2
Award Travel Confusion
I'm hoping to book award travel from EWR or JFK to KTM in late October. I have 100k United points, 120k Chase Sapphire points (or whatever they are called), plus various other points from hotels, credit cards. I'm completely befuddled by the booking process, and would like to use a booking service. But there is so much old, and sometimes conflicting, information in this thread that I am now befuddled x2. Has anyone had recent (like in the last 6 months, or year) experience with one of these services? Are certain services better for some tasks than others? Should I be cautious about anything?
All advice/information/recommendations very welcomed! (And apologies if I posted this in the wrong place--I'm new here.)
Thanks!
KP
All advice/information/recommendations very welcomed! (And apologies if I posted this in the wrong place--I'm new here.)
Thanks!
KP
Aug 1, 2018, 7:31 pm
#634
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: MEL CHC
Posts: 21,016
Another thread ---> Help with BOS-KTM award ticket
Aug 25, 2018, 8:32 pm
#635
Join Date: Nov 2011
Programs: AA
Posts: 377
I have something of an etiquette question. I have a half million miles and points in a couple different currencies. I know I can redeem some of these at outrageous rates for the itineraries I'm looking to book. For example, I can transfer several hundred thousand UR points to United and fly in business class round trip to Europe. But I'm looking to engage an award booking service to find more creative ways to get saver or partner bookings that I can't do easily myself. Is it appropriate to engage an award booking service with this type of criteria? If you own such a service, do you welcome that constraint on the intake form? Or is it pretty much if you find a flight from A->B on the dates and class of service I want, that's a successful match regardless of how many miles it costs?
Aug 25, 2018, 8:37 pm
#636
Join Date: Aug 2012
Programs: HH Diamond, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Gold, Club Carlson Gold, National EE, *G
Posts: 470
In my view it's completely appropriate for the client to decide the parameters they want. However, the more restrictive the parameters are, the more difficult it will likely be for any award service to fully achieve what the client is trying to achieve.
Last edited by PointsNmiles; Aug 25, 2018 at 9:10 pm
Aug 25, 2018, 8:46 pm
#637
Join Date: Nov 2011
Programs: AA
Posts: 377
Thanks and I understand that - how do you propose I word it? I don't necessarily have a firm limit; I just would use a service to find a redemption that I can't find easily myself. It's totally my intention to pay (I've used an award service twice before) but I want to be clear upfront that I've done basic work that yields pretty ridiculous redemption requirements.
Aug 25, 2018, 8:48 pm
#638
Join Date: Aug 2012
Programs: HH Diamond, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Gold, Club Carlson Gold, National EE, *G
Posts: 470
I would just be very up-front with whomever you go with and set out the parameters of exactly what you are looking for. Oftentimes this information can be typed in on the intake form. Some services charge a deposit fee that's not refundable (because of the time involved in searching,) others do not. I would go with what you are comfortable with.
Last edited by PointsNmiles; Aug 25, 2018 at 9:12 pm
Oct 12, 2018, 6:18 pm
#640
Join Date: Oct 2018
Programs: AA Exec Plat, Hyatt Globalist
Posts: 1
My experience with 2 booking services:
Book Your Award (Steve/Ceca), horrible experience for an urgent booking and trapping 100K+ MR points in a useless program since it took them over 3 days to book the award which had disappeared at that point. I provided access to all accounts and instantly transferred for 100k+ points from MR to the Air France within the hour. 24 hours pass and I didn't receive any notification so I asked for an update which they informed me they had not begun. At night I heard nothing back and asked for another update in which they informed me the 2 airlines could not be contacted via phone due to weather and that they would try tomorrow. At this point I started to suspect this was a bs excuse so I called AA and Air France that night, AA picked up in 2 min, Air France picked up in 13min. By the 3rd day, I had to ask again for an update in which they informed me the award flight had been lost. Now I have 100k+ stuck in Air France with no reversal possible. For a service that advertises award searching and booking all done on your behalf, I got the exact opposite. Should have just worked with the airline agents that I got on the 2nd day to hold the awards but hindsight is 20/20.
Luxury Travel Consulting (Jasper2009), very good experience, came recommended after reading this thread and finding out others had issues with BYA. Had to quickly find another option after BYA drained my MR account. Gave Jasper2009 my balances and in a few hours, he came up with better awards flights with less connections and the value of the award was 40% less points than the attempted BYA award for same class and an even better asian airline. I did have to book myself but I think after this experience, that is just the best way to go for urgent travel. I will definitely be using Jasper2009s services in the future especially since he can take care of hotels as well with similar benefits to amex fine hotels.
I'm usually quite busy in meetings all day so I would highly value a full booking service option in the future in case anyone has recommendations.
Book Your Award (Steve/Ceca), horrible experience for an urgent booking and trapping 100K+ MR points in a useless program since it took them over 3 days to book the award which had disappeared at that point. I provided access to all accounts and instantly transferred for 100k+ points from MR to the Air France within the hour. 24 hours pass and I didn't receive any notification so I asked for an update which they informed me they had not begun. At night I heard nothing back and asked for another update in which they informed me the 2 airlines could not be contacted via phone due to weather and that they would try tomorrow. At this point I started to suspect this was a bs excuse so I called AA and Air France that night, AA picked up in 2 min, Air France picked up in 13min. By the 3rd day, I had to ask again for an update in which they informed me the award flight had been lost. Now I have 100k+ stuck in Air France with no reversal possible. For a service that advertises award searching and booking all done on your behalf, I got the exact opposite. Should have just worked with the airline agents that I got on the 2nd day to hold the awards but hindsight is 20/20.
Luxury Travel Consulting (Jasper2009), very good experience, came recommended after reading this thread and finding out others had issues with BYA. Had to quickly find another option after BYA drained my MR account. Gave Jasper2009 my balances and in a few hours, he came up with better awards flights with less connections and the value of the award was 40% less points than the attempted BYA award for same class and an even better asian airline. I did have to book myself but I think after this experience, that is just the best way to go for urgent travel. I will definitely be using Jasper2009s services in the future especially since he can take care of hotels as well with similar benefits to amex fine hotels.
I'm usually quite busy in meetings all day so I would highly value a full booking service option in the future in case anyone has recommendations.
Last edited by TWA884; Oct 12, 2018 at 7:50 pm
Nov 1, 2018, 7:46 pm
#641
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: ORD
Programs: US Air, UA BA LH AI DELTA MARRIOTT CHOICE SGP
Posts: 9,883
A very pleasant experience. Contacted James at Juicy Miles. Gave him the parameters for two Business Class seats from South Asia to USA, ORD> He asked some more fact finding questions and went to work. He came back with three suggestions. (No BA was an edict!). Unfortunately for whatever reasons seats were almost impossible to acquire in Jan 5 to Jan 16 period. All the suggestions required extra stops or buying an extra ticket for cash for the final US Domestic sector. All this coupled with wife's reluctance worked against a positive decision.
James was gracious when I declined the offers and said I will pursue cash tickets such as MH or even wait a bit......(Missed a great SQ deal )
SO hats off to him and Juicy Miles for their work ethic. I will certainly look him up first when I need to.
James was gracious when I declined the offers and said I will pursue cash tickets such as MH or even wait a bit......(Missed a great SQ deal )
SO hats off to him and Juicy Miles for their work ethic. I will certainly look him up first when I need to.
Nov 1, 2018, 7:47 pm
#642
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: NYC/ EWR/ PHL
Programs: UA Platinum, Hilton Gold, Hyatt Discoverist, Marriott Gold, IHG Platinum
Posts: 2,210
A very pleasant experience. Contacted James at Juicy Miles. Gave him the parameters for two Business Class seats from South Asia to USA, ORD> He asked some more fact finding questions and went to work. He came back with three suggestions. (No BA was an edict!). Unfortunately for whatever reasons seats were almost impossible to acquire in Jan 5 to Jan 16 period. All the suggestions required extra stops or buying an extra ticket for cash for the final US Domestic sector. All this coupled with wife's reluctance worked against a positive decision.
James was gracious when I declined the offers and said I will pursue cash tickets such as MH or even wait a bit......(Missed a great SQ deal )
SO hats off to him and Juicy Miles for their work ethic. I will certainly look him up first when I need to.
James was gracious when I declined the offers and said I will pursue cash tickets such as MH or even wait a bit......(Missed a great SQ deal )
SO hats off to him and Juicy Miles for their work ethic. I will certainly look him up first when I need to.
Nov 7, 2018, 8:34 am
#643
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 30
After spending an obscene amount of time trying to figure out a booking on my own, we used Luxury Travel Consulting (Jasper2009), and he did a great job. He provided detailed instructions on how/where to book the award travel. Unfortunately, after we paid Jasper, some of the award bookings became unavailable and we were a little concerned, with payment in hand, that he might not provide alternate bookings. Our fears were completely unfounded as he continued to work with us, in some cases completely re-routing portions of the trip, to take advantage of award availability.
I don't write many reviews but feel the high level of service Jasper provided deserved note in this forum.
best,
I don't write many reviews but feel the high level of service Jasper provided deserved note in this forum.
best,
Nov 11, 2018, 12:57 am
#644
Join Date: Mar 2017
Posts: 17
Do any of these do open-ended destination suggestions?
I frequently find myself in situations where I don't care really at all what my destination is, I just want to go somewhere and get the best redemption possible.
Here's how I imagine it working. I deliver:
I frequently find myself in situations where I don't care really at all what my destination is, I just want to go somewhere and get the best redemption possible.
Here's how I imagine it working. I deliver:
- A list of my current points
- Some rough dates
- A region I want to travel to (e.g. "Central and South America")
- Cabo for 22K Southwest points
- SJU for 55K AA miles + $86.20
- Mazatlan for 55K AA miles + $183.36
- etc.
Nov 12, 2018, 8:15 pm
#645
Join Date: May 2002
Location: St Louis, MO
Programs: AA L.T. PLT
Posts: 3,281
Juicy Miles - EXCELLENT
I had the pleasure of working with James. Knowledgeable, patient and hardworking and we just finished a busy and hectic week setting up (James, not me) my anniversary trip for next year (late Aug - early September)
I gave him my parameters of travel stating I was pretty flexible in our departure and return dates. As the options started flowing in I started back tracking on my flexibility when I realized by not using the weekends for travel days I was losing out on a several days of vacation. (I only had about 2 weeks)
James kept plugging away even though I changed the "rules" so to speak. He still came up with several options and explained the pros and cons of all of them. He even gave me advice on other travel I needed to do that was outside of the scope of what he was doing. On top of that, in about 9 1/2 months when the trip rolls around, he's going to keep an eye out for an LH F award to open up and will snag that if it fits the schedule.
Thanks James and Juicy Miles...
And I keep meaning to ask... Where in the heck did you come up with a name like that?
I gave him my parameters of travel stating I was pretty flexible in our departure and return dates. As the options started flowing in I started back tracking on my flexibility when I realized by not using the weekends for travel days I was losing out on a several days of vacation. (I only had about 2 weeks)
James kept plugging away even though I changed the "rules" so to speak. He still came up with several options and explained the pros and cons of all of them. He even gave me advice on other travel I needed to do that was outside of the scope of what he was doing. On top of that, in about 9 1/2 months when the trip rolls around, he's going to keep an eye out for an LH F award to open up and will snag that if it fits the schedule.
Thanks James and Juicy Miles...
And I keep meaning to ask... Where in the heck did you come up with a name like that?