Using NWA to redeem DL miles
 

Is anyone else having a problem with what NWA spits out and what DL call centers can actually provide? None of the awards on NW, CO, KL that show available on KVS are actually there on DL. Moreover, DL flights do not show up. Any ideas?

Thanks,
A.

I have to question the Galileo/Apollo and Worlspan availability for CA and FM. No matter what day I enter all their flights to any destination seem to be wide open. However using Sabre it seems like a more realistic result.

NW's system does a terrible job with DL award space. I am an AS MP member and I use the AS award tool to find DL availability and then call NW and have them book the segments manually. DL actually seems to have quite good availability for NW and AS members, but I hear DL FFs complain all the time about lack of availability.

My sister-in-law is still planning to go to DEL from YOW in March, and come back a few weeks later. Her dates are flexible. She wants to book the cheapest fare ticket.

It seems that Continental may offer the cheapest fare (subject to availability), taking account taxes and fees, and taking account that one does not need to change airlines. The only disadvantage is that one has to transit via USA (in both directions).

It seems from sabre/ZUJ (see below) that TLON5CE is it the cheapest fare. The question is how to find the dates with the availability with this cheapest fare.

One can try to go to one of the 4 availability methods, and find the T booking code. However, there are 2 problems with that - one has to manually enter every date in a row, and the T booking code does not take account that there are 2 fare bases for that booking code. Is there any simple way to get booking code availability over several dates, all at once? Is there any way to get the availibility of the right fare basis, and again for several dates at one time (and if not, at least one date at one time)?

Then I try sabre dot/res - the cheapest fare I can find is TJON5CE - and its fare is quoted as CAN$1338, The cheaper T fare is not quoted, and this T fare shows a higher fare quote than that on Sabre/ZUJ - does the ZUJ method quote base fares, and the DOTRES method quote total fare, including taxes and fees? Again, this method does not tell me how to find the fare, directly, over a large number of dates, all at once?

To put my question all in one sentence, I am trying to figure out how to most efficiently, find the cheapest fares on this (or any other airline) from A to B (return), over a wide range of dates? It would be nice if this can be done in a one step process (for all dates viewed, all at once), for each of the methods one uses - realizing that I may have to use several methods in sequence (as you indicated in the FAQs at the beginning of this thread)?



[KVS Availability Tool 3.0.2/Platinum - Sabre: Fares/ZUJ/SG/CAD]

Try plugging in dates into the CO website and see what comes up...else, use the ITA Software tool at: http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/prego

In your situation, Sabre Dot Res is a better tool to use. Zuji will list all fares that are published. Sabre will only list the ones that apply for the dates you enter. For example, suppose there were 4 fares

AAAAA
AAAAB
AAAAC
AAAAD

And you wanted to travel dep mon ret the next thu. It is possible that AAAAA only allows weekend departures, AAAAB only allows travel May-Aug, and AAAAC has a 14 day minimum stay. This would leave you with only AAAAD. The fare that shows up on DotRes will be the cheapest applicable T fare for your dates considering the rules.

Cheers,

Thanks.

The CO web site has the advantage that you can see (at once) the fares for the requested day +/- 3 days - which means you can see the fare for 1 week, for both departures and for arrival - all at once. To my knowledge, neither the KVS tool, nor ITA, allows for that option? - which is the question that I am posing to KVS.

If you are looking for the easiest/fastest way, you can use the month-long flight search feature of the ITA. If you want more accuracy and precision, take a look at the KVS Tool FAQ for keyboard shortcuts that can considerably speed-up availability checks for consecutive dates ...

Certain airlines (esp. those based in Asia) do not maintain accurate availability in all GDS systems, so what you have described is very possible...

This is what I see from the FAQ:

Q: Is there a way to request availability across multiple dates? What if I am looking for a specific class (or classes)?

A: Not directly, but you can use the <Ctrl> + <PgDown> keyboard shortcut to quickly check availability for subsequent dates. If you are looking for availability in a specific class (or classes), you may also wish to do this in conjunction with the appropriate [Filter] options.

However, expertflyer apparently (I do not subscribe to it) does allow a simultaneous display of all data (awards, upgrades etc) on the requested date +/- 3 days (ie one week in total). In a future upgrade, do plan to add this feature to the KVS tool? See "flexibile search" feature of expert flyer (link: http://www.expertflyer.com/rates.jsp).

This is certainly a possibility for one of the future versions. However, it is important to keep in mind that any perceived time savings are negated by the fact that a +/- 3 day search requires 7 separate queries to the system (1 per each date) and will, therefore, take 7 times as long to execute ...

Is the fare listed in KVS for DotRes the total fare or excludes taxes
 

I am trying find fares between LAX and BOM using KVS Fares/DotRes and following fare is the cheapest:

LAX Los Angeles Int'l CA US [KLAX]
BOM Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji IN [VABB]
TUE 01 Apr 2008 / THU 10 Jul 2008 / RT

Carrier From To Fare Cur Fare Basis
--------- ------ ---- --------- ---- --------- ---- ---- ----------
SQ LAX BOM 1100 USD VLMP

The more costly fare is as follows:

Carrier From To Fare Cur Fare Basis
--------- ------ ---- --------- ---- --------- ---- ---- ----------
SQ LAX BOM 1320 USD VLPO
SQ LAX BOM 1425 USD VLMA


Now the booking classes for both fares are V and I read thru the rules for both fares and they were the same.
Then why is there a difference between these fares and also are these the total fares or do they exclude taxes?

----I am new to this and trying to learn so please dont flame if I have asked something obvious to lot of you-----

The differences are in the [DAY/TIME] restrictions, effective date, and the routing.


Pls see http://kvs.unrealnetwork.com/Tool/FAQ.php#FAQ

The first one is a great fare for SQ, provided that the rules pertain to your travel!

However, you probably will not earn miles on this fare...