susiesan

I just put a deposit on a Mediterranean cruise for October 2017. The cruise leaves from Barcelona and arrives Venice. I am going to need flights from MCI to BCN and then from VCE to MCI on very specific dates. I can fly into BCN one or two days before the cruise Oct. 25 but I need to depart VCE the day of the end of the cruise Nov. 6.

The dates I need to fly are not available yet, Oct. 23 or 24, 2017 and Nov. 6, 2017. I won't have much flexibility of dates.

Will it be impossible to find 2 saver J seats for the month of October? I will transfer the needed miles in from my Chase UR account but i don't want to transfer if I'm not going to get the seats.

I can also do the flights on AA or DL by transferring SPG points into those respective accounts. UA and *A partners seem to give me the most options.
Thanks for your advice.

mherdeg

Should be fine as long as you're open to creative routing and doing a lot of searches to find space. UA has dozens of transatlantic routes and you might end up doing something like MCI-EWR-HAM-BCN (UA, UA, EW) or MCI-EWR-LHR-FRA-BCN (UA, UA, LH, LH).

aacharya

I just found EWR-BRU-NAP; FCO-EWR in J for late August.

So October should be really easy. Only issue is that you don't seem to be a UA elite, so booking "something" and then changing as something better comes a lot is not free to you.

susiesan

I'll be open to somewhat creative routing as long as it doesn't take twice as long as a more direct routing or doesn't involve extremely long or overnight layovers. Plus the days I will need to fly are either Monday or Tuesday going to BCN and a Monday returning from VCE. Isn't it easier to find J seat on weekday flights vs weekend?

Should I search individual segments? Once I find 3 or 4 flights that will get me there will I be able to book online or will I have to call and book over the phone and pay the phone fee? I do not have saus with UA and will have to pay to make any changes if something better opens up later.

Happy

UA site is smart enough to give you a lot of options on how you get from one place to another. Or if you are very familiar with Star A network you could do multi-city segments booking - just that the site will crash if there are more than 4 segments in one direction. Needless to say the travel time would be doubled than a more direct routing and eats into your travel time. That is the beast.

If you could piece a multi-city itinerary and site crash on you, you can call UA IT support and they could put back the itinerary and not charge you a phone fee. My experience has been, the folks in Philippines are much more helpful than the folks in US.

You WILL find much better routing a few weeks close to your departure dates as LH, or example, tends to only open up J/F seats in that time frame. So either you pay up to get a much shorter/ smoother itinerary or stick with what you get now 330 days out - which does NOT work well these days with most programs anyway.

Just to give you a recent example - I was looking at MIA to BCN in early November for a possible TATL cruise (we always take close in cruises, NEVER book any cruise more than 2 months ahead, including European cruises). There was NO J seats except on TAP when searching UA a week ago Now there are enough J seats on both LH and TK on top of TAP. That is just under 4 weeks to a potential departure.

susiesan

If I haven't found seats that match up with the cruise by the final payment then I would likely cancel the cruise. Because of work constraints I have to book my vacations/cruises year in advance. If we were retired close in cruise booking would work.

If I can find at least econ on decent flights at saver level I may grab those seats and then if saver J opens up later I'll just have to pay to switch. I hate to waste miles on econ seats when I could just buy the air tickets through the cruise line at discount.

When I look at what is available 330 days from now, getting to BCN shouldn't be too difficult, lots of options on partners. Departing from VCE is going to be tough. For the whole month of August 2017 there is zero saver in biz class. Early Sept. has 2 dates with some J saver, a Saturday and Sunday. I will need to fly from VCE on a Monday.

wco81

Seems like other than TK flights there's very little.

So you have to fly around 20 hours each way on TK, flying through IST both ways.

There are some AC awards, mostly outbound, which shave a couple of hours here and there but you go through YYZ and the SFO-YYZ flight is often in Y.

Then even less available is UA flights, either in 2-4-2 like UA990 or the 767s that you take from EWR or IAD.

The AC TATL flights in C look like attractive products but you have to endure a 5-6 hour SFO-YYZ flight, possibly in Y.

On the return, TK might be the only choice.

OK if these are the main options, I'm starting to think that the vaunted *A premium cabin award availability is not what it's cracked up to be, at least for MP members.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Don't know what dates you're looking at, but I also see availability on random dates, both Lufthansa and Scandanavian in next couple of months (thru Feb.). Mostly mid-week travel.

aacharya

Let's see - TATL nonstop out of SFO means 11+ hours. So it means high demand for business travelers. Why would any *A airline release free award tickets they can otherwise sell?

This is like complaining of no *A premium awards to Australia.

OTOH, tons of one-stop TATL via IAD/ORD/EWR.

wco81

I'm looking at next summer. Yes I know it's peak season but I also looked at late August and early September which are at the edge of 330 days out.

I also checked later this month and early next month, to see if availability changes for nearer departures and I see a couple of OS awards but that's about it.

In the Advanced search, you can filter out TK awards by having it exclude IST as a connection. But the calendars are showing dots on dates with TK awards anyways. So if you click on one of the dates the first time, it shows no Saver premium award available.

Then you click on another dotted date and then the IST filter no longer works and it shows the TK awards again.

wco81

Where did I say I was looking for nonstops?

I just said I wasn't interested in traveling on 20 hour trips each way through IST or having to fly 5-6 hours in Y for a premium award ticket to fly AC.

And then have to return on TK.

Where are these tons of awards through IAD/ORD/EWR? They come up once in awhile but not in June, July or August.

aCavalierInCoach

TATL biz is tough this far out. I see a lot of LH open up close in during the summer, including F from the west coast. Easy pickings for 1Ks and GS, not so much for plats anymore.

I snagged a cross-pond saver biz ticket with SK for May but it required routing through LAX. OS and LO may have some availability given their new west coast flights too.

wco81

Hmm, I'm only a Gold so they dump the TK awards on the lower elites?

And you're talking about LH awards this past summer, not summer of 2017?

aCavalierInCoach

I don't follow your first comment; I said they're hard to find out of SFO but they exist. I'm talking about my experience on 2016 as applied to my expectations for 2017s when I talked about close-in LH availability vs. long-dated availability.

hirohito888

I think what he meant was that as a GS/1K, you can change awards for free if travel is less than 60 days. So when LH or any carriers open up award space in the summer, GS/1K can easily rebook and reticketed to more ideal flights.

As a UA Gold, it will cost you $75 to change your ticket if travel is less than 60 days.