FLYDCA

I have been trying now for a week to check on availability for a *A partner award. Every time I call the international reservations number and follow the prompts I get routed to a message telling me all agents are busy and to please call later and then it hangs up. There is no option to even hold. I find this shocking but not surprising given the current state of affairs.

I did a search in this forum for helpful hints but my search did not find anything. Can someone please point me to a thread where this may have been discussed before or alternatively let me know of any helful hints on how to finally reach someone at US to check availability? I have no status on US and will be transfering Amex points into my DM account.

cedric

If all you want to do for now is check availability, I suggest signing up for an Air Canada Aeroplan account and using their website. It's not perfect but shows availability on all Star carriers for most situations.

Once you find the flights you want, and if you still can't get through to International reservations, try calling the UK call centre who should be able to book the flights for you.

FLYDCA

Thanks for the AC tip. I can transfer miles into that account from Amex as well

Does the USair UK number have limited operating hours?

cedric

Be wary as AC's Star awards chart requires more miles than US' in some cases. There may also be additional fees and the change fee is quite high.

The UK number does have limited operating hours, and now that I think of it, you may not be able to reach it outside of the country since it's a "special" number in the UK. If it doesn't work, try all of the other Euro numbers as most of them transfer you to the UK centre when you select English, and you're bound to get through to one of them.

SoxIn7

I have never gotten this feature to work. Strange.