RealHJ

Isn't that the way everyone feels?

If we could only get the ease of use of nwa.com and 012 tickets back, I am sure that many of us would save many 10s if not 100s of hours per year now being stuck on the phone with DL res for simple routine things that with nwa.com could be done easily and quickly online.

jr57

I'm in the VERY early process of researching/booking a 90k J award. This will be my first major award booking, so I have a few questions.

There is much of Europe that I haven't seen, so I'm tempted to take advantage of the free stopover and perhaps 23-hour connections there. Judging by all the info in this thread, it seems like the possibilities are endless, so it could be tough to decide where I'd like to spend my time.

I'm intrigued by IST, so I'm strongly considering a stop there. Does anyone have experience booking TK J awards and utilizing the free tour or free hotel while there? I would likely be aiming for a 23-hour connection in IST. I understand that both the inbound and outbound flights need to be on TK metal, so I would likely aim for a stopover elsewhere in Europe, either before or after my stop in IST. Also, it looks like TK J has angled lie-flat seats, so I would probably try to minimize my time on those flights and try for something fully lie-flat for my long haul flights.

Thanks for any input you have.

NE flier

Have others had luck getting seats on lh lately? I was putting together an itinerary for my parents from ewr to syd and wasn't ably to include an lh flight in c from far to ewr. The seat shows bookable on the ua website but the us agent couldn't see any availability.

I gently suggested a long sell but the agent says that the box was greyed out and therefore she couldn't manually find availability.

The agent was willing to accost the flights thati had found and she was very helpful and sounded knowledgeable....it sounds like others are having success finding lh flights...I would be grateful for any advice you can offer...

One other question: if I call back to check availability on the lh flights I prefer, is there a high chance that the entire itinererary will be referred to the rate desk and denied for mpm reasons?

Also I found it interesting that the us agents sometimes use aeroplan to construct their award bookings for us customers.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

UA sometimes has phantom availability.

Agents will sometimes let you read them flights, will sometimes use Aeroplan, or will sometimes use the star alliance booking tool.

you could put an award on hold for three days and see if LH opens up in that time. Or check something like the ANA booking tool if you have access. Thsat is usually a pretty good indicator of availability.

Manual sells have been frowned upon (prohibited) for quite a while now.

Your itinerary could be referred to the rate desk at any time.

LA_FadeAway

Is there any chance of getting them to extend the 72 hour hold on my itinerary? Barclay screwed up and only posted 30k bonus miles to my account on first purchase with my cc, but it was supposed to be 40k since I applied in-flight. I called them about a week ago and they said they would fix it and it could take a week or so. I still need to purchase some miles to ticket the reservation, but I'd prefer not to have to buy an additional 10k that I don't have to. Has anyone had any luck getting them to extend the hold for something like this? The availability is not there for me to cancel and rebook.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

you can only ring and ask. it's not unknown for a hold to be extended... but usually accompanies some change to the itinerary.

LA_FadeAway

Thank you. I'll call them in the morning. Was thinking of changing one of the legs anyway so that might help my cause a bit.

deltaflyinglawyer

It is not "the aeroplan tool", but the QPX of itasoftware that are used by both Aeroplan and US air.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

yeah... the old 'great, thanks for the new flights... just need to check they can pick me up at the new time... can you out it on hold please?' routine

LA_FadeAway

Well that worked quite easily. I changed two legs to flights that actually give us more time to make our connections and the agent said I now have until May 31 to ticket the itinerary.

Now I hope Barclay Card gets those miles in there ASAP.

NE flier

Thanks for the quick reply lhrmelff! How prevalent is the phantom lh availability on ua? The agent literally couldn't see a single lh flight whether across the pond or intra-Europe.

I guess I will have to investigate expertflyer or figure out how to get some ana miles to use their search engine...

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

hmmm... the operative word was 'sometimes'... they can usually see something...

although that being said, I have had a couple of times where an agent couldn't see anything intra-Europe for a whole day on a particular route... I rang back later and another agent mentioned something about it being a married segment... no idea what she meant exactly by 'married segment' in that context, anyway she was able to see the flights and was able to book them.

so keep trying.

FlyingDoctorwu

Just a point of reference. I booked a C class award for my parents to SYD and wished to change them to a F award. Changing class of service involves creating a whole new award. So, I had to cancel my old award and issue a new one (which I thought was going to be the case). You also do not get a refund of the $50 booking fee.

FDW

sxc234

I just booked my first USDM J award, I thought the agent I had was pretty good and was even able to find flights that I couldn't find on ANA or AC.

However i've requested numerous times to get my itinerary emailed and it never comes even after confirming the email address. Has others experienced the same? But i know they are confirmed as I can see my intinerary online and have called each airline to select my seats.

Since my flights are not til early next year what happens when there are schedule changes? How will I get notified or do I have to keep checking myself?

SingaporeDon

Did you get the PNR from the agent? You can pull up the itinerary from USDM website using your PNR