africansky

I was going to book an award ticket that involves HKG-PVG on FM for next year. But it's just been announced that FM is leaving *A on Oct 31. So do you think I should look for a difference routing to PVG because FM may not honor the US award reservation after it is not part of the allliance? Thanks for your advice.

AZ Travels the World

For those, like me, who aren't familiar with airline code FM, I'll save you the search -- it's Shanghai Airlines.

Personally, I would look for another option. A situation like this, involving US and a Chinese airline, just seems risky to me.

The Mileage Millionaire

Very clever. I knew you would have a better solution!

In hindsight, I wish I had booked SFO-SEA in Y (only class available) at the beginning of the trip. Now I have to purchase that segment, which will basically be the equivalent of buying an expensive upgrade. Oh well, I wouldn't want to ruin an international first-class trip with a flight in coach.

sonoko

Could anyone help find available seats for 2pax in C?

The route we actually need is as follows but it seems there is not one seat availabel in C on any SQ-flights for those periods :-(

Outbound: FRA-SIN-ADL (14.01.2011 - 22.01.2011) maybe short stopover in BKK
Inbound: ADL-SIN-FRA (End of June 2011)

It is still my preferred route to go via Asia but I'm open to go via the US as well. M But NZ-availability seems to be just as bad as SQ...

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance

pschafer

For some reasons SQ seems not to be offering ANY C (and even Y in many cases) award seats between SIN and Australia at any time at present even on non-77W and non-A380 flights. Until about 2 months ago such award seats were readily available. If anyone knows what's going on -- please advise.

Your best bet is to try FRA-BKK-AKL-ADL on LH, TG and NZ; however, this also looks a bit sparse in January. You can definitely find availability FRA-BKK-SYD on LH, LX (maybe) and TG but you would need to buy a ticket SYD-ADL which is not particularly expensive. Others may suggest more exotic routings but it would be a marathon trip (eg FRA-YVR-AKL-ADL or FRA-LAX/SFO-SYD-AKL-ADL) - this would use LH or LX, AC or NZ or UA, and NZ .... some legs will have very limited availability - particularly those serviced by AC and NZ.

End of June 2011 is not yet open for booking.

sonoko

That's exactly my experience. I did the same booking I'm looking for earlier this year and SIN-ADL was available every single day.

I did a reservation yesterday FRA-BOM(stopover)-BKK-MEL(stop)-BKK-FRA just not happy with it yet. Would love to do routing like FRA-YVR-AKL-ADL or FRA-LAX/SFO-SYD-AKL-ADL with a stopover in HNL or RAR but can't find available seats in C for my dates...

andrewwm

I'm trying to book an award in C and I'm having trouble getting the agents to see award availability on NH. The ANA website shows seats available on all classes on the day that I'd like to fly, but the US agents don't show any availability.

I thought maybe it was because the award is meant to be booked in high season (according to the NH website) and others in this thread have said that NH occasionally releases award seats in high season only to it's own members.

However, I called United to double check and United could see the award seats as available, so they're publicly available. I thought maybe it might be specific routes that US is trying to block (in my case, ORD-NRT), but I had a US agent check a few other NH intra-Asia flights around the same day that showed as available on the ANA website, and they couldn't see those flights either.

The NH flights would be infinitely more convenient than my current routing; any suggestions as to how to get the US agents to see that availability? I've tried talking to them about how the seats are publicly available, but they of course give back the line that "we only get seats that are released to us" nonsense.

fumo

i've been thinking about this. is the availability of NH flights found on ANA tool for all *A members or just for ANA mileage club members?

can anyone pls enlighten me.

thanks

pibrahim

So based on what I've read, in terms of F class experiences:

SQ F is pretty much needle in a haystack
LX F transatlantic seems just as rare
LX F to Asia has pretty reasonable availability - are there any particular planes to go for / avoid...?
LH F on the A380 isn't bookable, apart from one rogue week when inventory got released
LH F on other planes has pretty good availability
TG and OZ also seem to have pretty good availability - again, are there any particular planes people would/wouldn't recommend...?

peachy3

That's about right.
SQ F on SIN-NRT-LAX and return is available about 1 week out, for 1 passenger.
LX F TATL has become rarer for a reason I'm not aware of. When I booked my last trip it was plenty available.
TG on the BKK-NRT I've found to be a little hard to obtain for 2 people, 1 seat is okay.
OZ F ICN-JFK is also pretty hard to obtain more than 1 seat for.

ejh25

How about convincing an agent to do this: SZX-PEK stop PEK-BKK-KBV destination KBV-BKK-SZX and skip the final BKK-SZX segment.

SZX is close by to HKG but the only way to get SZX-BKK on *A is through PEK and PEK is an Air China hub.

Thoughts?

peachy3

Don't see much problem with that ejh. What was your concern? I doubt 1% of US agents know where SZX is, let alone KBV

ejh25

I was worried about the backtracking. My earlier thought was to fly HKG-PEK stop PEK-BKK-KBV destination KBV-BKK-HKG return and skip the BKK-HKG segment. Someone thought that it would be hard to justify the stopover since there is a direct HKG-BKK flight on TG.

I was thinking SZX would be easier to book than HKG for this reason.

What about skipping the last segment part? You think I'll have any issues with that?

Yahtzee

I think all *A members. That said, I just joined ANA in order to use the tool and it says I can't search other *A carriers since I have a zero balance with ANA. Is that new or normal?

ejh25

New as of a month ago or so.

The KVS Availability tool still pulls up *A availability through ANA numbers even if they have 0 balances.