LuxuryTravelPhD

Thank you for your help, Arizona Guy!
So if I can book the identical entire itinary on US Air, I can call and just use the Lufthansa numbers to get the partner award for the lower miles?
If one leg is on US Air, and the others on partners or codeshares, I can do the same thing?

I have figured out the ANA tool so I know how to first check for availability for each airline.

ArizonaGuy

I'm afraid I'm not clearly understanding what you are asking. If you wish to book CLT-MUC-BCN and return, and there is availability you've found via ANA, then I believe you understand. You simply call US and tell them that's what you want to book. All on LH it will require 60K, 100K or 125K Dividend Miles depending on which class you are seeking. Ask for the specific flights. If you get an unwilling or unhelpful agent, politely hang up, call back and try someone else.

LuxuryTravelPhD

Sorry that I am not being clear. Let me try to rephrase.
Can US Air require that you book under their flight numbers and pay the higher mileage?
If one of your legs is a US Air only leg (no codeshare) but the rest are codeshares or are on partner airlines, will you still pay at the partner award level?
Let's say the ANA tool shows award availability only on the US Air flight numbers for 3 out of 4 legs. Is this still a partner award?

eponymous_coward

The ANA tool only shows what would be available on US at the partner level (saver), so it will be at lowest level.

ArizonaGuy

Completely ignore the codeshare aspect of flights when booking awards. It doesn't apply, you can't book codeshares on award tickets. CLT-MUC is operated daily as LH429. It's also US5608 and TK8590, possibly some others too. Doesn't matter - you can't book US5608 as an award. You'll be booking the actual flight # of LH429. And you can book LH429 whether US puts its codeshare number on it or not.

So this fact combined with the fact ANA is showing what's available at the "low" level - as there is only one level for *A and partner awards - means you don't need to be concerned about somehow being forced to redeem at a higher level for *A partners.

scjmc

I recently booked an award with the majority being US Airways legs and the rest UA and CO legs and was charged according to the partner award level.

honey4life12

Well, I had on hold the itinerary with just SYD-BKK-IST-FRA-IAD as the return, but some friends were stopping in HKG in a couple of weekends so I called a couple of times and spoke with three agents trying to add BKK-HKG-SYD on the way there and get a stopover in HKG and then on the return in FRA and then return to ORD so it would only be 2 stopovers and fix the open jaw problem. 2 of the 3 unhelpful agents talked about the 8 segment rule and the last one wouldn't just let me do my original on-hold itinerary because it was an open jaw and stopover and to fix the open jaw would require 5 segments on the return and she insisted the supervisor told her only 4 segments were allowed each way for a total of 8 segments.
looks like it back to scratch and more customer service roulette.

pogonation

I don't see why you are getting angry that US is not allowing any of these itinerary's. They are all breaking US's redemption policy so why should they. The rules quite plainly say you are allowed one stopover per itinerary or one open jaw. And just remember, it doesn't matter what itinerary you put on hold... If you just reel off a load of flights then they will quite happily put the itinerary on hold, but when it comes to ticketing that's when the system declines it or it becomes apparent that it is not an allowed routing.

Just be thankful that US is so lenient with routing that they will actually allow a IAD/ORD-SYD routing via europe and asia!

If you really want both stopovers then just book an open-jaw ORD-SYD-HKG and then purchase some BMI miles to book a one way HKG-FRA(stop)-IAD. It won't work out being that much more expensive. This way you will have both stopovers and the open-jaw ^

jjjohn

You cannot have a stopover in HKG. It is not a *A hub.

johnep1

Erroneous.

I believe that HKG is a hub for NZ. You will likely run into problems if you get an agent that enforces the "rule" that one must fly a the hub's airline into the hub in order to stopover there.

LuxuryTravelPhD

Thank you for your help. I booked our award tickets. The ANA tool is extremely useful. I had two different options researched for our outbound trip, and that came in handy because in the 15 or 20 minutes between researching and calling, there was one less seat on our slightly preferred option. I needed 4 tickets and they only had 3. I quickly got online with ANA and confirmed this and switched gears to our 2nd option. So, we are flying to BCN through Munich on LH then JK with a 5 hour layover inbound (if we could have flown through Frankfurt we would have had a much shorter layover) and LH through Frankfurt on the return. 240K miles for 4 tickets + $136.66 in taxes and fees per person.

gottaluvNW

Just saw availability on the A380 between FRA and JNB in business class on the ANA tool.
Is this something new? Or am I just late in getting to know about this possibility?

ArizonaGuy

Possibility of C on LH A380 or possibility of LH A380 on FRA-JNB?

If the former, C is nothing "new" on the LH A380 and has been available fairly easily - there are quite a lot of C seats on the aircraft but it's basically the same C we've seen for some time. New C won't come until the 748i comes online. It's F that's new and was briefly open on FRA-NRT. If the latter: I haven't been following A380 deliveries, I would guess FRA-JNB is the next target for their incoming aircraft.

johndeere19

come on JFK!!!

I might be too young to have ever experienced something like this, but has there ever been a new F cabin launch similar to SQ or LH 380 with blocking in the F cabin initially, only to open up down the road (and no, I'm not including SQ's fantastic redemption opportunity...)?

jjjohn

HKG is not the hub for NZ.