Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards
Okay, after many, many frustrating emails to the Lifemiles support centre (I don't think English is their first language there) I have managed to find out the following, re stopovers and preferred routings/airlines.
Say I want to travel from Sydney (SYD) to Las Vegas (LAS).
When you book at lifemiles.com:
- you can only select a preferred airline to search for when that airline flies all parts of that routing from origin to destination (i.e., if I wanted to fly OZ on my routing, I can only book as far as LAX or SFO because OZ dont fly all the way to LAS). Where your preferred airline doesn't fly all parts of your route you cannot select an airline and the system will route you the most logical, direct route (on my itinerary, probably UA SYD-LAX-LAS).
- if you want to add a stopover, you have to book as a multi-leg which costs more. In my example, if I wanted a stopover in ICN I would have to book SYD-ICN, then ICN-LAS separately. Given Asia to North America is almost as much as Australia to North America, it is going to cost a lot to add a stopover by doing a multi-city online.
- You cannot book routes with a combination of classes (i.e. SYD-BKK TG F, BKK-HKT TG J). You must either book the entire leg in the same class (i.e. J) or do a multi-city, first leg F, second leg J.
When you book through the Lifemiles call centre:
- you are charged a booking fee (which you are not charged when you book online). The booking fee is based on your route (which seems really, really weird?), so ask before booking if you call up.
- If you want to select a carrier (such as OZ) in my example above but want to travel onto LAS from LAX or SFO on another carrier, unfortunately this will still be charged as a multi-city booking and you are better off booking it online to save the call centre booking fee.
- However, I have been told by Lifemiles that if you book through the call centre you can add one free stopover per leg for no additional cost (i.e. in my example, I could stopover in ICN if I was only flying to LAX or SFO on OZ, or LAX if I was flying UA SYD right through to LAS). I assume the method of doing this is for the operator to find your routing to be correct per the one-way rules above (and not trigger a multi-city additional fee) and then they would simply move the leg(s) after your stopover a few days/weeks later so you can have your stopover.
- I would be very surprised if the call centre could not book you SYD-BKK F and BKK-HKT J in the one-leg as a single F redemption (you would be essentially getting the BKK-HKT J leg for 'free' because it adding it would not change the zone to zone you are booking). However, depending on the booking fee it may be a similar cost just to book this as a multi-city online.
So, in summary, stopovers are only 'free' when booked through the call centre on a valid leg (valid meaning if you can find and book it at lifemiles.com, you can add a stopover by booking it through the call centre). Look at the booking fee as being a 'stopover fee' (because otherwise you would just book it online) Unfortunately you cannot select which airlines you wish to fly with unless you are lucky enough (or your journey is simple enough) that:
a) your preferred airline flies the entire route;
b) your preferred route and airline combinations are available when you search online without selecting a preferred carrier; or
c) you are given multiple options on your route which allows you to pick you preferred airline/route anyway.
YMMV.
