Mixed-cabin partner awards

[doctau]

I'm going to book some (at least partially) J-class flights to Bogota next year. When I search on the website I can see Y class saver awards for MEL-LAX-PTY-BOG (on UA/CM), and J class if I search for MEL-LAX (same UA flight). I've booked a mixed-class award on SQ metal before, but had to call up.

When I called, the agent couldn't even see the Y flights that I could see on the website for some reason. I can call again and try to get someone else, but before I spent too many attempts doing that, I was wondering if anyone knows whether booking mixed-class *A partner awards is possible? I know it would be the J-level award miles for the whole trip.

If it should be, I'll call up a few times to try again. Alternatively, is it possible to book the Y award online myself, and then call up to upgrade it to J on the segments where that is available?

 

[Mr H]

It is possible to book mixed class *A awards by phone but you really need to know the itinerary before you call. I recently used the ANA reward planner to find available flights on *A airlines and combined this with info from dummy reward bookings on the SQ website for the SQ flights in premium cabins that don't show up on the ANA planner. Using the ANA tool, be prepared to try multiple permutations and use multi-city bookings to find availability flight by flight.

I used this method to get mixed J/F bookings with SQ/TK and OZ/SQ - priced at F miles. Be patient and expect the phone calls to last an hour for each direction.