P1 status works - release of award flights

[simongr]

Half tempted to call them whilst they are making the changes to see if they could be changed to any seat awards... We would earn 71K points across the family...

 

[infinity]

I too have missed such opportunists as well
Won't in future though. Many Tks for T and C's

 

[pagingjoan]

Hopefully, some of the ASA uber-experts will step into this discussion soon and add their views. From my less-than-expert perspective, there seem to be some strange twists here.

To the best of my knowledge, ASAs don't need to "be released". If there is a seat available on a flight, it can be booked as an ASA. Hence, "Any Seat Award". Also, in my experience, ASAs don't attract the taxes associated with the Classic Award.

Could someone correct me, if I am wrong on one or both of these counts?

 

[equus]

If there is a seat available on a flight, it can be booked as an ASA. Hence, "Any Seat Award". Also, in my experience, ASAs don't attract the taxes associated with the Classic Award.

Could someone correct me, if I am wrong on one or both of these counts?

Sort of and sort of not.

1. Correct - ASA can book any available seat -meaning an available fare class is booked using points. What is being discussed here, is getting "U" (normally used for Classic Award) made available so that it can be booked. The "price" (in points) for an ASA is dictated by the price of the underlying fare bucket being utilised - using a "U" makes the points cost much cheaper.

2. ASAs do attract the taxes (and generally actually slightly more expensive) - you just pay for them in points by default. You can pay the taxes and charges using points on a Classic award as well, it is just that the defaults are different. On an ASA, it defaults to the all-in points cost, which you can then reduce by paying some in cash (making it a points-plus-pay in effect). When utilising a "Classic" bucket as the underlying fare, you can't reduce your points "pay" amount below the classic award level. For the Classic award, it defaults to paying the taxes etc in cash - but you can elect to use points instead.

 

[MarcB]

Hmmm...if everyone starts to do this, should we expect an enhancement soon??

 

[MarcB]

Everyone should keep in mind that the rules for ASAs and Classic Awards are different when it comes to cancellation and refunds etc. In some cases, ASA in Classic Award buckets can't be cancelled without penalty.

 

[MarcB]

Hopefully, some of the ASA uber-experts will step into this discussion soon and add their views. From my less-than-expert perspective, there seem to be some strange twists here.

To the best of my knowledge, ASAs don't need to "be released". If there is a seat available on a flight, it can be booked as an ASA. Hence, "Any Seat Award". Also, in my experience, ASAs don't attract the taxes associated with the Classic Award.

Could someone correct me, if I am wrong on one or both of these counts?

I imagine that is why to operator corrected me and told me it was "points plus pay".

 

[MarcB]

Half tempted to call them whilst they are making the changes to see if they could be changed to any seat awards... We would earn 71K points across the family...

I guess you could give it a crack...though with no other anecdotes of what I achieved yet posted, the jury is still out on whether I was just lucky, or whether this is an allowable avenue for booking an ASA at classic levels. I'd suspect though that if yours has ticketed, that they'll require you to cancel and rebook or else fall foul of the "once booked a classic award can not be changed to an ASA or vice versa" rule.

The only other thing I would add, as I stated in my original post, I was only needing 1 "Z" class released for LAX-JFK. There was Z x 2 BNE to LAX and Z x 1 for LAX to JFK. Maybe because the other sectors were there, it was different to asking for a release for Z across all sectors???

 

[MarcB]

Further update. I rang today to see about getting some availability released for some BNE-HBA domestic sectors. Unlike the international experience, this was not processed on the spot and instead, I was told it needed to be processed by another area and they'd confirm within a few days. I then queried whether these could be booked as ASAs as the points required are lower, and was told no. Not sure if this is just for domestic, but either way, it was a no go.

 

[infinity]

Everyone should keep in mind that the rules for ASAs and Classic Awards are different when it comes to cancellation and refunds etc. In some cases, ASA in Classic Award buckets can't be cancelled without penalty.

Good point about cancellations

Most ASA cancelations ex Aust are about $340 these days (pls check their T&C's)

A way around this is to do single sector bookings and the penalty ex a non Aust sector is often only $30-50 dollars (eg HKG)

 

[serfty]

Ex NZ or USA often have full refund in the fare rules (before travel commences).

 

[simongr]

Couldn't move to the Sunday Probably going to be booked for Monday now...