US Dividend Miles - Award Booking Questions and General Discussion

[MEL_Traveller]

Oh bugger - that would stuff me up

Found this though

Stopovers: Travel within the continental U.S., Canada and Alaska

A stopover is defined as a stay of more than 4 hours between connections if a connecting flight is available within 4 hours. Outside the continental U.S., Canada and Alaska, a stopover is defined as a stay of more than 24 hours between connections.

stopovers are 24 hours outside of the USA.

via SYD should be ok.

 

[sergeyvzn]

Oh bugger - that would stuff me up

Found this though

Stopovers: Travel within the continental U.S., Canada and Alaska

A stopover is defined as a stay of more than 4 hours between connections if a connecting flight is available within 4 hours. Outside the continental U.S., Canada and Alaska, a stopover is defined as a stay of more than 24 hours between connections.

yes, you are right, I've just re-read the same thing

I think you should be fine but will probably have to explain why you want to go indirect if there is a direct flight available

 

[baggyred]

yes, you are right, I've just re-read the same thing

I think you should be fine but will probably have to explain why you want to go indirect if there is a direct flight available

Yep - going to need a good reason there I think. Direct flights are available before and after my arrival time so I might need to get creative

Or do a whole heap of HUCA

 

[appaz]

I booked PER-MEL(overnight)-SYD (destination) I think we spent 17 hours in Melbourne, no issues

 

[Isochronous]

Is Asia-EU or Asia-Aus a better value use of USDM? Have fares for both to book in May and July and am sitting on 100k USDM. Thought I might use some on J fares.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Is Asia-EU or Asia-Aus a better value use of USDM? Have fares for both to book in May and July and am sitting on 100k USDM. Thought I might use some on J fares.

Well... only you can decide. You know the points required, and the available airfares from the departure points you have in Asia. I suspect if you were leaving from BKK or SIN you would have better value using points for AU and a paid airfare to Europe.

 

[shane2603]

Hi Everyone,
I had a wonderful chat to a USDM agent 5 nights ago and put an itinerary PER-KUL-MLE on MAS in J on hold. I then attempted to call back for three days to confirm only to have the severe weather message and call back later occur. When I finally got through again my holds had dropped and mysteriously all MAS availability had vanished. Has anyone else had this issue? It was for travel in September? Also can anyone tell me if the KVS tool will work on a windows server?

 

[hummel]

Hi Everyone,
I had a wonderful chat to a USDM agent 5 nights ago and put an itinerary PER-KUL-MLE on MAS in J on hold. I then attempted to call back for three days to confirm only to have the severe weather message and call back later occur. When I finally got through again my holds had dropped and mysteriously all MAS availability had vanished. Has anyone else had this issue? It was for travel in September? Also can anyone tell me if the KVS tool will work on a windows server?

Not sure about your windows server question, but I would have assumed so?

The MH issue is a tough one but I'm not sure what you can do about it. I've found USDM can only see one MH flight per day even though there is two PER-KUL flights per day.

 

[Isochronous]

Well... only you can decide. You know the points required, and the available airfares from the departure points you have in Asia. I suspect if you were leaving from BKK or SIN you would have better value using points for AU and a paid airfare to Europe.

Besides, everything exHKG is expensive.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Besides, everything exHKG is expensive.

exHKG maybe use points for CX to Europe, and pay for PE on CX to AU?

 

[KVS]

Also can anyone tell me if the KVS tool will work on a windows server?

Not sure about your windows server question, but I would have assumed so?

Indeed, the KVS Tool can run on any version of Windows (except RT):
http://Help.KVSTool.com/#Compatibility

 

[d.diddy_13]

Hi Everyone,
I had a wonderful chat to a USDM agent 5 nights ago and put an itinerary PER-KUL-MLE on MAS in J on hold. I then attempted to call back for three days to confirm only to have the severe weather message and call back later occur. When I finally got through again my holds had dropped and mysteriously all MAS availability had vanished. Has anyone else had this issue? It was for travel in September? Also can anyone tell me if the KVS tool will work on a windows server?

This has happened to me numerous time... they never confirm, US see availability but always seem to get and email back something about not confirmed.

Even when you think its all good, I would ring MH and they always said tickets have NOT been confirmed.

I gave up in the end with them

 

[anat0l]

It might be good to warn people about the caveats of holds.

A hold can buy you time whilst you organise the payment (points and/or cash) or mull over decisions, but just because a routing can be put on hold doesn't mean it can be ticketed later. Held bookings are essentially treated just like any other booking and it is up to the agent (and/or rates desk) to decide whether they will proceed with the booking or not. The agent who put the booking on hold may have had no reservations about your routing, but the next agent you try to call to ticket the held booking might have issues. No point telling the second agent that the first agent let you have so on and so forth - hang up and try again or you may just have to go back to the drawing board (if your booking ends up being cancelled).

As well, not all airlines allow seats to be held, or at least to be held for the same "standard" 72 hours. I don't know what the hold time exceptions are for US DM, but it is conceivable that bookings may be cancelled before you have a chance to return to them because the airline whose seats are being held has forced the hold to cancel and seats released.

My advice has always been that if you manage to get something that works for you and it's a good and/or tough routing, ticket immediately.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

a relatively safe assumption is to calculate the hold not as 72 hours, but as three calendar days, ending at midnight on the third day.

if you book just before midnight on day 1, your hold could run out as little as 49 hours later. times for calculations are based on US local times.

 

[hummel]

Anyone have recent experience on an intra-region stopover? I know it's not allowed but thought someone might have expereince..?

Thinking MEL-BNE(stop see In-laws)-NOU-SYD/MEL over Christmas time.

 

[Gold Member]

Unless you get an IP-lite Agent, the best you'll get is 23h59m - Standard transit max window. Maybe try and convince them that Brisbane is not part of South Pac!?? Half of them wouldn't know anyway...

 

[neon_crossing]

Is anyone else noticing the serious rollback of malaysian J class availability?
It used to be many 2-4 seats free on most of the flights, only seeing single seats pop up on BA and the KVS system in pretty much everything I search.

 

[d.diddy_13]

Is anyone else noticing the serious rollback of malaysian J class availability?
It used to be many 2-4 seats free on most of the flights, only seeing single seats pop up on BA and the KVS system in pretty much everything I search.

I have noticed it has been like that for a while now, most flights out of oz 1 J & 2 Y

 

[bcworld]

I have noticed it has been like that for a while now, most flights out of oz 1 J & 2 Y

Agreed...it's been that way for a long time.

 

[jjaxie]

Before I knew the rules, I booked BNE-PER-KTA(dest)-PER(stop)-BNE and had it ticketed at the usual 30k.

Subsequently I have had similar itineraries denied though.