US Dividend Miles - Award Booking Questions and General Discussion

[anat0l]

Word has it that AA isn't charging YQ across all redemptions on all carriers. False alarm, back to regular programming.....

 

[Insaneous]

Hey guys, I got a question regarding my up coming flights book last year.

I have seen some of the recent posts here and on FT about flight number changes by an airline sometimes requires re-ticketing by US and that this is something to potentially be concerned and follow up with.

I've had one leg of my journey, LAX to HNL on UA had a couple of flight number and depart time changes (all within an hour of original time). Each time, the US manage reservation website has asked me to accept or reject changes, with I accepted. However I've never checked the need for potential re-ticketing and haven't reconfirmed with airlines that this has occurred. I did confirm ticketing when my booking was first made last year.

If I check UA website, both of my United flights show correctly, with seat selection etc. The US website shows it all correctly. But if I check my Thai Airway flights on the meal preorders Page, the only flight missing is the LAX-HNL segment. It may be that this segment doesn't directly connect to a thai carrier flight (I have OZ into LAX and United out from HNL both which have thai segment before or after). or maybe it's a "dropped SHARES segment"

Probably last minute nerves getting too me, but just thought I would see what any of you think.

 

[Nizar]

Word has it that AA isn't charging YQ across all redemptions on all carriers. False alarm, back to regular programming.....

Source ?
Which carriers will be charged YQ ?
Cheers

 

[bcworld]

Source ?
Which carriers will be charged YQ ?
Cheers

Apparently it was a mistake and was only supposed to apply to revenue fares.

So they will charge YQ for BA/IB as they did already...and apparently no one else, although I'm still watching this space for MH.

 

[smit0847]

A friend of mine just managed to book an AU-US J itinerary with European stopover in a non *A hub and then a transit of just OVER 24 hours in Asia on the way back.

If you get the right agent it seems like you can book just about anything......

 

[Nizar]

A friend of mine just managed to book an AU-US J itinerary with European stopover in a non *A hub and then a transit of just OVER 24 hours in Asia on the way back.

If you get the right agent it seems like you can book just about anything......

Which airline ?
Something like SQ/LH ?

 

[smit0847]

Which airline ?
Something like SQ/LH ?

It doesn't matter. The ability to do this comes down to the luck of getting a clueless agent. Routes and carriers are irrelevant.

 

[Nizar]

It doesn't matter. The ability to do this comes down to the luck of getting a clueless agent. Routes and carriers are irrelevant.

Lol easy tiger didn't realise you wanted to keep it a secret I thought we were all mates here.
All good

 

[smit0847]

Lol easy tiger didn't realise you wanted to keep it a secret I thought we were all mates here.
All good

I'm not 'keeping it a secret', its just that the location of potential stopovers are pretty irrelevant. There are dozens of examples on this site of where people have booked stopovers, both legal and not.

If you have an trip in mind post your proposed route and we can advise your of any potential issues - dont just follow someone elses because they managed to book it - its very much YMMV.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Just checking that the final date to do a US DM award ticket is 31 Oct 2013?

I wonder how long it takes after that date for your US DM points to convert to AA AAdvantage points.

A lot of people will end up with 2 x AA accounts - their original AA one & the former US DM one.

It will be interesting to see if AA will allow you to merge both the accounts into one.

Also for those who have an Avianca Life Miles account, 30 Aug 2013 is the last day to take advantage of the current 100% bonus buy offer.

 

[Nizar]

It will be interesting to see if AA will allow you to merge both the accounts into one.

Surely they must ?
Otherwise my plans (and possibly many others) would be ruined lol

 

[travelislife]

Just checking that the final date to do a US DM award ticket is 31 Oct 2013?

I wonder how long it takes after that date for your US DM points to convert to AA AAdvantage points.

A lot of people will end up with 2 x AA accounts - their original AA one & the former US DM one.

It will be interesting to see if AA will allow you to merge both the accounts into one.

Also for those who have an Avianca Life Miles account, 30 Aug 2013 is the last day to take advantage of the current 100% bonus buy offer.

Ozbeachbabe, you might have missed a few of the threads going around but the merger is currently on hold and depending the outcome of the lawsuit may not go ahead at all. So no there is no final date set. At the earliest now most people are saying it wouldn't happen till early 2014.

 

[bcworld]

Just checking that the final date to do a US DM award ticket is 31 Oct 2013?

That isn't and never has been the case.

I wonder how long it takes after that date for your US DM points to convert to AA AAdvantage points.

A lot of people will end up with 2 x AA accounts - their original AA one & the former US DM one.

It will be interesting to see if AA will allow you to merge both the accounts into one.

There's no reason you'll end up with 2. There is a precedent for all this. When BA and bmi merged they created a tool to transfer bmi miles into your existing BA account 1:1 - something similar will probably happen.

 

[Flashback]

That isn't and never has been the case.



There's no reason you'll end up with 2. There is a precedent for all this. When BA and bmi merged they created a tool to transfer bmi miles into your existing BA account 1:1 - something similar will probably happen.

Any idea what happened when Continental / United merged?

 

[Insaneous]

Hey guys, I got a question regarding my up coming flights book last year.

I have seen some of the recent posts here and on FT about flight number changes by an airline sometimes requires re-ticketing by US and that this is something to potentially be concerned and follow up with.

I've had one leg of my journey, LAX to HNL on UA had a couple of flight number and depart time changes (all within an hour of original time). Each time, the US manage reservation website has asked me to accept or reject changes, with I accepted. However I've never checked the need for potential re-ticketing and haven't reconfirmed with airlines that this has occurred. I did confirm ticketing when my booking was first made last year.

If I check UA website, both of my United flights show correctly, with seat selection etc. The US website shows it all correctly. But if I check my Thai Airway flights on the meal preorders Page, the only flight missing is the LAX-HNL segment. It may be that this segment doesn't directly connect to a thai carrier flight (I have OZ into LAX and United out from HNL both which have thai segment before or after). or maybe it's a "dropped SHARES segment"

Probably last minute nerves getting too me, but just thought I would see what any of you think.

does any one have a thoughts or suggestions?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

does any one have a thoughts or suggestions?

you should call US airways and tell them you have had a schedule change and you'd like to accept them. the agent will do what they need to. USDM have advised me that a call is preferable to clicking 'accept' because for international partner itineraries the system doesn't always do everything it needs to do automatically.

as you say, TG won't show a segment which doesn't directly concern them (either connecting to or from a TG flight, or as a final destination they need to check bags through to). so that is normal.

the other misconception regards seats. seat allocations mean nothing and a lot of people think just because they have a specific seat they are good to go.

the only important thing is a ticket number, and that all the airlines have said ticket number against your booking.

a reservation can exist in isolation, including seat numbers, but you cannot fly without a correctly issued ticket.

 

[Insaneous]

thank MEL. I called them up and didn't appear to be any issues!

 

[zainman]

yes. several people have done it. including via NRT.

Can I book MEL-GUM for 30k in J (via SIN) and then ditch the SIN-GUM legs? Will they allow me to board the aircraft for the SIN-MEL leg considering I haven't flown the GUM-SIN leg?

I remember reading something like this as a cheap way to get to SIN or NRT but not sure how risky it is..

 

[aikman]

Can I book MEL-GUM for 30k in J (via SIN) and then ditch the SIN-GUM legs?

Yes. Although if you do the rest of the itinerary will be cancelled.

Will they allow me to board the aircraft for the SIN-MEL leg considering I haven't flown the GUM-SIN leg?

No because your trip has been cancelled.

 

[Storyteller]

Any idea what happened when Continental / United merged?

I received emails from both CO & UA. Could combine my accounts into just one pre merger with various advantages ( I think mainly in the Lifetime miles category, maybe status), to going either way ie either a CO acct or a UA account. The UA / CO threads on the merger will give you these advantages somewhere. I found an email dated 11/2/12 with links to how they were planning on merging frequent flier accounts, so look at the threads for different folks' opinions around then.

I chose to have my CO miles & EQMs / segments merged into my UA account. When the merger was completed, there were some adjustments made. IIRC everyone got more lifetime miles than the sum of the 2 totals. Maybe also more award miles. There was a multiplier used because iirc there were different earn rates for the same class of travel, or something like that.

One of the difficult spots again iirc, was that they had elite status calculated in different ways, and the levels wern't totally equivalent. Where there was doubt, I think the person went up.

It seemed to work fairly smoothly in the end.