US Dividend Miles - Award Booking Questions and General Discussion

[travelislife]

Yes, it seems to be a tedious task each time to log into ANA and go through a 10 step process to get to the 'Use Star Alliance partners' search page. Is there a 'save search' somewhere, where you can just jump straight to that process?

I don't bother with ANA, much easier to just use United.com, no sign in and very easy interface. Have only had one segment ever not bookable that showed and that was on ANA so the ANA tool wouldn't have helped!

 

[anat0l]

I managed to get around the greyed out "Use Star Alliance Members" button by having some ANA miles in the account. I think I got it via some random survey before, 100 easy points.

There are other ways to get points into ANA but likely not a mere 100. I suppose if you had a paltry flight on *A you could try crediting it to ANA to give you a balance.

Once you have any balance of sorts, you can use the Star Alliance Members button without fuss (until those points expire; a few years).

One of the best features of the ANA tool which I love is the 7-day search ability. It only works on point to point options and one class of service, but it makes searching weeks and months of availability easy. Compared to Awardtravelr, ANA sacrifices user friendliness for speed.

Haven't tried united.com (a.k.a. the old "United dot bomb"), but definitely sounds like an idea, especially if you don't need a UA MP number to use it.

 

[burmans]

It's more if the merger goes through for one thing (some say it's just a matter of time rather than a question, but then again time can be glacial too).

But the short answer is "yes" (more precisely, your US points will convert to AA points and thus you'll then be in the oneworld system under AA's rules)

Actually not sure this is true, the announcement albeit superseded by the trial was that US would join Oneworld in November not that they would have points converted to AA. Short term they could stay as US Miles but be useable on Oneworld, and by short term I mean up to 6 months or so.

 

[sergeyvzn]

Actually not sure this is true, the announcement albeit superseded by the trial was that US would join Oneworld in November not that they would have points converted to AA. Short term they could stay as US Miles but be useable on Oneworld, and by short term I mean up to 6 months or so.

I rang US Airways today to book a domestic triange route award and ended up by not doing it due to several reasons but one of them was I wanted to use United flights between SFO and PDX in September 2014 and the agent said sorry, no more Star Alliance airlines as of 01 September 2014, can't redeem on anything. Does that mean that this is when they become part of OneWorld and you can use the points on American Airlines? I wonder...

 

[jgm]

your destination is CPH. as such it is an illegal itinerary, but who cares since it's ticketed

was the cost calculated as 110k? if it had priced at 120k (destination Europe) then I don't know whether the trip via the states would have come back invalid.

(the destination is determined as the farthest point on the itinerary, this can't be chosen by the passenger. it is what it is via great circle mapper)

When we were going to the US via ICN it was charged at 110k, but after I changed to UA it was amended to 120k. I wouldn't be surprised if the 1st agent was geographically challenged & didn't know where CPH was, as I just fed her the flights. I tried for CPH-IST on TK, as I haven't been to Turkey & haven't flown TK yet, but she said that was coming up as illegal. The 2nd agent didn't say anything about the itinerary breaking the rules, only that it had been priced incorrectly.

BTW, I only tried for the CPH stopover as I had seen several similar routings on FT.

UA Trans-Pacific J or F is not impossible but it is certainly rare. Although it requires the roundabout method, getting OZ F or NH F to the US is much easier than banking on UA F. Nevertheless, it's good if you've managed to bag it.

The availability on UA opened up about 2 weeks after I made the original booking which was about 335 days in advance of the return (we are in the US fro 3 weeks). Availability was fairly good on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, but only Y if anything on other days. I would have preferred later in the week, but it just means a couple of nights in Denver to acclimatise before we head to the slopes.

 

[Oneworldplus2]

I don't bother with ANA, much easier to just use United.com, no sign in and very easy interface. Have only had one segment ever not bookable that showed and that was on ANA so the ANA tool wouldn't have helped!

Thanks.

I am kind of 'warehousing' my US DM points so that I can (hopefully) use it on AA/OW, via QF metal (preferably on QF F).

Question -
If this merger goes through, would there be an off chance of getting to jump on EK F? If it's under a QF code-share, what are the chances? Just putting it out there...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks.

I am kind of 'warehousing' my US DM points so that I can (hopefully) use it on AA/OW, via QF metal (preferably on QF F).

Question -
If this merger goes through, would there be an off chance of getting to jump on EK F? If it's under a QF code-share, what are the chances? Just putting it out there...

there won't be any EK F. code shares are almost always excluded from awards.

just a warning that points may get devalued the way of UA. there's nothing really left now to stop USDM and/or AA following UA and DL.

 

[anat0l]

...no more Star Alliance airlines as of 01 September 2014,...

Is this for real? So US have put the foot down that that is when no more Star Alliance redemptions can be made?

If so, this should be kept in mind for those planning travel next year and are thinking of taking advantage of this deal.


If US DM sticks around as a programme (temporarily) but then allows you to redeem on oneworld, it will be interesting to see how the redemptions rates will work. I'm guessing it may just be the same zones with the same points costs (naive implementation...)

 

[burmans]

I rang US Airways today to book a domestic triange route award and ended up by not doing it due to several reasons but one of them was I wanted to use United flights between SFO and PDX in September 2014 and the agent said sorry, no more Star Alliance airlines as of 01 September 2014, can't redeem on anything. Does that mean that this is when they become part of OneWorld and you can use the points on American Airlines? I wonder...

Interesting as to how we should interpret this, does it mean they will go to Oneworld anyway (because I don't for one think that's a done deal if the merger fails). Alternately if could mean they have put Star Alliance bookings "on hold" for now pending a decision this month with the trial, in itself possibly expecting too much. Despite the rumours on the blogs I think this will probably go to trial and may still take a while so if they are saying no Star Alliance they are for us at least essentially saying no awards on most routes.

 

[markis10]

Actually not sure this is true, the announcement albeit superseded by the trial was that US would join Oneworld in November not that they would have points converted to AA. Short term they could stay as US Miles but be useable on Oneworld, and by short term I mean up to 6 months or so.

During a CEOs briefing it was mentioned that the miles would be converted at merger at 1:1.

 

[sergeyvzn]

Interesting as to how we should interpret this, does it mean they will go to Oneworld anyway (because I don't for one think that's a done deal if the merger fails). Alternately if could mean they have put Star Alliance bookings "on hold" for now pending a decision this month with the trial, in itself possibly expecting too much. Despite the rumours on the blogs I think this will probably go to trial and may still take a while so if they are saying no Star Alliance they are for us at least essentially saying no awards on most routes.

god knows what it means but another thing I noticed researching my September 2014 west coast US flights, using Lifemiles, that US Airways flights did not show up in the results even if I know they are there and there should be seats available
go figure

 

[burmans]

During a CEOs briefing it was mentioned that the miles would be converted at merger at 1:1.

Yes, not doubting this is what would eventually happen just the timing, I was interpreting the "if the merger goes through" as if the merger gets past the court. Clearly US/AA will eventually merge in this case but given my background with IT systems would suggest this MAY take some considerable time during which US miles may remain as such but be redeemable for Oneworld.

 

[cove]

Well I used AA miles for the first time on an AA First Saver between LHR and LAX so it won't be too punishing if the points conversion occurs.

 

[zainman]

god knows what it means but another thing I noticed researching my September 2014 west coast US flights, using Lifemiles, that US Airways flights did not show up in the results even if I know they are there and there should be seats available
go figure

I just rang US airways to see if they could find availability on TG after 1st september, I made the CSA make a dummy booking MEL-BKK-FRA-MXP-FRA-BKK-MEL TG J/LH J and it was not a problem. I explained to the CSA that I had read that after the 1st of Sep 14 there was apparently no availability on *A airlines and he said 'absolutely not true'.

*phew* so it's available for now I suggest HUACA!

 

[serfty]

While I believe a merger with AA is more likely to be prevented by the USA DoJ suite (you should find out by mid January), it is possible Dividend Miles may exit *A anyway.

 

[burmans]

While I believe a merger with AA is more likely to be prevented by the USA DoJ suite (you should find out by mid January), it is possible Dividend Miles may exit *A anyway.

Everything is of course possible but the question is surely more whether its likely.

 

[zainman]

Any ideas if it is possible to book an open-jaw itinerary with DM?

Trying to get this:

MEL-CTA (destination)
MXP-IST (stopover)
IST-MEL

How can I get this booked for 120,000 miles in J?

 

[NDiddy]

Any ideas if it is possible to book an open-jaw itinerary with DM?

Trying to get this:

MEL-CTA (destination)
MXP-IST (stopover)
IST-MEL

How can I get this booked for 120,000 miles in J?

You can't have an open jaw and a stopover. It's one or the other.

 

[Stephen65]

You can't have an open jaw and a stopover. It's one or the other.

This is correct but if it helps: a stopover is defined as a stop for 24 or more hours, anything else is a mere transfer and transferring passengers are not obliged to take the next available onward flight. So its sometimes possible to arrange to spend the best part of a day in a city as a transferring passenger.

 

[anat0l]

This is correct but if it helps: a stopover is defined as a stop for 24 or more hours, anything else is a mere transfer and transferring passengers are not obliged to take the next available onward flight. So its sometimes possible to arrange to spend the best part of a day in a city as a transferring passenger.

Yeah, people have taken advantage of this fact for a bit (I have done it myself; also is good for splitting a long journey).

When US DM was much more loose before (LH F anyone?) some were really taking the mickey installing < 24 hour transits everywhere and maxing out the 10 sectors.