US Dividend Miles - Award Booking Questions and General Discussion

[anat0l]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

I have no idea when the flight was cancelled. Nor do I care.

Well for now it's not a big deal to know, but I'm guessing that the flight was not cancelled, say, more than two weeks ago, otherwise you would have likely received an email about it.

I hope the same thing does not happen to your 70 year old mother who you only spoke to the night before and she was looking forward to coming home....

Well I hope not either. But if I were judge, jury and executioner, I'd hope to be firing the death rifle at the correct culprit.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

I have no idea when the flight was cancelled. Nor do I care.

I hope the same thing does not happen to your 70 year old mother who you only spoke to the night before and she was looking forward to coming home....

unfortunately these things happen. that this is booked through USDM is largely irrelevant, and USDM allows us to pay economy for first or business class which, when we send our folks overseas, far outweighs any potential disruption (which would be the same no matter how we booked it...and it's not worth paying a travel agent $5000 extra per seat to have any better assistance).

70 years young? coming up to 80 my mom was almost hoping on her last trip they would miss their 90 minute connection at Frankfurt and get put on Lufthansa first class instead of Thai! ('almost' hoping because on LH no buggy on arrival at bkk and it can be a long way to walk!)

 

[JohnK]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

Well for now it's not a big deal to know, but I'm guessing that the flight was not cancelled, say, more than two weeks ago, otherwise you would have likely received an email about it.

Does it really matter when it was cancelled? I did not receive any notification what so ever.

Simply not good enough.

Well I hope not either. But if I were judge, jury and executioner, I'd hope to be firing the death rifle at the correct culprit.

I don't care who I am judging.

US Airways DM has the booking including Aegean flights and TG flights. When I go into booking there is a huge warning (just like there is on QF website) that flight has been cancelled and to either accept or reject new flight which is a day later. Stupidity though has left the last flight in the booking before the 3rd flight in booking. Time warp needed to achieve that one.

So if booking is acknowledging there is a cancelled flight why is it so difficult to send an email?

Let's keep defending airlines for their wonderful customer service and proactiveness....

 

[bcworld]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

So have you actually had an update from the passenger?

 

[anat0l]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

Let's keep defending airlines for their wonderful customer service and proactiveness....

Well if you're not prepared to understand how the system works and how you can use it to help you, then I don't see any further point in attempting to offer any support at all.


I hope not at all for your sake but only for the sake of your mother that she is fine and been taken care of appropriately.

 

[markis10]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

Does it really matter when it was cancelled? I did not receive any notification what so ever.

Simply not good enough..

So an email is not notification in your view, interesting , just because you did not get one does of course not mean it was not sent.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

Well if you're not prepared to understand how the system works and how you can use it to help you, then I don't see any further point in attempting to offer any support at all.


I hope not at all for your sake but only for the sake of your mother that she is fine and been taken care of appropriately.

Absolutely... johnk is being totally unreasonable. Thai is solely responsible for dealing with his mother , putting her in a hotel and rebooking onward travel. All this would be handled by tg staff in Rome in person. Cancellations happen.... its part of travel.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

under EU regs the pax must be offered accommodation on the next available flight to the final destination. even if it's a different airline.

unfortunately TG doesn't seem to have a good track record with being forthcoming with EU compensation... but if mom isn't home within 6 hours or whatever of the originally planned time then there is a nice big cheque coming your way.

as it's unlikely to be forthcoming by TG given what i've read before, the compensation can be applied for very simply on line.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

..Apparently my mums TG flight FCO-BKK today has been cancelled and she has been put on tomorrows TG flight FCO-BKK. The same moron that processed the cancellation has left tomorrow mornings TG flight BKK-SYD the same......

For any international flight I always go on line the day before to check for any time changes or what ever. Even for Aust domestic flights I often check 4 hrs or night before

 

[QF029]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

I have no idea when the flight was cancelled. Nor do I care.

I hope the same thing does not happen to your 70 year old mother who you only spoke to the night before and she was looking forward to coming home....

Do you take any responsibility for putting your mother in this situation? These cheap routings can be complicated and aren't suitable for everyone. A 'moron' could see that an in travel disruption would be more complicated to handle than a cash booking. And we all know that cough happens every now and then when travelling.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

Do you take any responsibility for putting your mother in this situation? These cheap routings can be complicated and aren't suitable for everyone. A 'moron' could see that an in trip travel disruption would be more complicated to handle than a cash booking. And we all know that cough happens every now and then when travelling.

i don't share your view on this. it makes no difference under EU regs whether the ticket is paid in cash or not. that's the beauty of flying through the EU.

provided everything is on one ticket (which it was) then everything is taken care of and there is no benefit to paying a full business or first class ticket when you can get it through USDM for the price if an economy ticket.

as I mentioned up thread my folks use one of these tickets every year. I give them a simple print out with their options at each stage if something goes wrong. for example CDG-FRA-BKK: if CDG flight delayed by more than one hour go to the lounge desk and seek re accommodation on direct flight to BKK or take later LH flight FRA-BKK. they know their rights and have a relaxed journey.

 

[QF029]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

as I mentioned up thread my folks use one of these tickets every year. I give them a simple print out with their options at each stage if something goes wrong. for example CDG-FRA-BKK: if CDG flight delayed by more than one hour go to the lounge desk and seek re accommodation on direct flight to BKK or take later LH flight FRA-BKK. they know their rights and have a relaxed journey.

Yes but only because you've put in additional preparation in case something goes wrong. Would you feel the need to do this for them if they were booked in J on TG or LH with a revenue fare?

 

[anat0l]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

i don't share your view on this. it makes no difference under EU regs whether the ticket is paid in cash or not. that's the beauty of flying through the EU.

...

as I mentioned up thread my folks use one of these tickets every year. I give them a simple print out with their options at each stage if something goes wrong. for example CDG-FRA-BKK: if CDG flight delayed by more than one hour go to the lounge desk and seek re accommodation on direct flight to BKK or take later LH flight FRA-BKK. they know their rights and have a relaxed journey.

I do admire the steps you take to reassure your folks, though from reading your post I imagine your folks are a lot more open minded and controlled than most other travellers, even younger than them let alone "seasoned" travellers.

Insisting on your EU 261 rights to carriers can be painful at times, especially for those who are not EU community carriers, and also if follow-on travel is affected (which is nominally also covered by the regulation).

 

[anat0l]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

Yes but only because you've put in additional preparation in case something goes wrong. Would you feel the need to do this for them if they were booked in J on TG or LH with a revenue fare?

Yes - because they'd have to go through the same steps.

The only additional "stress" may be that with a FF ticket, carriers may be reluctant to reroute onto flights with no award space (but physical space) remaining, let alone other carriers (with similar situation). However, the regulation does not say carriers have the latitude to avoid their obligation in this manner.

The only main difference between revenue fares and award fares is the calculation of some forms of compensation, e.g. downgrading.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

Yes but only because you've put in additional preparation in case something goes wrong. Would you feel the need to do this for them if they were booked in J on TG or LH with a revenue fare?

fair point. unfortunately though if their flights included TG I would be doing the same even for a paid reservation as TG doesn't have a good record on automatically honoring EU regulations.

for a paid LH flight I would be more trusting of LH to do the right thing (in fact the same would probably apply for any ticket on an EU rather than non-EU based carrier).

but that being said... $2800 for F via USDM vs at least $10,000 for a paid ticket... the list of options takes 10 minutes to prepare which is a pretty good hourly rate for my time based on the savings!

as I said, with her list of options my mom was actually lookig forward to missing their latest TG flight!!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

The only main difference between revenue fares and award fares is the calculation of some forms of compensation, e.g. downgrading.

I'm not sure what examples you have on this, but everything I have read indicates there is no difference in the compensation. the calculation for a downgrade is a percentage of the applicable fare in operation at the time of the downgrade... which as has been pointed out, can be extremely lucrative for the pax.

 

[Nizar]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

the calculation for a downgrade is a percentage of the applicable fare in operation at the time of the downgrade... which as has been pointed out, can be extremely lucrative for the pax.

Yes that would be a beauty :mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

 

[anat0l]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

I'm not sure what examples you have on this, but everything I have read indicates there is no difference in the compensation. the calculation for a downgrade is a percentage of the applicable fare in operation at the time of the downgrade... which as has been pointed out, can be extremely lucrative for the pax.

The best resource for the FF community on EU 261 I've read was put together by people on the FT BA board.

Downgrading is a percentage of the fare, but there's been no solid agreement whether it is the sector in question or the whole ticket, and payment may be provided in frequent flyer currency, however if this is not agreed by the passenger then there is certainly no solid methodology that has been court tested as to how to get the fare amount to calculate this compensation.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it can be extremely lucrative. Remember, this is compensation. I don't think people make a sport out of claiming EU 261 compensation (unlike some US-based bloggers who make a great sport out of VDB vouchers).

Also, if you have to fight for that compensation, that certainly is a non-trivial inconvenience.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

The best resource for the FF community on EU 261 I've read was put together by people on the FT BA board.

Downgrading is a percentage of the fare, but there's been no solid agreement whether it is the sector in question or the whole ticket, and payment may be provided in frequent flyer currency, however if this is not agreed by the passenger then there is certainly no solid methodology that has been court tested as to how to get the fare amount to calculate this compensation.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it can be extremely lucrative. Remember, this is compensation. I don't think people make a sport out of claiming EU 261 compensation (unlike some US-based bloggers who make a great sport out of VDB vouchers).

Also, if you have to fight for that compensation, that certainly is a non-trivial inconvenience.

the EU regulations are clear that compensation must be paid in cash unless the pax otherwise agrees. and in a situation where you have purchased a seat from one airline for travel on another it would seem complicated to try and get Thai to refund 75% of the miles.

it would seem logical to make reference to the applicable paid fare for compensation. alternatively, I guess with US airways (and most other airlines who have some sort of miles-for-sale program) you could calculate the cost of the award ticket based on the cost of the miles, which for USDM would be 3.5c per mile, or $5600 return in F to Europe. one way would come to $2800 and 75% of that would be $2100 (us dollars). the relevant calculation could be made if the compensation only applied to the sector Europe - bkk for example... but still it is lucrative!


in regards to EU261 in general... a 4 hour 5 minute delay to my arrival caused by a cancellation would net €600 (aud850) for a flight to Asia or Australia... I consider that to be quite lucrative!

 

[Insaneous]

Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

So what's the process for getting new flights if the same thing happened on a non-eu flight (I. E. To usa or asia). I'm guessing the EU261 don't apply?

Hope it works out for JohnK! It is very stressful to resolve situation when your not 100% on your rights and the airline plays dumb