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

[bcworld]

For sleeping, yes - their seat is excellent. For everything else, who knows - they're an airline with a bad reputation that is rapidly, rapidly improving.

Do Swiss fly into Singapore? Their J product looks pretty good.

I finally found a recent J class review for CA the other day (link to follow) - the seat is obviously a plus but the catering, service etc seemed to be quite poor. I have my dad flying FRA-PEK-MEL on CA over Xmas (LifeMiles redemption) so I might find out more - although as his first ever J class experience I'm sure he'll be happy regardless. My biggest concern is around the complex transit procedures at both PEK & PVG (where CA177 makes a 'technical stop') - finding it very difficult to get reliable info on this...but it's complicated!!

 

[casanovawa]

Well LX does have a 343 flying between ZRH and SIN, but only Y seats are bookable on the 9/6/13....

I am flying LX from ZRH to YUL earlier in the itinerary so that will be my first chance to sample J on them...

 

[bcworld]

Here's the link to the recent CA 77W J report...I think the product on the A330 between China & Aus is much the same:

Flight Review: Air China 777-300ER Business Class Beijing-Los Angeles | The Points Guy

 

[smit0847]

Here's the link to the recent CA 77W J report...I think the product on the A330 between China & Aus is much the same:

Flight Review: Air China 777-300ER Business Class Beijing-Los Angeles | The Points Guy

Because all of the Asian-bound TK flights leave IST at midnight, we have the option of either waiting in SIN or BKK for 10+ hours (during the day), or flying via China and then taking an additional 'free' flight down to SIN or BKK to then get home to MEL.

I may be in the minority but as I hate everything about BKK except for the airport, and have no desire to go on a bus tour of SIN I would actually prefer to spend the downtime trying out an airline I have never flown before (even if its not brilliant - its still J) on a short-ish Asian route.

 

[casanovawa]

There is some logic to that smitty...

I've never averse to the odd extra flight...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Here's the link to the recent CA 77W J report...I think the product on the A330 between China & Aus is much the same:

Flight Review: Air China 777-300ER Business Class Beijing-Los Angeles | The Points Guy

Air China is in the process of converting their A330 from angled lie flats to fully flat. I thought on their website they said '2013' for that to be completed. Until that time I guess there might always be the possibility of an aircraft substitution with angled lie flats.

 

[smit0847]

Grrr... I've just seen that TK have upgraded half their A330s to full-flat J seats.

Is there anyway of knowing whether the planes they usually put on IST-SIN are the new or old config?

 

[kamchatsky]

Grrr... I've just seen that TK have upgraded half their A330s to full-flat J seats.

Is there anyway of knowing whether the planes they usually put on IST-SIN are the new or old config?

Yes, by getting on to it

 

[bcworld]

Grrr... I've just seen that TK have upgraded half their A330s to full-flat J seats.

Is there anyway of knowing whether the planes they usually put on IST-SIN are the new or old config?

I looked into this before. I *think* that it's something like if the aircraft is listed as A330 it has the newer cabin, or A333 = older cabin...same way that TG does it.

Something else that may be useful to the many of us that transit BKK is that OS have announced that they are refitting all their long haul business cabins with the same product as LX...to be completed by May 2013 I think. They have a calendar where you can check if you are scheduled on the new J class prior to all aircraft being refitted. Availability BKK-VIE seems OK.

Austrian Business Class

 

[smit0847]

I looked into this before. I *think* that it's something like if the aircraft is listed as A330 it has the newer cabin, or A333 = older cabin...same way that TG does it.

Something else that may be useful to the many of us that transit BKK is that OS have announced that they are refitting all their long haul business cabins with the same product as LX...to be completed by May 2013 I think. They have a calendar where you can check if you are scheduled on the new J class prior to all aircraft being refitted. Availability BKK-VIE seems OK.

Austrian Business Class

Thanks BC - very helpful once again!

I searched the dates on the TK website - it's listed as 'A330-300'. Would that be the old config?

I saw that new Austrian J website last week - looks very, very nice and I'd be keen to try it even if I dont understand their fascination with triangular plates!

 

[bcworld]

Thanks BC - very helpful once again!

I searched the dates on the TK website - it's listed as 'A330-300'. Would that be the old config?

I saw that new Austrian J website last week - looks very, very nice and I'd be keen to try it even if I dont understand their fascination with triangular plates!

I noticed the triangular plates...just weird!

From what I can gather from TK's website A330s rego JNA-JNG have angled seats...and JNH onwards are full flat.

So for TK66 IST-SIN TK66 / THY66 Live flight info - Flightradar24 ...all recent flights had full flat.

...BUT TK64 IST-BKK sees quite a mix of angled flat / full flat aircraft: TK64 / THY64 Live flight info - Flightradar24

 

[casanovawa]

Does anyone know where or if the MPM amounts are from US Air??? I spent 3.5 friggin hours on skype to them the other night trying to put on hold a redemption from Perth to Vancouver then coming back through Europe.... Talk about going round in circles, i admit i was trying to push the envelope a little, but by the end of it i had gotten all the flights sorted cept one return leg from FRA-BKK which we put in Y, as i needed some sleep by then, and i said i would look at options and call back last night to sort out...

So call back last night, i look at the options and all, find one and everything looks fine and sorted, i finally ask the lady what the taxes would be and she sends off to the rate desk only to come back to be told that it breaks the MPM and the whole itinerary will have to sorted from scratch!!! This was the first of 3 skypes calls i made last night, all of which dropped out after 30 minutes, 10 minutes or so and then 2 minutes, after which i had had enough for one night and had to find a replacement for the mouse that received a bit of rough treatment in my frustration!!!

On the second phone call i did find out, before it dropped out, that the MPM PER-YVR that US Air would allow was 14,600 something (14,632??) and when i went and plugged the routing i had agreed on (which the guy on monday night had shown to several supervisors!!!) in Great Circle Mapper it came to 14,900 soemthing... So a whopping 300 miles out on a 14,000+ mile itinerary...

Anyway i will call back tonight and try to resolve again and most likely will ask to have it elevated to a supervisor or their help desk to see if 300 miles is realllllly that friggin important (seems i need Shaynee's persuasive powers!!) but in the mean time before i waste several more hours of my time, being in the know of the MPM figures would be helpful... Last resort is to just drop the final leg from YUL to YVR, but just means i have to pay more to then book flights over to Vancourver myself and then also reconstruct the routing back to FRA all of which is becoming a little hard to find in J class 6 months out... And yes i know maybe i should have started a little earlier...

 

[bcworld]

Does anyone know where or if the MPM amounts are from US Air??? I spent 3.5 friggin hours on skype to them the other night trying to put on hold a redemption from Perth to Vancouver then coming back through Europe.... Talk about going round in circles, i admit i was trying to push the envelope a little, but by the end of it i had gotten all the flights sorted cept one return leg from FRA-BKK which we put in Y, as i needed some sleep by then, and i said i would look at options and call back last night to sort out...

So call back last night, i look at the options and all, find one and everything looks fine and sorted, i finally ask the lady what the taxes would be and she sends off to the rate desk only to come back to be told that it breaks the MPM and the whole itinerary will have to sorted from scratch!!! This was the first of 3 skypes calls i made last night, all of which dropped out after 30 minutes, 10 minutes or so and then 2 minutes, after which i had had enough for one night and had to find a replacement for the mouse that received a bit of rough treatment in my frustration!!!

On the second phone call i did find out, before it dropped out, that the MPM PER-YVR that US Air would allow was 14,600 something (14,632??) and when i went and plugged the routing i had agreed on (which the guy on monday night had shown to several supervisors the night before etc!!!) in Great Circle Mapper it came to 14,900 soemthing... So a whopping 300 miles out on a 14,000+ mile itinerary...

Anyway i will call back tonight and try to resolve again and most likely will ask to have it elevated to a supervisor or their help desk to see if 300 miles is realllllly that friggin important (seems i need Shaynee's persuasive powers!!) but in the mean time before i waste several more hours of my time, being in the know of the MPM figures would be helpful... Last resort is to just drop the final leg from YUL to YVR, but just means i have to pay more to then book flights over to Vancourver myself and then also reconstruct the routing back to FRA all of which is becoming a little hard to find in J class 6 months out... And yes i know maybe i should have started a little earlier...

Looks like you can get this info from KVS...I plugged it an and it gave me 14,633:

[KVS Availability Tool 7.0.7/Diamond - Reference: Maximum Permitted Mileage [MPM]: PER-YVR/US]

         GI       M      5M     10M     15M     20M     25M     
MPM      PA   11707   12292   12877   13463   14048   14633

Useful for planning to know at least that the 25M number might be used. I did see some talk on FT that the T&Cs might have been updated re MPM but there wasn't general agreement about whether it was new or not.

 

[casanovawa]

Ok, thanks for that BC World..... And what does the 25M number mean, what is 25M??? And would this figure be one that every airlines uses or is it US Air specific at all??? Sure be a help to know these types of figure when trying for long redemptions to not waste so much time and effort!!!! Maybe i can see if a different supervisor will give me a different answer, but the notes are probably all on this redemption now so whether every supervisor would just stick to the rules or what i have been told, but sheeesh the 300 miles things seemed so piddly to hang the whole thing up on...

And does KVS need a subscription?

 

[bcworld]

Ok, thanks for that BC World..... And what does the 25M number mean, what is 25M???

Well if you look at the numbers you'll see they're just simple multiples...25M = M x 1.25. So in fact, M = the maximum permitted mileage and seems like US lets you exceed that by 25%...which is why there probably isn't necessarily leniency due to 300 or so extra miles on top. I would say though that this stuff is probably more applicable to actual non award revenue fares where it might be used to determine what can be sold on a single ticket - so it shouldn't necessarily be applied to awards - but it would be an easy way for an airline to try and weed out outlandish itineraries rather than leaving it to agents geography skills. 25M is probably reasonably generous in that case.

Yes KVS has a cost. You could get the same info from Expertflyer for possibly a lesser fee by the month and just stop your subscription once you're done planning. There may also be free sources of this info, dunno.

 

[casanovawa]

I think last year i took out an expert flyer membership on like a 5 or 7 day free trial period... Maybe i will just do that again... Then try to figure out where on earth in the site or program you find this info...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Does anyone know where or if the MPM amounts are from US Air??? I spent 3.5 friggin hours on skype to them the other night trying to put on hold a redemption from Perth to Vancouver then coming back through Europe.... Talk about going round in circles, i admit i was trying to push the envelope a little, but by the end of it i had gotten all the flights sorted cept one return leg from FRA-BKK which we put in Y, as i needed some sleep by then, and i said i would look at options and call back last night to sort out...

So call back last night, i look at the options and all, find one and everything looks fine and sorted, i finally ask the lady what the taxes would be and she sends off to the rate desk only to come back to be told that it breaks the MPM and the whole itinerary will have to sorted from scratch!!! This was the first of 3 skypes calls i made last night, all of which dropped out after 30 minutes, 10 minutes or so and then 2 minutes, after which i had had enough for one night and had to find a replacement for the mouse that received a bit of rough treatment in my frustration!!!

On the second phone call i did find out, before it dropped out, that the MPM PER-YVR that US Air would allow was 14,600 something (14,632??) and when i went and plugged the routing i had agreed on (which the guy on monday night had shown to several supervisors!!!) in Great Circle Mapper it came to 14,900 soemthing... So a whopping 300 miles out on a 14,000+ mile itinerary...

Anyway i will call back tonight and try to resolve again and most likely will ask to have it elevated to a supervisor or their help desk to see if 300 miles is realllllly that friggin important (seems i need Shaynee's persuasive powers!!) but in the mean time before i waste several more hours of my time, being in the know of the MPM figures would be helpful... Last resort is to just drop the final leg from YUL to YVR, but just means i have to pay more to then book flights over to Vancourver myself and then also reconstruct the routing back to FRA all of which is becoming a little hard to find in J class 6 months out... And yes i know maybe i should have started a little earlier...

MPM is the maximum permitted mileage - so exceeding it by 300 miles is not going to be allowed. You say you are pushing out the envelope... most likely they have now put a note in your booking so it won't really matter who you call you may get the same answer.

MPM really means you are at the limits. You could get to YVR without exceeding the mileage with some great options like SQ then OZ F (to LAX/SFO or ORD) then up to YVR. If they allowed you the extra 300, they may not allow you a stopover (must be on most direct route for example).

I don't think you need anyone's persuasive powers - it doesn't give good results in the long run. I'm not sure where the sense of entitlement is coming from. I'm guessing you are frustrated with the calls dropping out. I never use skype to call the USA - I have a calling card - .5c per minute. Perfect quality.

 

[casanovawa]

The route i have in the system is PER-BKK-ZRH-YUL (Montreal)-YVR...

Short of going across the Pacific (for which there isn't much J), that is about as direct as it gets heading out of Perth with the contraints we have of only SQ, TG and whatever SAAs code is... I could fly PER to SIN but then are constrained by SQs extreme lack of availability in J... Even when i have found a regional J showing availability on ANA to FCO they say they can't see it!

The two little bits of pushing i did initially was to try for TG A380 to CDG (no FRA was available on the dates around what i was looking) and then LX CDG-ZRH just so i got to try TG's A380 but that ran afoul firstly of a 5 leg outbound rule and then would have run further afoul of MPM... On the way back i thought it worth a shot to see if i could stop in Moscow as a stopover but ran afoul of the no *A hub rule... Neither of the little pushes was like trying to re-route via Antartica of something crazy...

I imagine they realise how hard it is to get from PER to plenty of places because of our distance by me only falling 300 miles short of their MPM which is pretty piddly on nearly a 15000 mile routing... The fact is if there was an easy way to find out what their MPM is i could have factored that into my planning rather than it be passed off by multiple operators and supervisors before falling over at the final hurdle...

And yes i was joking about Shaynee...

 

[bcworld]

I imagine they realise how hard it is to get from PER to plenty of places because of our distance by me only falling 300 miles short of their MPM which is pretty piddly on nearly a 15000 mile routing... The fact is if there was an easy way to find out what their MPM is i could have factored that into my planning rather than it be passed off by multiple operators and supervisors before falling over at the final hurdle...

And yes i was joking about Shaynee...

I know what you're saying but I don't know any airline that provides any sort of MPM lookup, nor their application of the rules around it - it would just confuse the hell out of most people. It surely doesn't often come into play (if they do allow 25% over), unless people are pushing the envelope...and unfortunately the rates desk are probably the people who understand this best and will have the final say on what's allowed - they are probably ultimately responsible for the cost of itineraries they allow. So if you've got an envelope pushing itin you just have to accept that. PERs relative isolation isn't really their problem. People often complain that they can't possibly get between two cities in 4 segments or less - again that isn't really USDM's problem...in the real world too they might be forced to buy that itin as 2 tickets due to MPM or whatever.

edit: and I'm sure some do get away with it...the recent redemption we had reported of SYD to LAX via JNB & Europe was so far in excess of 25M that it was ridiculous!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The route i have in the system is PER-BKK-ZRH-YUL (Montreal)-YVR...

Short of going across the Pacific (for which there isn't much J), that is about as direct as it gets heading out of Perth with the contraints we have of only SQ, TG and whatever SAAs code is... I could fly PER to SIN but then are constrained by SQs extreme lack of availability in J... Even when i have found a regional J showing availability on ANA to FCO they say they can't see it!

The two little bits of pushing i did initially was to try for TG A380 to CDG (no FRA was available on the dates around what i was looking) and then LX CDG-ZRH just so i got to try TG's A380 but that ran afoul firstly of a 5 leg outbound rule and then would have run further afoul of MPM... On the way back i thought it worth a shot to see if i could stop in Moscow as a stopover but ran afoul of the no *A hub rule... Neither of the little pushes was like trying to re-route via Antartica of something crazy...

I imagine they realise how hard it is to get from PER to plenty of places because of our distance by me only falling 300 miles short of their MPM which is pretty piddly on nearly a 15000 mile routing... The fact is if there was an easy way to find out what their MPM is i could have factored that into my planning rather than it be passed off by multiple operators and supervisors before falling over at the final hurdle...

And yes i was joking about Shaynee...

Unfortunately all of those rules are mentioned in the membership guide or have been discussed extensively. Generally it's 4+4 segments, and stopovers only in star hub cities or US gateways. I just did some checking on great circle mapper and even a simple routing PER-BKK-ICN-LAX-YVE comes in over 12500 miles so I can imagine pretty easy to exceed MPM. But there are routings out there.