US Dividend Miles - Oneworld Award Booking Questions and General Discussion

[Wozz]

what was the feedback on the unsuccessful calls?

I got dropped off twice whilst they put me on hold.

On the 3rd successful call, the agent actually suggested the direct NRT-TPE flight at first but I told him that I would prefer to travel in F so won't mind transiting in HKG. He just put that through without questioning.

The booking on USDM website actually looks quite clean as the agent grouped the HND-HKG-TPE as one group of booking under the same header, whilst he grouped the return HKG-NRT-SYD as another group.

I might just have been very lucky but the agents didn't really question the routing at all. The third agent put me on hold to get pricing at the end and he came back with 240k miles per px originally, but when I questioned and referred to the chart saying that it should be 120k each, he went away to check and came back confirming it is indeed 120k per px plus 499 tax in total for 2

 

[boomy]

You are lucky Wozz! The US agents I get still can't find any availability it JL F to/from SYD, although there is plenty shown on JAL.
They all tell me JAL didn't release any award seats to US yet on this route

 

[MEL_Traveller]

How does the gift thing work?

gifting is no different than buying. Under 'gifting' you are buying miles for someone else at 100% bonus (3.5c per mile base price).

Sharing is the good one - that allows you to give your existing miles to someone else for 1c, but they are doubled.

 

[Wozz]

You are lucky Wozz! The US agents I get still can't find any availability it JL F to/from SYD, although there is plenty shown on JAL.
They all tell me JAL didn't release any award seats to US yet on this route

Did you try searching them on BA instead? I did my research on BA and it showed all the correct JL availability

 

[boomy]

Did you try searching them on BA instead? I did my research on BA and it showed all the correct JL availability

Thing is, they say no availably at all on this route. I only HUACA once so maybe got some bad agents but still very strange.
I also called AA and they see what JAL show. Problem is it's 60K each way
QF charge 114K each way with plenty availability but also not a very good deal.

 

[anat0l]

Did you try searching them on BA instead? I did my research on BA and it showed all the correct JL availability

Thing is, they say no availably at all on this route. I only HUACA once so maybe got some bad agents but still very strange.
I also called AA and they see what JAL show. Problem is it's 60K each way
QF charge 114K each way with plenty availability but also not a very good deal.

I'd be tempted to check again with US DM. I've looked at the BA website at the route for F availability for a random date during the relevant season, and notwithstanding it can easily vary due to travel demand, I can see F availability up the ying-yang it's not funny.

 

[boomy]

I'd be tempted to check again with US DM. I've looked at the BA website at the route for F availability for a random date during the relevant season, and notwithstanding it can easily vary due to travel demand, I can see F availability up the ying-yang it's not funny.

Enough to look at JAL and see 4 seats almost every day to understand something is wrong with the US system. Also AA and QF see it all just the US agents I got say there are no F seats on offer at all on this route.
I got the same reply when I called a few days ago. I will try again tomorrow, not worried about availably at this stage, just a bit of a hassle dealing with it.
At least it's minimum waiting time on the phone these days if I'm looking for one positive outcome since the move to OW

 

[anat0l]

Enough to look at JAL and see 4 seats almost every day to understand something is wrong with the US system. Also AA and QF see it all just the US agents I got say there are no F seats on offer at all on this route.
I got the same reply when I called a few days ago. I will try again tomorrow, not worried about availably at this stage, just a bit of a hassle dealing with it.
At least it's minimum waiting time on the phone these days if I'm looking for one positive outcome since the move to OW

Definitely give it a go. I just got off the phone with them enquiring for another person who is contemplating a F redemption, and the agent could see it! We didn't end up ticketing, as I was just told to put the feelers out.

Don't forget that (at least to what information I have received), the space for JL F on this route appears only to be for start of December to end of March. I'm actually a bit more surprised that the availability has not thinned considerably faster, but there you go.

I never really had to wait for US DM reservations when the airline was still part of *A, except for that crazy snowstorm season.

 

[boomy]

Definitely give it a go. I just got off the phone with them enquiring for another person who is contemplating a F redemption, and the agent could see it! We didn't end up ticketing, as I was just told to put the feelers out.

Thanks! I will call again for sure.

Don't forget that (at least to what information I have received), the space for JL F on this route appears only to be for start of December to end of March. I'm actually a bit more surprised that the availability has not thinned considerably faster, but there you go.

I think people just don't know about the change. Even the QF agent I talked to was surprised to hear about that.
Looking at the poor availably on QF J I think JL will have no problem filling their award seats.

 

[boomy]

Ok, called again and got same answer. The agent said she can only see award availability on QF (in Y) but nothing on JL. I didn't give up this time and insisted that it doesn't make sense there is no availability at all. Then she checked again and said she can see availability for purchase and asked me to hold. 10 minutes later it was all sorted.
I think I was not assertive enough before and simply accepting what the agents said. I just hate to arguing with them but lucky I got a reasonable agent this time who managed to sort things out.

 

[anat0l]

Ok, called again and got same answer. The agent said she can only see award availability on QF (in Y) but nothing on JL. I didn't give up this time and insisted that it doesn't make sense there is no availability at all. Then she checked again and said she can see availability for purchase and asked me to hold. 10 minutes later it was all sorted.
I think I was not assertive enough before and simply accepting what the agents said. I just hate to arguing with them but lucky I got a reasonable agent this time who managed to sort things out.

JL availability overall is a bit quirky. There has been at least one suggested "workaround" to tell agents who claim they can't see a thing on JL - it is on FT and alluded to a couple of times here.

I wonder if that was the magic required in this case.

 

[tm.smile]

How does the gift thing work?

Another account buys the points for you as a gift. Essentially works the same as buy, difference is that you need to enter someone else's account number as well as yours during the process

 

[anat0l]

US DM (and AA, and possibly UA and AS too) Primer

• Buy Miles
  • Whose account is the payer? Your account
  • Where do the miles come from? US Dividend Miles (i.e. "fresh" miles)
  • Who gets the miles that are paid for? Your account

• Gift Miles
  • Whose account is the payer? Your account
  • Where do the miles come from? US Dividend Miles
  • Who gets the miles that are paid for? Another account

• Share Miles
  • Whose account is the payer? Your account
  • Where do the miles come from? Your account (i.e. your miles balance will decrease as a result)
  • Who gets the miles that are paid for? Another account

As tm.smile said, Buy and Gift are subtly the same. Share Miles is like Family Transfer in QF and VA, but the difference here is that you must pay for the "transfer" of miles; the upshot is that sometimes there is a promotion where bonus miles are awarded to the recipient of Share Miles.

 

[anna2103]

SOrry for the dumb question but what is HUACA

 

[bcworld]

SOrry for the dumb question but what is HUACA

Hang Up And Call Again.

 

[k_sheep]

Another daft question - when looking on expertflyer, what fare class are we looking for? For J and F

 

[bcworld]

Another daft question - when looking on expertflyer, what fare class are we looking for? For J and F

It varies.

Award Booking Codes (AA) - FlyerGuide

Typically Z for First and U for Business.

 

[Kangol]

JL availability overall is a bit quirky. There has been at least one suggested "workaround" to tell agents who claim they can't see a thing on JL - it is on FT and alluded to a couple of times here.

I wonder if that was the magic required in this case.

What workaround is this? Something about a long sell?

 

[anat0l]

What workaround is this? Something about a long sell?

According to Flyertalk:

JL : US Rep cannot find available seats. Workaround: "Always have to remind Rep to open JL reservations on a new screen".

Of course, when directing agents like this, you need to be careful. No one likes to be told directly how to do their jobs, and the best way to not get what you want is to annoy the agent.

 

[baggyred]

How strict are USDM with the 24 hour transit rule? I'm looking at a potential connection that is 24 hours and 10 minutes. To be honest, I'd probably not even bother with the transit if I could go straight through - but 10 minutes doesn't work...

Also - anyone else finding issues with using BA.com to find Qatar flights? I have a number of dates for next year where it shows on the Qantas tool, but not BA