US Dividend Miles - post your SUCCESSFUL award bookings here.

[casanovawa]

No probs NDiddy...

 

[trooper]

Welll.. I'm just staggered!
:mrgreen:

I've followed this thread from the start, and been impressed with the trips others have booked.. Picked up the phone tonight to book the itin I'd pieced together using the ANA tool.... less than 30 minutes later all (apparently) done and dusted.... the US agent was friendly and helpful... but actually couldn't provide any extra assistance because everything fell into place (ie the ANA tool works!)

Barring any last minute hiccoughs/system problems we will be flying:


(All J)

SYD-BKK TG
BKK-ICN OZ
ICN-SFO OZ (4x Smartypants)
SFO-ORD UA

DEN-YVR UA
YVR-NRT AC
NRT-PEK NH
PEK-SYD CA (new flat beds supposedly)

110,00 miles and $208


Unbelievable.....

EDIT: OK, now what do I do? :shock::mrgreen: I expected to be on hold for ages... then get an agent who couldn't/wouldn't make it work... who had to seek advice from higher up etc etc... I thought this evening would be a write off! Let's see... I DO have all that duty free.....

 

[MEL_Traveller]

EDIT: OK, now what do I do? :shock::mrgreen: I expected to be on hold for ages... then get an agent who couldn't/wouldn't make it work... who had to seek advice from higher up etc etc... I thought this evening would be a write off! Let's see... I DO have all that duty free.....

actually this is the norm... you are doing a fairly straight forward routing to the USA (US knows availability on the direct services of UA is almost impossible).

what people have difficulty with is trying to push the envelope and get more than 8 segments, or, if we take your itinerary as an example, fly something crazy like SYD-BKK-NRT-ICN-SFO-ORD - for no other reason than to get the extra segment BKK-NRT to get another glass of champagne.

my experience matches yours - simple flights, simple routings and all done in a few minutes.

 

[trooper]

Makes a lot of sense that... Of course I still find it hard to see 8 segments as all that simple! Intellectually maybe.. but not deep down....

I thought the YVR-NRT-PEK-SYD might have been pushing a little... but of course from NRT there are no direct *A options AFAIK.. I sure never found anything much simpler than what I booked...

Great experience so far.... MMB on the US website has them all listed as Class: Unknown (I) which I presume is also unremarkable..

Seat allocations listed for all but the OZ and CA flights...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Makes a lot of sense that... Of course I still find it hard to see 8 segments as all that simple! Intellectually maybe.. but not deep down....

I thought the YVR-NRT-PEK-SYD might have been pushing a little... but of course from NRT there are no direct *A options AFAIK.. I sure never found anything much simpler than what I booked...

Great experience so far.... MMB on the US website has them all listed as Class: Unknown (I) which I presume is also unremarkable..

Seat allocations listed for all but the OZ and CA flights...

yes - they will all say class unknown.

if you haven't already done so, get the ticket number form US airways and ring each individual airline. when you select seats ask them if they have the ticket number associated with the booking. You should do this fairly soon (if you haven't already especially as CA requires instant ticketing... any problems and they'll cancel the segment and you won't know!)

 

[trooper]

I might actually be OK with CA... I was wrong.. there is a seat allocation for that flight... Still going to call though.. thanks!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

I might actually be OK with CA... I was wrong.. there is a seat allocation for that flight... Still going to call though.. thanks!

seat allocation and even the PNR means little. A PNR can exist even though the reservation is cancelled (and it will continue to exist for several days after the flight).

It is very important to call to confirm each airline has the ticket number. We have seen several times on FT where people have found their entire itinerary has been cancelled and not notified. Ticket number is king!

 

[winglets747]

Has anyone had much experience with US miles on ANZ flights Oz-AKL-Pacific islands? Some preliminary availability searches shows very little/no availability for the AKL-Pac island legs. I'm looking at everywhere ANZ flies - PPT, Fiji, Tonga etc.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Has anyone had much experience with US miles on ANZ flights Oz-AKL-Pacific islands? Some preliminary availability searches shows very little/no availability for the AKL-Pac island legs. I'm looking at everywhere ANZ flies - PPT, Fiji, Tonga etc.

Someone reported ok availability for these over on FT. There is also a direct SYD-RAR flight - don't know about availability on that though.

 

[trooper]

Hmmm.. rang CA in Sydney today... Agent couldn't do anything with the US (037) ticket number... but was able to find my name (and the same seat allocation) on the appropriate flights on her system...

Not sure what more I can do...

..Seat allocations have now appeared on the US MMB section for ALL flights...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hmmm.. rang CA in Sydney today... Agent couldn't do anything with the US (037) ticket number... but was able to find my name (and the same seat allocation) on the appropriate flights on her system...

Not sure what more I can do...

..Seat allocations have now appeared on the US MMB section for ALL flights...

If they were able to find your name on a particular flight then they must also be able to find the ticket number You simply have to ask - 'do you have a ticket number against this booking' - if they are not sure what you're talking about then you say 'it begins with 037'. (you are not asking them to 'do' anything per se)

Seat allocations mean little. Sometimes you change a seat allocation but the original seat still shows on US airways.

That being said - there haven't really been any reported problems with CA bookings. I have had problems with SQ (so has one of my friends). And some people have had problems with TG (but this seems to be around the current renumbering of flights from TG to Thai Smiles - but these are mainly regional flights exBKK).

The main thing you want to do with a ticket number is confirm the booking has been, well, ticketed! With CA's strict 'immediate ticketing' rule, if that ticket number isn't in there then the whole thing may not be good for travel (but unlikely )

 

[burmans]

Has anyone had much experience with US miles on ANZ flights Oz-AKL-Pacific islands? Some preliminary availability searches shows very little/no availability for the AKL-Pac island legs. I'm looking at everywhere ANZ flies - PPT, Fiji, Tonga etc.

Which class are you looking for, if J then yes you may have no luck but I have seen pretty reasonable availability in Y.

 

[trooper]

Thanks again for the advice and the benefit of your expereince.. it IS appreciated!

I might as well call again and just concentrate on that ticket number!!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Thanks again for the advice and the benefit of your expereince.. it IS appreciated!

I might as well call again and just concentrate on that ticket number!!

It will be there somewhere - they might have to look for it. I had the same problem when I called them in China - they came back and said 'we have no ticket number in here' followed about 1 minute later with 'no - we have no ticket number, just something beginning with 037'.

 

[winglets747]

Which class are you looking for, if J then yes you may have no luck but I have seen pretty reasonable availability in Y.

My recent searches (for travel in the short-term and long-term) could find Y and J availability Oz-NZ but none ex-NZ to any islands.

 

[arraitch]

My recent searches (for travel in the short-term and long-term) could find Y and J availability Oz-NZ but none ex-NZ to any islands.

I've recently been fiddling around with the UA (was CO) Award Flight Search for J seats and yes, there seems to be heaps of inventory for PER-AKL; virtually none for AKL-NOU (problem being Y only or codeshare?) or AKL-PPT, but not unreasonable availability in the medium and long term for AKL-NAN and AKL-RAR. I haven't looked at other destinations. There's rather less there for 2 seats than 1, and of course the proviso that UA inventory may not equate to US inventory.

 

[LuisT]

Just confirmed my booking to Montreal in July. Managed to book:

SYD-BKK(overnight layover)-PEK-YYZ-YUL//YUL-ORD-SEA-ICN-SYD

All in J except YUL-ORD. 110k points and $175 in taxes so pretty happy.

 

[NDiddy]

Just confirmed my booking to Montreal in July. Managed to book:

SYD-BKK(overnight layover)-PEK-YYZ-YUL//YUL-ORD-SEA-ICN-SYD

All in J except YUL-ORD. 110k points and $175 in taxes so pretty happy.

Great work LuisT. Glad you were able to sort out the routing to YUL. Are you flying Air China or Air Canada from PEK - YYZ?

 

[LuisT]

Great work LuisT. Glad you were able to sort out the routing to YUL. Are you flying Air China or Air Canada from PEK - YYZ?

Managed to get AC from PEK-YYZ. The other option available was UA via Dulles, but prefer to stick with AC...

Unfortunately the return ICN is pretty much the only day the A330 is scheduled, but hoping that will change between now and then!

 

[Alanslegal]

Just placed on hold for my girlfriend and her friend to go to London, with routing of:-

Outbound: SYD-xBKK-LHR with TG F

Inbound: LHR-xFRA-xICN-BKK (stop) with LH J, OZ F, TG J ... then BKK-SYD TG F

Taxes were $452.xx + service fee per person. Does this sound a bit too much? or did the LHR APD apply for the whole LHR-xFRA-ICN given the 2h 35m FRA transit.