US Dividend Miles - post your SUCCESSFUL award bookings here.

[ferni]

I just got off the phone from USDM and have now re-booked my tickets. After getting so close to booking completion last Friday and having our telephone call disconnect as I was providing our passport details, it took around 3.75days for the same seats to be re-released back into the award inventory pool.

My confirmed routing is a simple SYD-xBKK-LHR//SPU-xFRA-xBKK-SYD with 20hrs, 22hr and 13hr transits in BKK, FRA, BKK respectively. Taxes were $157.xx plus $50 booking fee.

You must have avoided the UK departure tax because your openjawed... good to know that works.

 

[Flashback]

You must have avoided the UK departure tax because your openjawed... good to know that works.

Makes sense. If you don't fly out of the UK how could you pay the APD?

 

[repete]

Well, with great delight and gratitude I get to post a booking on this thread! Thanks so much for the ideas, feedback and input from others. A bit over a week ago I managed to book for my parents the following trip:

SYD-BKK in Thai J
BKK-SIN-CPH in SQ J
CPH-VIE (stop) OS J
VIE-FRA-MLA (dest.) - MUC LH J
MUC-BKK-SYD Thai J

I'm stoked I could do this for mum and dad... for just over $2250 USD pp in points and just under $250 USD pp in taxes. A real treat for my parents!
Some bits of the booking were breathtakingly easy, other parts had me holding my breath for a bit of time (more details in other thread). But all in all, worked out well! Only pain is I've never done anything like this myself

 

[Flashback]

Well, with great delight and gratitude I get to post a booking on this thread! Thanks so much for the ideas, feedback and input from others. A bit over a week ago I managed to book for my parents the following trip:

SYD-BKK in Thai J
BKK-SIN-CPH in SQ J
CPH-VIE (stop) OS J
VIE-FRA-MLA (dest.) - MUC LH J
MUC-BKK-SYD Thai J

I'm stoked I could do this for mum and dad... for just over $2250 USD pp in points and just under $250 USD pp in taxes. A real treat for my parents!
Some bits of the booking were breathtakingly easy, other parts had me holding my breath for a bit of time (more details in other thread). But all in all, worked out well! Only pain is I've never done anything like this myself

Any reason you went the super long way to VIE rather than taking the nice new OS J cabin BKK-VIE?

 

[repete]

Any reason you went the super long way to VIE rather than taking the nice new OS J cabin BKK-VIE?

Ah, no...perhaps a rookies searching error (don't tell mum and dad it could have been quicker ? I was actually trying to find a quick way into vie but wasn't having any luck on the dates I was looking for (next april). This seemed the best I could do?

 

[Flashback]

Ah, no...perhaps a rookies searching error (don't tell mum and dad it could have been quicker ? I was actually trying to find a quick way into vie but wasn't having any luck on the dates I was looking for (next april). This seemed the best I could do?

Ah, fair enough! Thought you were one of those silly people who added extra legs in "just because I can" :mrgreen:

My parents ended up flying BKK-VIE (a very very late route change) and thought the soft/hard product was rather decent on OS.

 

[smit0847]

Any reason you went the super long way to VIE rather than taking the nice new OS J cabin BKK-VIE?

OS J and LX J are next on my 'really want to try' list.....

 

[bcworld]

Availability on OS J seems really poor now...when I booked it last December (for Sep 13 travel) for JFK-VIE-BKK I could get 2 seats on most days. Searching now into the future all I ever see is CS-.

 

[Flashback]

Availability on OS J seems really poor now...when I booked it last December (for Sep 13 travel) for JFK-VIE-BKK I could get 2 seats on most days. Searching now into the future all I ever see is CS-.

Drat! My parents were able to book last minute for a departure the next day and get 2 seats (this was back in May). Sounds like YMMV!

 

[wafliron]

OS J and LX J are next on my 'really want to try' list.....

Why would anything J be on anyone's "really want try to list", when F is just a few points more...?

 

[anat0l]

Why would anything J be on anyone's "really want try to list", when F is just a few points more...?

Well, OS has no F and LX F is near impossible to book now unless you book through Miles & More.

Sure there's TG F and OZ F, but after a while that tires (and doesn't get you to everywhere you want or need) and especially on Avianca J redemptions are more commonplace.

That said, the J class of OS, LX and SN are pretty similar, but it's a nice product to at least try.

 

[wafliron]

Well, OS has no F and LX F is near impossible to book now unless you book through Miles & More.

Sure there's TG F and OZ F, but after a while that tires (and doesn't get you to everywhere you want or need) and especially on Avianca J redemptions are more commonplace.

That said, the J class of OS, LX and SN are pretty similar, but it's a nice product to at least try.

I think you missed the smiley - tongue was firmly planted in cheek

 

[spudwa]

Well here are my two latest reports. My wife and one of her oldest friends have been talking about New York for 40 years and her friend was going to a medical conference in Toronto so she asked Mrs Spudwa if her magic miles could get them there in style. Anyway its great that someone finally believed us and bought some US Airways DM and using our good mate PointsPros it was all organised.
Mrs Spudwa's friend is from Adelaide and she scored a Singapore Airlines flight out of Adelaide and then a 1st cabin with Asiana from Seoul to Chicago. Sounds great but after the Krug and foie gras they lost her luggage. Meanwhile Mrs Spudwa had to overnight in Bangkok (going and coming) and she is over the Pacific in F with ANA as I type. I didn't receive the worst telephone call of my life so that means she managed the 55 minute transfer in Narita between Thai and ANA so if you have to do it... its doable

I'll update the trip report later

 

[burmans]

Availability on OS J seems really poor now...when I booked it last December (for Sep 13 travel) for JFK-VIE-BKK I could get 2 seats on most days. Searching now into the future all I ever see is CS-.

Well I'm really lucky then, I have 4 of us PRG-VIE-BKK next month!

 

[LondonMiles]

Looks like it travelislife. I really wanted to upgrade our Y ICN-BKK flight to J but was told I had to reticket the whole itin which I was uncomfortable doing, this was about a month or so ago. Then when I saw F availability on our outbound SYD-LAX I just wanted to try to see if they could upgrade that leg only.

Lady on the phone was extremely helpful and said she could do both and yes apparently no charge (can't see any amounts deducted from the cc either - from the available balance).

I think I have tried about 10 times now to get the class changed from I to O on a TG flight of a multi-leg, multi-airline booking where I have already paid the miles for F class. I continuously get told that the reservation must be cancelled and started again to do this (since the flights are with partners) which is obviously the new 'policy' but I am sure based on the above that there are ways round this.

I have tried telling them to manually reissue the ticket and just change the particular segment but they say they cannot do this, the system won't let them etc (even on referral to the rate desk).

Any tips on how to get this done...I assume people have been using the US phone number? Is there a particular US time when people have been getting more co-operative agents? The flight I'm trying to change is NRT-BKK on the A380 so I don't mind too much if I stay in C but would obviously prefer F if there was any chance of me getting it! By the way, the F space is definitely available per the usual ways of checking.

 

[NDiddy]

Any tips on how to get this done...I assume people have been using the US phone number? Is there a particular US time when people have been getting more co-operative agents?

Welcome to AFF LondonMiles. I can only really comment on my situation and to be fair I only tried twice with the second one being successful as per my pst. I just rang the normal US Airways number which would have been a Sunday afternoon somewhere between 2 - 4pm and went through to ticketing. I would normally recommend HUACA but looks like after 10 times it might have run it's course. Good luck though and hope you succeed.

 

[LondonMiles]

Welcome to AFF LondonMiles. I can only really comment on my situation and to be fair I only tried twice with the second one being successful as per my pst. I just rang the normal US Airways number which would have been a Sunday afternoon somewhere between 2 - 4pm and went through to ticketing. I would normally recommend HUACA but looks like after 10 times it might have run it's course. Good luck though and hope you succeed.

Thanks NDiddy. I think you are right that it may have run its course! HUACA becomes a pain especially with long wait times. To be fair I think I used up my luck when I made the original booking some months ago and it was a relatively painless process booking a Europe to NRT award with a stopover in BKK pricing at 100k in F (for most legs).

 

[NDiddy]

Thanks NDiddy. I think you are right that it may have run its course! HUACA becomes a pain especially with long wait times. To be fair I think I used up my luck when I made the original booking some months ago and it was a relatively painless process booking a Europe to NRT award with a stopover in BKK pricing at 100k in F (for most legs).

Well if you do have any luck make sure you let us know how you go

 

[LondonMiles]

Well if you do have any luck make sure you let us know how you go

It turns out I did get very lucky I decided to ring late evening US time and got through to somebody who (I thought) sounded fairly disinterested.

However the agent put me on hold straight away when I asked about changing the class of one of my segments to F (which was a good sign as usually they just say it's not allowed on partner flights) and when she came back she said her supervisor had made the change and that she had asked them to waive the change fee. I didn't even ask her to do this so obviously I was delighted, especially I was making this change for 2 tickets.

Thanks for showing it was possible otherwise I would never have bothered to persevere with it!

 

[NDiddy]

It turns out I did get very lucky I decided to ring late evening US time and got through to somebody who (I thought) sounded fairly disinterested.

However the agent put me on hold straight away when I asked about changing the class of one of my segments to F (which was a good sign as usually they just say it's not allowed on partner flights) and when she came back she said her supervisor had made the change and that she had asked them to waive the change fee. I didn't even ask her to do this so obviously I was delighted, especially I was making this change for 2 tickets.

Thanks for showing it was possible otherwise I would never have bothered to persevere with it!

Great work LondonMiles and well done for persisting. HUACA experience at it's finest