simongr
Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2006
- Posts
- 14,307
Hi all
Just thinking about next year's trips and whether mrssimongr can come along on a RTW flight with me. The trip will be in roughly late september/early october and likely travel will be: SYD-JFK-LHR-LCA-LHR-SYD. I am not too bothered about the routing in between - although we would like to avoid too complex a route as mrssimongr doesnt really enjoy flying. I will be flying on DONE4 in J so the award will need to be in J for her. I just did a very quick scan of the AA website for an award SYD-LAX in late september and nothing was showing. Is it really likely that there is no award availability nearly 10 months out on that route? I am not going to be able to book until next January in all likelihhod and am concerned that there will be no way to make this work. I know that AA only calculate points required(or distance flown) based on the point-to-point distance. I have a horrible feeling that throwing in the LCA trip might put us into the bracket of needing an extra 40K points (a 190K point award).
When it comes to booking - I am best to call the platinum desk at AA and get them to arrange it for me? is there a points penalty for this?
Also - given the lack of stability of my business my DONE4 could get canned at the last minute. If I cancel the booking late in 2007 is there a points penalty for cancellations? I am not too worried about that. Up to about a 25K loss would be acceptable to me - if I could book it early and let it fall out if not needed i wouldnt mind burning 25K points (if the trip doesnt go ahead then by Dec 2007 I will have 350K points)
I know this has been asked a lot (and I should have searched again) but is there is an easy way to track award availability rather than calling AA daily? Is frequent flyer friend useful?
Cheers
S
Edit
Ok just checked on expertflyer and it seems that U is the business award class. A cursory review based on that class has zero availability SYD-LAX but there is some SYD-BNE-LAX.
Just thinking out loud but I guess I could keep the miles down by paying for a J seat for LHR-LCA-LHR for mrssimongr and using my DONE4 for me - or trying for an award seat for part of that segment for her. Maybe once I have more points I could cancel the paid ticket if there is award availability...
Just thinking about next year's trips and whether mrssimongr can come along on a RTW flight with me. The trip will be in roughly late september/early october and likely travel will be: SYD-JFK-LHR-LCA-LHR-SYD. I am not too bothered about the routing in between - although we would like to avoid too complex a route as mrssimongr doesnt really enjoy flying. I will be flying on DONE4 in J so the award will need to be in J for her. I just did a very quick scan of the AA website for an award SYD-LAX in late september and nothing was showing. Is it really likely that there is no award availability nearly 10 months out on that route? I am not going to be able to book until next January in all likelihhod and am concerned that there will be no way to make this work. I know that AA only calculate points required(or distance flown) based on the point-to-point distance. I have a horrible feeling that throwing in the LCA trip might put us into the bracket of needing an extra 40K points (a 190K point award).
When it comes to booking - I am best to call the platinum desk at AA and get them to arrange it for me? is there a points penalty for this?
Also - given the lack of stability of my business my DONE4 could get canned at the last minute. If I cancel the booking late in 2007 is there a points penalty for cancellations? I am not too worried about that. Up to about a 25K loss would be acceptable to me - if I could book it early and let it fall out if not needed i wouldnt mind burning 25K points (if the trip doesnt go ahead then by Dec 2007 I will have 350K points)
I know this has been asked a lot (and I should have searched again) but is there is an easy way to track award availability rather than calling AA daily? Is frequent flyer friend useful?
Cheers
S
Edit
Ok just checked on expertflyer and it seems that U is the business award class. A cursory review based on that class has zero availability SYD-LAX but there is some SYD-BNE-LAX.
Just thinking out loud but I guess I could keep the miles down by paying for a J seat for LHR-LCA-LHR for mrssimongr and using my DONE4 for me - or trying for an award seat for part of that segment for her. Maybe once I have more points I could cancel the paid ticket if there is award availability...
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