First Asiamiles award booking

[tizey]

In my experience with Krisflyer (SQ) program, I've sometimes had issue with the final stage of booking an award ticket - being the payment processing. I've had it on numerous times crash and throw up errors that result in me having to call to finalise payment.

Is booking an award with Asiamiles ''foolproof" in the sense that the process online is solid/stable/easy to finalise, or am I best to try and book over the phone?

Reason I ask is I will be in Japan when a particular award flight opens up, and being in peak travel (school holidays), I want to be prepared so I'm not scrambling if it crashes.

Would love to know how people went booking their first Asiamiles award and if anything unusual occurred.

 

[Mattg]

I'm not aware of any consistent problems with booking CX awards online like there is with QF or SQ (provided you're booking with a partner airline for which online bookings are available). But I guess there's never a 100% guarantee everything will go through flawlessly.

 

[tizey]

Sounds good, thanks for the heads up. It's a CX award - seems they release a whole lot more seats for Asiamiles members than they do for CX partners... Cant see all options that are on Asiamiles on QFF

 

[tizey]

Info for the next guy that reads this.. found out that AM use two factor authentication to change redemption group members. Somehow their system stuffed up and the ensuite came through after 14hrs... So glad I wasn't trying to do this the morning of flights opening up.

My original plans changed, and now booked jfk-hkg-mek in J to round out our adjusted honeymoon. Amazing availablity in Asiamiles... Flights not available via aa or qff.

 

[LadyC]

Amazing availablity in Asiamiles... Flights not available via aa or qff.

Whilst I don't have aa, that has also been my experience comparing between QFF and AM

 

[coriander]

I'm starting to look for availability for Asia Miles award redemption to ZRH next year.
I understand awards open at day T-360 but what time? 0000h HKG Time (=0200h AuEST)?
Messing about with the booking engine, I think I see I have to do multi-city for MEL-HKG--ZRH. Is that correct?
Is there a facility to hold a booking whilst Ascent points are transferred from Amex to AMs?
(I'm cashed up with Ascent points thanks to Amex Explorer but prefer to leave them "warehoused" in Amex rather than committing early to AM in case I don't get flights I need).

 

[tizey]

I'm starting to look for availability for Asia Miles award redemption to ZRH next year.
I understand awards open at day T-360 but what time? 0000h HKG Time (=0200h AuEST)?
Messing about with the booking engine, I think I see I have to do multi-city for MEL-HKG--ZRH. Is that correct?
Is there a facility to hold a booking whilst Ascent points are transferred from Amex to AMs?
(I'm cashed up with Ascent points thanks to Amex Explorer but prefer to leave them "warehoused" in Amex rather than committing early to AM in case I don't get flights I need).

I thought it was 11am AEST that they opened up.. its been a few months since I was searching. Ended up burning my AM miles NYC-HKG-MEL on last second flights due to changed plans, rather than being 360 days out.

I do also believe that they have an award 'hold' procedure, but its via the phone and you're at the mercy of the operator. I remember reading somewhere they will only do it if you have >50% of the miles in your account?

I've searched the route in question before using AM and QF - it seems AM will open up more connections to HKG than QF will, but in saying that, I've got 3 flights ZRH-HKG-MEL booked on CX using QFF.. so availability seems pretty good in general - if you're early (which you are).

 

[coriander]

Thanks, I'm looking at both AM and QF website and see more availability on AM (I'm also watching SQ as well) - the beauty of Ascent as a warehouse. I'll see how my schmoozing abilities are next week when the flights I want open up.

 

[tizey]

SQ will have considerably lower taxes than CX... as a reference (booked in last 2 months):

MEL-SIN-ZRH SQ J we're paying ~$90 AUD taxes each with SQ via KF... but 105k KF Miles
ZRH-HKG-MEL CX J we're paying ~$290 AUD taxes each with CX via QF... and 139k QF Points (or 85k AM I believe is the pricing).

SQ advantage for me is the A380 J on the long leg SIN-ZRH. Despite it being old, its a HUGE, WIDE seat. The CX J seat Mrs tizey refers to it as a coffin and really hates it as its narrow, confined and angled inward, whereas the SQ is wide, open & forward facing.

 

[coriander]

MEL-SIN-ZRH SQ J we're paying ~$90 AUD taxes each with SQ via KF... but 105k KF Miles
ZRH-HKG-MEL CX J we're paying ~$290 AUD taxes each with CX via QF... and 139k QF Points (or 85k AM I believe is the pricing).

Just looked at
They've gone up a bit.....
SQ MEL-SIN-ZRH in J - 105,000 (saver)/150,000 (advantage) miles plus $91 taxes
CX MEL-HKG-ZRH in J 45,000+70,000 = 115,000 Asia Miles plus $260 taxes (can't do MEL-ZRH in one booking, did MEL-HKG-ZRH).
Still, I'll try CX at T-360, then SQ at T-355 and see how I go.

 

[BriarFlyer]

Asia Miles revaluation comes into effect tomorrow and one-way to Europe should drop to 85K. I've held off booking, taking a risk if the flight I want is no longer available, but I have Singapore as a backup.