Guaranteed family holiday for platinum

[grubbidok]

Hey guys, just looking to cash in this benefit for some flights for the family to Bali next Christmas and was wondering if anyone had had any experience.

I assume that I need to wait until the rewards are "open" online before I can book (currently availability only available until Nov 17), but the other question I had was around "benefit period" in the T&C. My reading is that if my Benefit Period is March 16-March 17, then my booking in Jan/Feb will count to that period, even if I make the booking for Dec 17-Jan 18??

 

[MarkD]

I booked family of 4 to LAX for Jan this year. It was booked and ticketed around June last year. I took advantage of a discount points redemption at the time. I think it needs to be at least 6 months out and the other thing is, there must be no available seats within 3 days of each flight, hence you really need to be flexible and accept that it could be anywhere +- 3 days of when you need to fly, as the condition states that the seats could be within that timeframe. Not ideal if booking holidays or planning on certain timeframes at your destination. You could try a good old fashioned dummy spit or sook to get the days you need as I did or just roll over and take it. Im still platinum for now, and have been pretty much since its inception (Bar dropping to Gold when my patterns changed) so cannot answer re the booking timeframe vs travel date inquiry.

 

[Ben6]

I went through this process and although it was a bit painful, I did get the booking finally completed. You do need to be min of 6 month out from the trip and as the prior reply stated, they check a window of +/- 3 days either side of your flying dates. I had to carefully explain this point as my operator tried to tell me that there was a 7 days window (correct) and that meant +/- 7 days (incorrect). My route was quite complicated as I was flying MEL-BRI-LAX-IAH which is a published VA route for about 60,000 points in Y but quite difficult to actually secure. My tactic was simply to wait until close to the 6 months out, when all reward seats were gone, then request your dates and there's no issue with getting your specific date. You can check when the seats get released and obviously book them yourself if seats are free but at a busy holiday time, I would expect them to all be snapped up, so it's actually smarter to wait for all the seats around your dates to be taken.

 

[grubbidok]

Thanks Ben6 - interesting strategy. I'm hoping that as our trip is a bog-standard SYD-DPS it shouldn't be too much hassle (and we have flexibility for a few days). Do you know if I book them in Feb if I will be able to try again for another trip in August (given my renewal date is March?). Trying to work out if the 1 booking per benefit period relates to when you booked or when you travel.

 

[Ben6]

I never tried to book another one but the T&C's state "one one itinerary per year". It is not clear whether that means one per calendar year, or one per membership year. I fancy that it may vary depending on the operator you strike.