August 3, 2010

Many awards booking/searching for the past few days including 3 LH A380 business/TK 77W

I did quite few award bookings for the past few days including

1 For a reader using 60K Delta miles from East coast to CTU, China this August with $123 in taxes on MU,CZ and DL, this did surprise some of my friend again. Of course, it’s a paid service.

2 For myself, my wife and my mother in law go to China in earlier September this year, 3 seats, business class, I did not make the booking yet, because I found availability on JL using AA miles almost open everyday, no rush.

3 For myself, my mom and my grandma to Europe in late September this year,  3 seats, business class on LH A380 , return on TK  B77W via NRT with stopover in Tokyo.BMI is very  strict on routing now,  it took me very long time to ticket these reservations.  For outbound, via FRA, there are three short haul intra Europe flights for same day connection and award seats are everywhere via ANA or LH website, but BMI could not see any seats, not even economy, nothing for all three flights,  I called several times,  in order to keep my A380 segment, I decide to stay overnight at FRA airport(next day afternoon connecting open) and call later to change.

Then for return via NRT, it’s getting even worse,  I am going to diff city after arriving in China, so I called BD to book my ticket first, once they put my final segment in, they had to check for routing because they never heard that city before. Then, they told me, it’s invalid routing, I have to pay Zone 2- Zone 8+Zone 8-Zone 8. Follow the hang up, call again rule, I called 2 more times, same thing, refuse to ticket unless pay point by point because it’s not published routing. I know it’s not gonna work, so I took different approach, I called forth time, instead of working my trip first, I let them do IST-NRT-PEK for my mom and grandma first, this time, they had no problem issuing a ticket with 18750 miles because they knew where PEK is and don’t need to check their “system”. Then I gave them my trip, they have no problem anymore:P

All three tickets cost me 112,500 BMI miles+2500 USD in taxes and fees, It’s expensive, but average $800 per ticket in business, it’s not bad at all.

4 Last one, I haven’t search very hard yet, but it should be easy, 1 seat for myself to go Europe in late August for 1 or 2 days, with plenty of routing possible, I am not worry to much.

A lot of work, but I am pretty  satisfied for what I have done.

Posted by Troy under American Airlines, Award redemption, BMI Diamond Club | 3 Comments to Read