US Air Award Travel

[Bootser]

Has anyone had any luck getting award travel on US Air at the Mileage Saver level.
I am looking for any positive responses. All my searches even at 330 days out come up empty, even with flexible travel dates.

 

[Whootie]

I just booked Phila to Barbados Feb 2nd (Sat) with a return flight from St. Maarten (Tues, Wed & Thurs were avail). These were mileage saver dates. I had to call in to book openjaw & was charged $15 per ticket plus taxes. This is the first time I was charged the $15 service fee. We have a timeshare in Barbados & there seemed to be good availability for mileage saver from Phl. I was unable to find anything else. I am also sitting on 2 travel vouchers from a cancun bump on USair from April of this year. I will not accept another bump again as these vouchers are the same code as FF tickets. Good luck to you!

 

[Dave M]

I have had excellent luck.

However, if you are trying for Hawaii or for Europe in the summer, you'll quite likely be disappointed. US makes precious few free seats available for those routings in peak season. It's too easy to fill planes with paying customers!

Give us some details as to when and where you want to travel and we can probably be of more help.

 

[caribbean]

I have booked into several different Caribben locations over the last 4-5 years with no trouble. But, I almost always book the first day or two the window opens up. Sometimes have to fly out of another close airport with more availability. But I have always been able to find something. Key is to doing it day one. When I am compulsive I will even go online right a midnight.

 

[Sandy]

I had horrible luck recently trying to get to DR in March. I called exactly 330 days out, at midnight. They told me there were no seats!

I tried again in the next few days and weeks, finally giving up.

So disappointing, as this was my first real effort to get free seats!

 

[pjrose]

you can get FF seats 2-3 months before if you're persistent

I don't know about USAir, as I always use American, BUT I never get my act together to do it in advance. I usually check about 3-4 months early, and almost always get frequent flier seats to Cancun after checking for a few weeks. I don't have to spend extra miles, and get them at the lowest mileage rate. So don't give up if you don't get the seats 330 days out, you may be able to get them closer to your travel date if the airline has unsold seats.

 

[grest]

I haven't had much luck with that either...bit the bullet and bought more mile-costly airfare during the Christmas holidays.
Connie

 

[Bootser]

Thanks for the comments to date.
Most of my FF travel is done with American, but I did do an Oct 04 to Europe with US Air. Within the last year I have spot checked for various availability to Carribean, Europe and Hawaii at the 330 date (mainly to manage my FF mileage with various airlines to plan for various future travel.). I have done random checks over a cross section of seasons i.e. April, May, Sept, Oct Dec - Mar. And at least on the web, there is virtually no availability, weekends or weekdays. So, am I missing something. Do I need to call in to check availability. I realize these things go fast, but I can not believe they would all be gone even in slow periods and weekdays.
Another question: Lets say you are going to travel Fri to Fri. If I am not mistaken, US Air will only hold for 3 days. So if you call in to book the outbound to hold, you will loose your reservation before the return is open. How do you manage this?

 

[tompk]

ff on us air at saver level

i recently booked an 8 day trip to cancun for first week of next march, sunday to monday, using us air miles. Going is on us air and return is on united. Only 30k miles for roundtrip which i thought was excellent as i thought by flying one leg on United it might be 35K. I find much better availability on United.

 

[Dave M]

I have done random checks over a cross section of seasons i.e. April, May, Sept, Oct Dec - Mar. And at least on the web, there is virtually no availability, weekends or weekdays. So, am I missing something. Do I need to call in to check availability.

I just did a single sample search for Philadelphia-London (Gatwick). Using the US Airways online award booking "calendar" feature, which shows availability for six weeks at a time, I found that almost every day - weekdays and weekends - from mid January through mid February has availability, not just for Saver seats, but for the "Offpeak Saver" seats that cost only 35,000 FF miles!

 

[scotlass]

USAir partners

I have booked July 2008 (and previously July 2007) through USAir for our trip to the UK/Ireland from Boston. Both times I called for flights and got them on Air Canada through Star Alliance. USAirways had nothing. Our flights for next summer are very inconvenient as we have to fly to Toronto first, and then to Dublin. Since our final destination is Shannon, we also have to pay for that leg. However, at the end of the trip, I figure we have about $1500 left in our pockets for our inconvenience. To us, it's worth it to be able to go every year. I found that it wasn't quite 330 days out. However, I had a nice agent who let me hold the outbound flight until the return was available 2 weeks later. Not sure he was supposed to do that, but it worked.

 

[Bootser]

Dave
You have made a good point.
There appears to more availabiltiy out of the hubs, Philly and Charlotte. I am originating in KC which pretty much kills the availability. In addition there are not really any closer options to fly from. In addition I think I need to weigh overnighting in a hub against the inconvenience and the savings.

 

[Bootser]

Another question: Lets say you are going to travel Fri to Fri. If I am not mistaken, US Air will only hold for 3 days. So if you call in to book the outbound to hold, you will loose your reservation before the return is open. How do you manage this?

Thanks for the help on the previous posts.
I am still wondering how most people deal with the fact that you can only hold US Air reservations for 3 days. Some of my experience with the high demand travel dates is that the FF seats go in a hurry. So, if you book the outbound when it is available and put it on hold, you have to release the tickets before the return becomes available. Is this a problem for anyone else?

 

[Dave M]

As I suggested earlier, give us some details (where and when) and we might be able to help. On some routes, you'll do fine by waiting until dates open up for your return flights. On others, you might have to book a dummy return (e.g., three days after you depart) and then pay the fee to change your ticket when the return flights for the date you want to return open up. For some destinations (e.g., for several European cities), most high-season dates except Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually blacked out. For still other itineraries, you're better off asking US to book you on one of its partner airlines.

 

[falmouth3]

Last year I got a first class ticket to Maui from Boston on US. I booked the ticket about 2-3 months before the trip, which was over Labor Day week. I noticed that I couldn't get a coach seat at the saver mile rate, but the first class ticket was fewer miles, using saver than getting coach at non-saver. Of course for this to work, you need to have enough miles. Also, I just booked one ticket and paid for the other.

Sue

 

[scotlass]

As I mentioned above, I was able to get the agent to hold my tickets for the two weeks after booking the outbound flight. You can always just ask and tell them when you are returning. I agree about asking for the partner airlines as we have had better luck that way.

 

[JoeMid]

Has anyone had any luck getting award travel on US Air at the Mileage Saver level.
I am looking for any positive responses. All my searches even at 330 days out come up empty, even with flexible travel dates.

I've found USAir to be different from say UA or AA as to how/when they make FF seats available. US does not do it at the the magic 330 days, as alluded to in other posts, they wait and see where they're not selling out and then make seats available. This makes it very hard to 'be there' when they put FF seats into inventory.

I gave up on US for summer to Europe and booked with Star Alliance.

 

[artdorko]

Dave
You have made a good point.
There appears to more availabiltiy out of the hubs, Philly and Charlotte. I am originating in KC which pretty much kills the availability. In addition there are not really any closer options to fly from. In addition I think I need to weigh overnighting in a hub against the inconvenience and the savings.

We book out of MCI also, usually to Aruba, & have never had problem booking using FF miles. We usually book 5-6 months out & super savers are still sometimes available on Tue-Wed. flights. In 2007 we flew out on Tues & back on Saturday for 45,000 miles in January. There are more flights on Sat, which makes the booking easier, but also more costly. Fridays are almost impossible on US. I called US before our 2006 trip & whined my way into a Friday booking, but it was like pulling teeth. We aren't preferred, so we don't get any special priviledges. That's ok, though, I'm happy with a relatively free seat on a plane to paradise.

For next year's trip (January, 2009) we are planning to go to St. Maarten, trading into the Divi property. We own at Divi in Aruba. We'll see how it goes with the miles. At least with a timeshare, we know far enough in advance that we can check every day for openings.

 

[Bootser]

I realize this is an old thread, but I am again feeling like complaining that it is next to impossible to find the availability of the Saver FF awards on US Air.

As I suggested earlier, give us some details (where and when) and we might be able to help. On some routes, you'll do fine by waiting until dates open up for your return flights. On others, you might have to book a dummy return (e.g., three days after you depart) and then pay the fee to change your ticket when the return flights for the date you want to return open up. For some destinations (e.g., for several European cities), most high-season dates except Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually blacked out. For still other itineraries, you're better off asking US to book you on one of its partner airlines.

My specifics are:
Anytime from MCI (Kansas City) to London (LGW) in June, July, Aug. Sept, Oct.
I am not seeing a single seat for the Saver level. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Dave M]

No you aren't doing anything wrong. However, summer to London is a tough award to snag, especially on US. You'll likely do better on one of US' partner airlines, such as UA.

Try calling US and asking for help, including having them do a search of partner availability for some of your dates. If you can fly midweek, you'll likely have a better chance of success.

 

[x3 skier]

No you aren't doing anything wrong. However, summer to London is a tough award to snag, especially on US. You'll likely do better on one of US' partner airlines, such as UA.

Try calling US and asking for help, including having them do a search of partner availability for some of your dates. If you can fly midweek, you'll likely have a better chance of success.

I always had good luck in the past by calling USAir if I can't get what I want on the Web Site. I either got USAir or one of their partners. Sometimes strange routings but always get the the end point. Might have changed with the addition of American West but it is definitely worth a try.

As an example on Delta, recently there were no Sky Saver Awards on the Web Site. Still, I booked a trip to London using Delta Miles at their lowest Business Class award level by calling the Sky Miles Desk. The Routing was DAY-DTW on NW, DTW-CDG-LHR on Air France.

Give the USAir Desk a call and see what happens.

Cheers

 

[1st Class]

I had a similar experience ...

trying to book a summer 2008 Hawaii flight exactly 330 days out. I, however, found seat availability online and foolishly thought I was successfully booking my flight. When I got to seat selection I was permitted to choose seats, but the website would not allow me to the complete the transaction. So, I called the 800 # and waited patiently for a rep to reply to my request. I was first told that the seats I requested were not available for FF miles (which you will see was simply not true). After asking the rep twice to please look for seat availability (which I was seeing online) and coming up empty, I asked for a "supervisor". That must have been the magic word because I now had assigned to me the very seats that I was told just moments before were unavailable. I spent more than 2 hours on the phone before my ticket situation was resolved. I would not have been so persistent if the website had not clearly shown plenty of availability. I suggest you try again to find a rep and a supervisor who will work with you to secure the seats you need. Good luck!