Travel Agents

[ChadnKate]

1 hour ago, LHT28 said:

If you are booking your own flights  then paying the deviation fee  is moot 

We always arrive a few days early and stay a few days after so If we used O Air we would have that fee. 

[ORV]

9 hours ago, ChadnKate said:

We always arrive a few days early and stay a few days after so If we used O Air we would have that fee. 

In another post you said you were OC Gold, which is 15 cruises, that gets the deviation fee waived. Just a consideration. 

[sunlover12]

 

13 hours ago, ChadnKate said:

Would if we could but usually, because we are doing biz-class reward flights, we grab them within 24 hours of them be available online. So the flight over is gotten weeks before the flight back.

Although this works fine for us, our hats are off to the Oceania travel department. Can't imagine trying to coordinate so many passengers needs and adjusting to the airlines' flight schedule changes.

 

We also book our flights business class using rewards miles if possible. On UA the round-trip reservation cannot be made until 10.5 months before the return flight home which makes the outgoing flight booking sooner than 10.5 months.  Maybe other airlines have fewer restrictions on that. I suppose it could be done if you purchase 2 one-way tickets when you say "the flight over is gotten weeks before the flight back".   Just wondering.....

Thanks.

[ChadnKate]

3 hours ago, sunlover12 said:

 

 

We also book our flights business class using rewards miles if possible. On UA the round-trip reservation cannot be made until 10.5 months before the return flight home which makes the outgoing flight booking sooner than 10.5 months.  Maybe other airlines have fewer restrictions on that. I suppose it could be done if you purchase 2 one-way tickets when you say "the flight over is gotten weeks before the flight back".   Just wondering.....

Thanks.

Yes. We do them separately. Never seen much if any savings doing round trip. Usually reward flights available 330 days in advance. 

[edgee]

On 9/11/2022 at 3:19 PM, ChadnKate said:

Yes. We do them separately. Never seen much if any savings doing round trip. Usually reward flights available 330 days in advance. 

For U.S. carriers round trip savings for reward tickets depends on the airline. AFAIK it never happens on UA or American, but it often does on Delta.

[FlyerTalker]

On 9/11/2022 at 8:25 AM, sunlover12 said:

On UA the round-trip reservation cannot be made until 10.5 months before the return flight home which makes the outgoing flight booking sooner than 10.5 months. 

 

You can book those flights within a 330 day window.  A bit less than 11 months.  However, that does require that the airline has chosen to load inventory into the award buckets.

 

On 9/11/2022 at 12:19 PM, ChadnKate said:

Yes. We do them separately. Never seen much if any savings doing round trip. Usually reward flights available 330 days in advance. 

 

In the past, airlines would dump all of their award inventory at the same time that the flight was loaded.  So that was the golden time to jump on a ticket.  However, airlines now use a dynamic allocation system for award tickets.  Some may be put into inventory at schedule release.  But far more gets put out there after some time has elapsed. And as the yield management has crunched more sales data - on an ongoing basis.

 

The simple rule is that an airline puts award seats into inventory when their revenue management systems say that it is unlikely for them to sell that seat as a revenue sale.  That can be at any time in that 330 day window.  So while you may find some inventory at 330, you are also likely to find it much closer to flight date.

 

And, some airlines have policies on when they make award seats available, both to their own FF members and to partners.  Lufthansa is notorious for holding back award seats until within 2 weeks of departure.  Singapore makes seats available to their own FF program that they don't release to partners.  And there is no singular rhyme or reason you can apply to all programs.

 

36 minutes ago, edgee said:

For U.S. carriers round trip savings for reward tickets depends on the airline. AFAIK it never happens on UA or American, but it often does on Delta.

 

Not so.  Airlines are more and more moving to dynamic pricing for award redemptions.  So flights are priced based on each direction.  There are some program anomalies with some foreign programs that give you a break for R/T travel (such as ANA and Asiana), but with the demise of award charts at UA, AA and DL, any difference you see is a function of the flights being chosen.

 

 

 

 

[edgee]

3 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

You can book those flights within a 330 day window.  A bit less than 11 months.  However, that does require that the airline has chosen to load inventory into the award buckets.

 

 

In the past, airlines would dump all of their award inventory at the same time that the flight was loaded.  So that was the golden time to jump on a ticket.  However, airlines now use a dynamic allocation system for award tickets.  Some may be put into inventory at schedule release.  But far more gets put out there after some time has elapsed. And as the yield management has crunched more sales data - on an ongoing basis.

 

The simple rule is that an airline puts award seats into inventory when their revenue management systems say that it is unlikely for them to sell that seat as a revenue sale.  That can be at any time in that 330 day window.  So while you may find some inventory at 330, you are also likely to find it much closer to flight date.

 

And, some airlines have policies on when they make award seats available, both to their own FF members and to partners.  Lufthansa is notorious for holding back award seats until within 2 weeks of departure.  Singapore makes seats available to their own FF program that they don't release to partners.  And there is no singular rhyme or reason you can apply to all programs.

 

 

Not so.  Airlines are more and more moving to dynamic pricing for award redemptions.  So flights are priced based on each direction.  There are some program anomalies with some foreign programs that give you a break for R/T travel (such as ANA and Asiana), but with the demise of award charts at UA, AA and DL, any difference you see is a function of the flights being chosen.

 

 

 

 

 

[edgee]

6 minutes ago, FlyerTalker said:

Not so.  Airlines are more and more moving to dynamic pricing for award redemptions.  So flights are priced based on each direction.  There are some program anomalies with some foreign programs that give you a break for R/T travel (such as ANA and Asiana), but with the demise of award charts at UA, AA and DL, any difference you see is a function of the flights being chosen.

 

 

 

You say I am wrong in my point that it is usually less expensive to book RT award flights compared to two one way award flights on Delta, while not so on AA or UA. That has continued to be my experience even with dynamic pricing when I actually shop for flights on each of these carriers. In light of your comments I just tried some dummy bookings on Delta and found a savings by booking RT. Not so for UA on the same route!