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Some Ideas for Booking Reward Travel

With all the economic uncertainty, if you have miles accumulated, NOW is the time to use them before the reward seats get all taken up. I don't think you'll have much luck for summer travel without spending double miles (if they even have reward seats) or for 1st class but there's still availability outside peak summer travel.

Anyway, here's a few things I learned:

Avianca --
if you have at least 60% of the miles needed, you can purchase the rest and the price is reasonable. It takes 30K miles for a round trip tourist class. If you have 20K or over, it may be cheaper to just buy the miles you need. I have 22K miles and 8000 Avianca miles cost just $130. It's the additional taxes that will kill you, but they are unavoidable anyway whether you pay the regular fare or use your miles.

Also, Avianca does allow open-jaw reward travel but you have to be nice on the phone and ask for it, some of the phone reps don't know and may say at first it's not possible. Their new website now has the capability to check for reward travel, but if you call on the phone for special needs like open-jaw and buying miles, you have to know Spanish; as far as I know, the Avianca Plus line doesn't seem to be bilingual.

Continental/Delta --
If you fly regularly on Continental and Delta, that means OnePass. And besides those airlines respective flights to Bogotá (and Cali for Cont.), that also means COPA and now also AEROREPUBLICA.

I just booked a flight on Copa for 52,500 OnePass miles around the Labor Day weekend. So it is possible to mix the Standard reward rate with the higher "EasyPass" rate for flights that aren't flown by Continental. That will save you at least 17,5K miles because spending 70K miles for a round trip to Colombia sounds crazy. I was able to book a trip to Rio on Continental for just 50K miles (the cheaper Standard reward rate) so Colombia shouldn't have to be more than that.

It does seem hard to find convenient days for a Standard reward (35K miles) round trip but try to mix it so you don't go over 52.5K miles. (35K EasyPass on one leg and 17.5K Standard on the other)

Be nice with the phone reps because sometimes they simply just don't know that something is possible but if you persist politely, many of them will honestly try to help you out. If not, call later and try again with another rep.

Here's an example involving something cool I was able to confirm:
usually you can't book one-way reward travel, especially for intl. flights. But check out the Continental website for Series 7P reward travel solely in Colombia. I almost got into a shouting match with a nasty phone agent who insisted the web site was wrong. I called again and a nicer rep confirmed that YES you can book one-way reward travel for domestic flights on AeroRepublica.

So let's say you book an open-jaw ticket on Avianca. You can then use just 8,500 OnePass miles to get you from one city to another on AeroRepublica. I don't think Copa works at that rate because you have to fly through Panama with Copa.

Vice-versa works also: open-jaw on Copa, and then use Avianca miles for an internal flight on AV. Of course, if you can handle the curves, you can just take the bus. :-) Also, booking internal flights once you're in Colombia is probably cheaper than from the states.

American--
I rarely fly on American and I try to avoid flying thru MIA, so I can't help much here. Hopefully, some AA frequent flyers can contribute something.

I have a buddy who knew some interesting tricks. He would book the cheapest flight he could get to Colombia. Then he would make changes right with the ticket agent at the airport, sometimes at the very same day he needed to fly! He swears he saves money doing the changes locally. Unfortunately, my job and life doesn't allow me to go ad hoc like that but try it if you can. . . ;)

To conclude, I'd say think seriously about using your miles for '08 if you have them. I don't think fares will go down this year even with these new Colombia flights coming into the picture. Hope this is useful but keep it on the downlow because I want these benefits to stay.

By droble77 on Jan 16, 2008, 16:29 in Travel tips.

El Piloto says on Jan 17, 2008, 06:34:

Open jaw awards are permitted on AA. Typically, AA's award availability is slightly better than its US competitors'. There's a reason CO's program is called "Nonepass" by those in the know! Also it's possible that first/business class milesaver (restricted) awards will be available when coach awards on the same flights are not. It's all about cabin-level demand and there are plenty of routes that just don't have much demand for paid travel in the front cabin.

Award ticket availability, like availability of all fare buckets, is dynamic. Just because a flight has no award availability today doesn't mean that it won't open up tomorrow, and then close again the next day!

On AA, the AAnytime awards (roughly double the miles of a Milesaaver) are available anytime there are any seats for sale in that cabin because AAnytime awards get the same availability as full fare coach/biz/first. These cost 60K miles to Colombia in Y, 120K in F/J.

Although Droble77 makes a good point - avoid AA since MIA is a pit of rudeness, inefficiency and incompetence!

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droble77 says on Jan 17, 2008, 07:21:

It's true that OnePass sucks for domestic reward travel. Still, I was able to get a trip to Rio for just 50K miles so there is stuff out there when you look outside the states. You just have to use the website to search the right dates

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panthdave says on Jan 18, 2008, 19:00:

I just flew down MIA-MDE via Panama with Copa for 35000 One pass miles...January travel.. They all can kiss my ass American will only get 30,000, Copa 35,000 and Avianca 30,000 won't pay a penny more I will buy the ticket instead..and save my miles until they have the dates I want..but I fly every two weeks so not so bad..I have found American is the best with there online services and the 30K ticket...

panthdave Miami

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honey says on Jan 22, 2008, 18:08:

I saw your more recent post and decided to come check this one out. What a savvy traveler you are and I am going to take your advice and use my Avianca miles. Thanks for the info.!!!

Life is what happens when you're busy making plans - John Lennon.

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