Tuesday, March 5, 2013

How to Book a Dream Trip to P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney, Part 2: Star Alliance Flights

As you read in my previous post, booking a dream trip to Australia takes some work, but can be achieved with time and dedication.  We left off after I had booked our flights to Australia using American Airlines points on OneWorld.  I can’t emphasize enough how beneficial it was to be able to place that itinerary on hold while I planned our return trip.  AA has a very generous hold policy, allowing you to place an itinerary on hold for 5 days regardless of whether or not you have sufficient miles in your account.  This is so important when planning an award itinerary using two different alliances, as it allowed me to grab the Qantas award space on OneWorld and then figure out if I could find Star Alliance award space to work in the same time frame.

So, how do you find award space on Star Alliance?  First it’s important to understand the routing rules for the carrier.  Unlike AA, United allows you to touch into Asia for no cost.  This was a big deal for us since Chris wanted to visit Asia during the trip, so I knew I needed to build in that visit on the return routing.  The key, I found, was making sure the stopover was less than 24 hours.  This is a golden rule with United, as anything over 24 hours (even just 10 minutes) will trigger an additional mileage charge.

Others have written recently that United’s system now pulls in most Star Alliance carriers.  I haven’t tried that, as most of the blog articles I read recommended using All Nippon Airways (ANA)’s website.  You must have ~100 miles in ANA’s Mileage Club to gain access to the site, which fortunately Chris did through a promotion they ran awhile ago.  There are workarounds if you don’t have 100 miles, but I didn’t try any of them since I could just use Chris’s account.  ANA’s site is tricky from the get-go, as it is hard to even locate the award search section (Answer: Click ANA Mileage Club at the top, then For Details under Using Miles, then Application and Ticketing under Partner Flight Awards, then “member’s only function” under ANA Sky Web.  Told you it was hard!).  Once you’re in the system, select Use Star Alliance Member Airlines and the search boxes will appear.

When I searched for the full routing the first time (SYD-WAS), it sent me from Sydney to a US city (LAX, SFO, etc).  This wouldn’t work since we wanted to stop in Asia.  So I checked the Star Alliance route map to see where in Asia I could stop.  Chris had mentioned Hong Kong, but there were no direct SYD-HKG flights.  Singapore was also on his list, and there are direct flights between the two cities on Singapore Airlines, so that was my starting point.  

I went back to the ANA website and started searching leg by leg.  The system is clunky but once you get the hang of it, not all that bad.  You can move backwards and forwards through dates by using the “day before” and “day after” options after you’ve searched for availability.  I recommend choosing the earliest potential date for your trip and then moving forward from there.  You WILL have to play around with dates, and it will take some time.  

The system marks award space with the word OK and a yellow box marked Select.  It’s important to watch for this because sometimes it will recommend a connection on a leg (e.g. Singapore to Washington via Beijing or Tokyo), and you need to make sure there’s award space on both legs.  If there’s only space on one leg, you can note the flight information where there is availability and then search each stop individually (e.g. Singapore to Beijing, Beijing to Washington).  As I was doing my leg-by-leg searches, I noted which days had space, the flight numbers and flight times.  By the end of the process I had filled three pages front and back with potential dates/times/flights, but it was essential in order to keep track of where I had seen availability.

In my case, I knew I wanted to go from SYD-SIN, but was having trouble on the next leg.  I was seeing some availability from SIN-Tokyo, so I then built that into my searches.  For the next leg, instead of searching for WAS, I searched gateway cities into the US (again, using the Star Alliance routemap as a guide).  I wouldn’t sweat it if you can’t find the final flight back to your home city in the ANA system.  You can always go back to the United website and search there (although the results are likely the same), or consider purchasing a one-way ticket back to your home city.  No use derailing the whole trip over a domestic flight.

As I mentioned, I kept a sheet of paper with all of my potential dates and flights just to keep track of when I could string things together.  Once I was able to find a timeframe when things looked like they could all work, I started using the Flight Search option, which allows you to input each leg and then search everything together.  My final search wound up being SYD-SIN, SIN-HND-NRT-SEA.  After putting each of these legs in, the system marked a flight on each leg with OK, indicating that everything was looking good!

The itinerary I built gave us an overnight stopover in Singapore, an overnight stopover in Tokyo (which would allow us to change airports since we were arriving at Haneda and departing from Narita), and then an arrival in Seattle.  The SEA-WAS flight was giving me a headache, but I figured if need be we could always stay a few days in Seattle to visit Chris’s family and then pay for the 1-way back.  If we got the rest of the trip for free, that would be a small price to pay!

Then came the fun part: calling United to try and ticket the award.  I called the Silver line and was connected to my first of several grumpy United agents (Note: I always make it a point to be nice to agents because I’m sure they deal with rude, over-entitled customers constantly.  I don’t expect everyone to be a ray of sunshine all the time, but a little customer service would be nice).  During my first call, I realized the stopover in Singapore was 24 hours and about 10 minutes, which was too long and would trigger an extra mileage charge.  There is no negotiating this rule (I did try a bit of pleading, but it was a non-starter).  Back I went to ANA’s website, hoping this wouldn’t derail the whole trip.  Luckily there was award space on an earlier flight (to give credit, Chris found it), so it was time for call #2.  I explained that I wanted to book a 1-way award ticket for two people from Sydney to Seattle in business class, and immediately the agent said “I doubt that’s possible, there’s never award space on those flights.”  I explained that I had the routing and flight information and asked if she would mind just trying it in the system.  With each leg, she huffed and sighed and told me that there was no way this would work.  At the end, though, everything fit together, met all of the requirements, and she asked, slightly amazed, “How on earth did you find this?”  “Lots of time and patience,” I replied.  

Chris and I had topped up our United accounts by transferring points from Chase prior to the call (they transfer immediately which is so handy!) so we were set with miles.  I gave the agent my account information and Chris’s, paid the $140 in taxes, and we were set!

After talking about it a bit more we did call back and add on a leg from SEA-IAD for no additional miles.  The only award availability was in economy, but we’ll be eligible for an upgrade since the rest of the itinerary is in business (and we have lowly silver status).  That flight leaves the day after we arrive in Seattle (but within 24 hours!) so we’ll still be able to visit his family.  The downside: It leaves at 6 AM and goes through Houston.  Despite this, I’m hoping space might open up on a slightly later and/or direct flight.

Since booking we’ve changed our AA flights to a later time (to avoid a super long layover in Dallas before our flight to Brisbane) and changed our return itinerary to go from Singapore to Bangkok to Toyko (with an overnight flight on the Bangkok to Toyko route).  We were considering staying at the Park Hyatt Toyko, but our original flight arrived around midnight and so we wouldn’t have had much time to enjoy it.  The revised itinerary saves us a night, plus both flights arrive/depart from Tokyo Narita.  We plan to check our bags for the day and head to the city for a few hours of sightseeing (unless we change the itinerary again, which is totally possible knowing Chris! :)).

Final routing: DCA-ORD-DFW-BNE-SYD-SIN-BKK-NRT-SEA-IAH-IAD.  We’re also planning to nest a trip to Cannes from Sydney and back to see the Great Barrier Reef (!!!) using Avois points.  We’ve booked all but one hotel night using Hilton and Hyatt points (the Park Hyatt Sydney sounds incredible!), and will be booking the last using Hilton points before the devaluation kicks in.

So, it took a lot of time and planning, but I booked my dream trip.  I never would have thought it would be possible for me to take a trip like this now, but it just goes to show how many opportunities miles and points can provide.  I hope this write-up will help some of you plan the trip of your dreams too.  If anyone has suggestions for things to see or do in any of the cities we’ll be visiting, I would love to hear them!


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