ff miles are useless

There was always "no seats are available" when I tried to use the ff miles.
Can we only use these miles when traveling on Tue, Wed, or Thur?
These miles do not seem to be useful for traveling to timeshare resorts, because the check-in dates start on Fri, Sat, or Sun.

How far in advance do you need to get the seat reserved when booking by ff miles?

Thanks!

When I am traveling to an area that I know will cost alot I look 330 days in advance and I have been lucky, I have gotten NY to, Hawaii, Mexico twice, Italy and New Orleans first class.

timesharer said:

There was always "no seats are available" when I tried to use the ff miles.
Can we only use these miles when traveling on Tue, Wed, or Thur?
These miles do not seem to be useful for traveling to timeshare resorts, because the check-in dates start on Fri, Sat, or Sun.

How far in advance do you need to get the seat reserved when booking by ff miles?

Thanks!

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I've been able to get tickets for my wife and kids every year for the last 5 years to travel from Orlando (FL) to Maui. I was also able to redeem FF miles to fly to Colorado during skiing season. Of course, I had to book them several months in advance, but it is possible to get them even for Fri, Sat, or Sun travel. We try to redeem miles mainly for expensive trips and not for short, inexpensive ones.

Planning as far ahead as possible is key although I have been able to get FF tickets as late as 7 hours before the flight. I like having miles on more than 1 airline so that I have options. I also like to keep points on Starwood/Hilton that can be transfered to several airlines when needed.

Where do you want to go, when and which airline?

If your a elite level frequent flyer you should call and they will often find seats for you when none show available online.

I have noticed it is much harder to use frequent flyer miles for the base mileage awards the last few years.
I really belive the airlines have cut the number of base awards available.
Most have partnerships with other airlines making it even harder to get the few award seats that are made available.
Booking 330 days inadvance seems to be the only way that works anymore to get the lowest required mileage awards and even then I have had to keep checking or waitlist.
If I want to use double the base miles for your award seats its pretty easy to to find award seats.
I think this is the direction the airlines are taking and if you want award seats you will need to use the higher required mile awards.
Im not flying much on business anymore so I have switched to using my travel rewards credit card where the points are good for any airline at a max dollar value making it Very easy to book rewards whenever I want.

I used to believe that, too!

Then, a few months ago I booked 3 tickets to Boston with FF miles! I have United miles that have been mounting up for years. I tried off and on to book tickets to Hawaii with no luck. Then , in September, I checked for seats for a trip to Boston in March. There were lots of seats available using my miles and I was able to book 3 seats together on a round trip. So don't give up. Just check as far out as you can and be flexable on time of day you travel. I was willing to book the three of us on different flights if neccessary but didn't have to in the end. I now have a Hawaiian card to accumulate miles for our trips to Hawaii. The miles are much easier to book but are only usable to that one destination. So I won't even bother trying to use the United miles for Hawaii in the future. I'm saving them up for Europe next time!

We've done Hawaii with base miles and used miles to upgrade economy seats when going to Europe.

Have you gone to flyertalk.com for advice? I had always had a similar experience and had accumulated several miles over the years. I was determined to use them for four tickets to Hawaii next year. I read a lot on flyertalk and also posted a query there. A very helpful member gave me some good suggestions, that lead me in the right direction. It took a number of phone calls, but I finally got exactly the dates I needed to match my timeshare reservations.

Sheila

bigfrank said:

When I am traveling to an area that I know will cost alot I look 330 days in advance and I have been lucky, I have gotten NY to, Hawaii, Mexico twice, Italy and New Orleans first class.

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I agree with Frank; I have also gotten some great FF trips from NY and only try to book expensive tickets. I have gotten Italy, Israel, Aruba, Hawaii, Mexico ( several including PV twice, Acapulco and Cabo), St. Marteen.

I have done these through, AA, United. TWA ( out of business ) and US Air. I have had no luck with Delta and Continental who always want twice the normal ff miles. If and when I ever get FF miles through Delta and Continental I will get rid of my Chase Continental card and my AE Skymiles credit cards since I find them both to be close to worthless. I got my skymiles cc for free for the first year to get me 10,000 ff miles and once they try to charge me I will get rid of the card.

I will then just stick to AA, and United for my FF miles.

For popular travel destinations and times, you do need to get in the game early, just as soon as the seats are open for booking 330 days out. Doing that, I have not had problems getting tickets to Europe in the summer when and where I wanted to go, as well as to the Caribbean.

For Europe, if you are trying late, domestic airlines that have a partner arrangement with Air France are a good bet. AF is one airline with a good history of putting more seats in the ff pot about 30 days out or so. The airlines with such partnerships with AF are Northwest, Delta, and Continental.

I like the advice about booking 330 days in advance. I always use the website. We used some of our miles to upgrade to first class to Hawaii next year, as a treat.

We also do the "330 day" thing and haven't had problems because we don't mind getting there early or staying a day late. In 2004, we flew to Grand Cayman 2 days early and stayed in the 7 mile beach area before heading to Morritt's Tortuga on the east end. Last year, we stayed at the Hyatt Cancun Caribe and left a day late. We had to pay a senior rate for the extra night but it was marvelous having that extra day. We're flying to Cancun a day early this April and I look forward to it.

Larry said:

. I have had no luck with Delta and Continental who always want twice the normal ff miles. If and when I ever get FF miles through Delta and Continental I will get rid of my Chase Continental card and my AE Skymiles credit cards since I find them both to be close to worthless.

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Yep, Thoes are the two Airlines I still have the most miles with to use up.
I just cancelled My continental world Mastercard. This month was my 2 year anniversary and I could never get them to send me the yearly presidents club passes or $99 companion fare certificate from last year that they promised on each yearly anniversary.

Book early, book late, book few, look often

I've been successful in getting frequent flier tickets to Bonaire twice on American, to Belize once, business class to Australia on Delta and Qantas using Continental miles, to Mexico on Delta, and to Colorado on Delta.
Most of the time I found the award seats by checking online 331-330 days in advance. I found the ticket to Belize only a couple of weeks in advance. Whenever I've tried to book a few months in advance, it's been much harder. Twice I had to book one day earlier than I wanted. Sometimes I had to put the seats on hold and change them later.
It's much easier to find 2 seats than seats for a whole family on the same flight. If you can't get as many free seats as you want, you might buy a ticket for the person who owns the frequent flier account and use the award seats for his/her companions.
Getting frequent flier award seats is a game, just like timesharing exchanges. You need information, time, and patience. Good luck.

JEFF H said:

Yep, Thoes are the two Airlines I still have the most miles with to use up.
I just cancelled My continental world Mastercard. This month was my 2 year anniversary and I could never get them to send me the yearly presidents club passes or $99 companion fare certificate from last year that they promised on each yearly anniversary.

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Continental's Onepass ff program is often derided on FlyerTalk as ''Nonepass''.
I evacuated my Onepass miles to United 1 for 1 via Amtrak while that portal was still open.

I have always had good luck with Delta for Europe and the Caribbean, but most of the time I was a mid-tier elite member, and I'm sure that helped.
I still have my last Gold Medallion card after I comped to NW, and still call that number for ff reservations.

First of all be persistent. While I find AA to be the absolute best for my needs- have gotten several FF tix to Aruba in Feb, PV this coming Feb, SXM last April, it takes real patience to use any other program. First, find out how much in advance they release the seats. With AA I literally count out the days then begin trying on the first day they are available. They are so easy to snag- even online. Continental and Nothwest are much harder. For the first few weeks you will hear that they "haven't released the seats yet" and you have to keep checking. It usually takes me around 2 weeks or so to nail down seats with those folks. And, sometimes we will have to check in a day or so early, or have a long layover, or even have a flight with an extra connection, but to save over $1,000 we do it. But, the trick is to start looking the day they say they will be available as they do not always release very many seats per flight. So have some degree of flexibility and plan very far ahead and remember- each airline may release seats on a different schedule so call them to check when they do. For some it is 330 days before the flight for others it is 335 days, etc. good luck

For those of us who use ff programs, the Weeks exchange model works much better than points. By the time, 10 months out, that Points reservations open for most resorts, the ff tickets are likely to be gone since the tickets have at that point been open for reservation for a month.

Sweet

Just scored FF ticket on USAir Washington DC to Nantucket in Jul/Aug, a $585 (unbelievable) ticket for 25Kmiles.

Did American FF miles to Sydney, Australia last May 30 for this March 8-24 from LAX. (Just over 9 months ahead). It's Business Class for two and flights have changed once ... so far.
It's Quantas to Brisbane. Brisbane to Sydney. Returning it's Sydney to Auckland, then Air Tahiti Nui to LAX. Had to drop to Coach on Sydney to Auckland leg, but AA is apparently trying to get us back into Business Class.
If I could have made the reservations at the 331 day mark, non-stops might have been available. Today's cost if paid for? $20,702 for two, on Quantas website. We used Marriott Rewards 'package' points transferred to AA. Includes 2 weeks at Marriott hotel.

I've had decent luck with AA, getting tickets to Norfolk, LA and Dublin Ireland without to much hassle. I've used United FF miles to get to Reno for a timeshare vacation.

The one I've had the most trouble with has been America West. It's taken over a year to finally use up the 50,000 miles I had accumulated through flights and CC purchases. I finally was able to get two tickets from Kansas City to Seattle with persistance and not flying on the busiest days. I've since cancelled the AW flight fund card and dropped them down the list of prefered carriers when we fly.

At this point, I'm not flying nearly as much as I was a couple of years ago so it doesn't matter as much. I have found that AA has been the easiest for me to deal with and when we do book airfare, I look to them first to see if their prices and flight times work out for us. If not, then I start going down the list until I find a flight that works best. Delta, AW and Continental are at the bottom of that list.

If I flew primarily domestically and to the Caribbean, AA would be one of my top choices as a program.

It is an entirely different matter to Europe, however, due to their crappy relationship with their European partners. There leading European partner is BA, but you cannot earn or burn AA miles between the US and Europe on BA.
That's NOT being much of a partner! On many of their other European partners, you often earn reduced miles or no miles at all on AA with many of their economy fares. I MUCH prefer NW or DL where I know I will earn full miles on partner flights on all of their European partners, and where I can use my miles on any of their European partners. AA's ''limited partner'' arangements with their European partners makes them a third rate ff program if you do much flying to Europe.

I've had very good luck using FF miles on American, and United. I find more value in the miles when I can use them to upgrade. We enjoyed a wonderful special a few years ago, whe AA was offering 2 RT F tickets for 100,000 miles. I still don't know how I'd managed to acquire so many miles, but I got in just under the wire. We upgraded to First last year to HI, and I had just enough miles to get us First on our redeye flight home next Feb. We're also flying Bus. to Santiago, Chile in March, and First when we fly home from Lauderdale. I really have no complaints. Flyer Talk is absolutely essential, for me, anyway.

I generally have USair, United and Delta miles available. I just used Delta for 2 business class tickets NH to London for this past November. That pretty much cleared me out other than enough for 2 domestic tickets.
I have used USair for: 2 business class tickets to Grand Cayman, upgrades for four people to Spain, tickets for my sister England to NH, tickets to England for myself, tickets out to Colorado for my husband and tickets for my son from Colorado to Florida. Oh yes, and 2 business class tickets to New Zealand.
I have used United for a business class and an economy ticket to New Zealand, four tickets NH to COlorado. Upgrades out to LA, upgrades out to Arizona.
As you can see, I cannot complain. I find Delta the most difficult to use.

NWA FF Miles

Flying from MSP you almost always fly NWA. It is getting harder and harder to uss FF Miles particularly to the major resort areas in the winter and Europe in the summer. Much of this is due to reduced seat inventory. NWA has gutted its Hawaii service from MSP and completly eleminated one DC-10 flight to AMS.

When they replaced the 747s with DC-10s they reduced the World Business Class seat inventory by more than half.

There is only one regular non-stop to HNL from MSP. They added one for Christmas, but that will stop in January. All the flights are connections through the west coast, and most arrive so late that getting an inter-island flight is real iffy.

For our Hawaii trip next March we bought tickets and then used miles to upgrade. The same with Europe this past summer. IMHO, that will become SOP. One of the women on the Elite Line told me that at 12:01AM the phones start ringing for the Hawaii, Grand Cayman, etc. FF first class seats. There are only two per flight so they go quick. The upgradeable seats are inventory controlled as well.

It is getting close to bait and switch. They make so much money off the FF program that they need to keep them going, but they sure don't want to fulfill the bargin on the other side.

Cheers,

Paul

I used 100,000 AA miles to upgrade my wife and I to business class on a trip from SFO to London. It was well worth it.