Topic Wiki

Please follow the following rules when posting in this thread. Failure to do so may result in you request being ignored or deleted.

(If you are looking to purchase a paid ticket, please post here)

FAQs:

Q: How can I use my credit card points to book a USA-TLV ticket?
A: Please read Dan's very helpful and informative guides found here and here

Great tool to see the mileage cost for a route http://www.awardhacker.com

Q: Do I have to pay a lot of money when using miles for a ticket?

A: Sometimes. For more information read this

Q: How do I find award availability?
A: For Star Alliance (United, AirCanada, Lufthansa, Swiss, and others) see this guide

For OneWorld (AmericanAirlines, BritishAirways, Iberia, Malev, and more) You can use BA's award search engine (you need to have a free BA account to access the engine). In addition, you can use Qantas' engine (free account needed as well), which will (to an extent) search Elal. As of this posting, the Elal business flights that show up are coach, and vice verse.

For Delta and AirFrance, use their respective sites. While not perfect, they are quite manageable for the casual searcher.

And of course, many of us here will take time out to help someone who is trying to learn.

Q: All this searching is making me crazy. Is there an easier way?
A: Yes, but it might cost you. Check out AwardNexus.com, KVStool.com, and expertflyer.com.

Q: I see AirCanada availability, but when I call AirCanada they say I can't use my United miles with them. Aren't they partners?
A: You can only use miles with the airline that issued them. Through that airline (in our case United) they can issue a ticket on a partner (ie AirCanada). Trying to call AirCanada with United miles, is like trying to use shekels in Mexico.

Q: I can't find availability on my dates. What should I do?
A: You should try to be as flexible as possible. Can you add a stop or 2? Can you be more flexible with your dates? The airports?
If all else fails, keep trying. Availability is constantly opening up.

Q: Can someone please help me find a ticket?
A: No! Find it yourself.  ;D ;D Just kidding. Please copy the following lines, delete the non bolded parts, and fill it out in your post.

One way/Round-trip:
Non-stop/Maximum stops/Any:
From: All airports from which you can depart
To: All airports which you can arrive at. For multiple destinations, just keep adding this line
Departure dates: All possible dates that you can depart on. Please be as specific as possible.
Return airports:If different from 'To' line. Delete this line for One-way tickets
Return dates: Delete this line for One-way tickets
Class: First/Business/Coach/Any
Seats: Total number of people traveling over the age of 2
Alliance/Airline: What airline or alliance are you looking to fly with

IF you have any airline status or credit cards (Ie, United CC or status) that gives extended seat availability, please add that. Would be helpful to find you correct availability.

An additional note about using miles for direct flights from NYC-TLV

NYC-TLV is only served by 3 carriers non-stop, United, Delta, and El Al. Saver availability on Delta is non-existent. Saver availability on United is rare but sometimes available close-in. It is almost never available on or near holidays or holiday weekends, or around yomim tovim. Any award space that opens will be snatched up immediately so you have to constantly be checking if you hope to snag it if/when it opens. El AL awards are more readily available but prohibitively expensive using Matmid points (El Al's frequent flyer program) but may be able to be booked using Quantas points (transfers from Citi & Amex) at a much more reasonable rate.

This leaves the following options if no saver availability:

The Chase travel portal will let you use Ultimate Rewards, or a combination or UR and cash to book flights. If you have a Sapphire Reserve or a Sapphire Preferred, the redemption rate will be 1.5 cents per point or 1.25 cents per point respectively, instead of the regular 1 cent per point without them. (A, Ink cash or Ink Preferred will also give you the 1.25 cpp redemption rate.)

The Amex travel portal will let you redeem points at 1 cent per point towards the cost of air travel. If you have a grandfathered Business Platinum card, you will get 50% of the points you redeem back around a month after you book the ticket. If you have a non-grandfathered card, you will get 35% of your points back. (This is only available when redeeming points for tickets on your selected American carrier in economy class or on any airline in business or first class.)

The Citi travel portal also lets you redeem points at 1 cent per point towards travel and seems to have better pricing on El Al in business class.

Alternatively, you can sell your points (not here on DDF) and use the cash to buy regular tickets. This is usually the best option for people without either a Chase Sapphire Reserve or grandfathered Business Platinum who are flying economy.

Those are your only options for nonstop travel. For options with a stopover and more information in general, see https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/milespoints/the-ultimate-israel-mileage-award-chart/

This keeps on getting asked over and over. Besides Dan's comprehensive list of how to get to, or from, TLV here is a short list of options for travel to or from NYC in Y:
Lowest point per RT is FB 50K (less with promo, but YQ of ~$500 unless you can find unicorn DL availability), AA 80k (AA metal for transatlantic), AC 80k (LX or LO for low YQ) and UA 85k. Half that for OW.

Please add any other information to this wiki that you feel might be useful.



Author Topic: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)  (Read 1839593 times)

Offline PlatinumGuy

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So what's the advantage of using Qantas instead of ELal's site?
I'm not 100% sure, but there might be seats that are available for Elal but not for AA, thus Qantas is more reliable. Qantas also shows other airline availability (unlike Elal)
״וזה כלל גדול: שישנא אדם כל דבר שקר. וכל מה שיוסיף שנאה לדרכי השקר – יוסיף אהבה לתורה.״ - אורחות צדיקים

Offline Devorah

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So what's the advantage of using Qantas instead of ELal's site?
With Qantas, you'll also get flight options that involve other partners+Elal.

Offline aussiebochur

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I'm not 100% sure, but there might be seats that are available for Elal but not for AA, thus Qantas is more reliable. Qantas also shows other airline availability (unlike Elal)
IME, AA can book any seat El Al releases in business or coach.

Use ElAl site for direct flights, Qantas site if you want to see stopover availability (if direct isnt available)

Offline mattaudio

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Looking for the most affordable (off peak? promo? etc) award flights to BCN while still preserving plenty of miles for Brazil later this year.

Round trip
No stop maxes
Depart: MSP or RST or possibly ORD
To: BCN
Depart May 22-25
Return May 26-29 (looking for a 3-6 day short trip over Memorial Day weekend)
Class: Coach/Any
Seats: 2
Available Miles: 70k UA, 39k SPG, 51k Amex MR, 46k Chase UR, 63k AAdvantage, soon to have 52k BA Avios

I know this is sort of tough to find two tickets on limited miles but the knowledge on this board is so immense there might be something I'm forgetting. What's the best combo of these miles? Thanks

Offline mclovin

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One way/Round trip: RT
Maximum stops: any
From: nyc
To: TLV
Departure dates: end of june/ beginning july
Return dates: end august
Class: economy
Seats: 2
Mileage/Alliance: any (minimum surcharges)
bump
or what websites should i search

Offline gozalim

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looking for flight MAN-NYC on 7/6   arriving in time for shabbos
best I found was 30K plus $200+- on either AA or UA
anything cheaper? less taxes?

Offline steeeveknowsbest

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Try looking on United.com for aer lingus availability. Then book it with BA (no YQ). The best way across the pond.
This is the advice PlatinumGuy gave me last week, also he said that it only flies from Dublin to Boston or ORD (i think) so it may make sense to fly there with ryanair then get a ticket through BA for 12.5K to BOS or 20K from DUB-ORD-JFK

(i'm just repeating her, if it doesn't make sense i'm sorry  :) this isn't my field of expertise)

Offline gozalim

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This is the advice PlatinumGuy gave me last week, also he said that it only flies from Dublin to Boston or ORD (i think) so it may make sense to fly there with ryanair then get a ticket through BA for 12.5K to BOS or 20K from DUB-ORD-JFK

(i'm just repeating her, if it doesn't make sense i'm sorry  :) this isn't my field of expertise)
thanks. sounds like a good idea. except UA/BA aren't showing lingus availabilty!

Offline animexstudio

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  • Location: New York
One way/Round trip: Round Trip
Non-stop/Maximum stops/Any: Any
From: All airports from which you can depart: NYC
To: All airports which you can arrive at. For multiple destinations, just keep adding this line: TLV
Departure dates: All possible dates that you can depart on. Please be as specific as possible. Any 2 weeks in august
Return dates: Delete this line for One way tickets: 2 Weeks after departure.
Class: First/Business/Coach/Any: Coach
Total number of people traveling over the age of 2: 2 seats
Alliance/Airline: What airline or alliance are you looking to fly with: Don't care

Offline ez1985

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I am trying to book a United flight using miles to go from Baltimore to lax in August. Award tickets are showing not available for the 12500 amount. Does that mean they will not be available or will it open up?  Is there a specific day of the week that I should check or is it just based on cancellations? 

Offline smug

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  • Location: jerusalem

One way/Round trip:    rt
Non-stop/Maximum stops/Any:       max 1 short stop
From: nyc
To: tlv
Departure dates: july 3-6
Return dates: july 16-18
Class: first or business
Seats: 2
Alliance/Airline: any

Offline Galitzyaner

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Looking to fly to Israel this summer myself, and tickets are just CRAZY, $1300+!
Mileage availability seems scarce..  Anybody know what to do?  Any solutions?

NYC-TLV  - Round trip
Any airline, any class, any stopover, CHEAPEST deal (i.e. least mileage/surcharges) ..

Departing NYC June 24-28,
Returning from TLV July 11-19

I have lots of United miles (over 100k), and 30k UR (+50k Sapphire bonus which is yet to arrive to my acct.)

Thanks!
« Last Edit: May 15, 2012, 02:53:28 PM by mysky »

Offline Saver2000

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Looking to fly to Israel this summer myself, and tickets are just CRAZY, $1300+!
Mileage availability seems scarce..  Anybody know what to do?  Any solutions?

NYC-TLV  - Round trip
Any airline, any class, any stopover, CHEAPEST deal..

Departing NYC June 24-28,
Returning from TLV July 11-19

Thanks!

Please post here
http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=7985.0

Offline ez1985

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I am trying to book a United flight using miles to go from Baltimore to lax in August. Award tickets are showing not available for the 12500 amount. Does that mean they will not be available or will it open up?  Is there a specific day of the week that I should check or is it just based on cancellations?
The dates are Aug 9th and Aug 14th. 

Offline Galitzyaner

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Please post here
http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=7985.0
Sorry, I corrected my post:

Looking to fly to Israel this summer myself, and tickets are just CRAZY, $1300+!
Mileage availability seems scarce..  Anybody know what to do?  Any solutions?

NYC-TLV  - Round trip
Any airline, any class, any stopover, CHEAPEST deal (i.e. least mileage/surcharges) ..

Departing NYC June 24-28,
Returning from TLV July 11-19

I have lots of United miles (over 100k), and 30k UR (+50k Sapphire bonus which is yet to arrive to my acct.)

Thanks!

Offline Ez

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  • Location: NY
Round trip:
Prefer Non-stop, Maximum 1 stop
From: Any London Airport
To: All NYC Airports
Departure dates: August 26 morning
Return dates: Sept 2 or 3, Evening - Night
Class: Coach or Business
Seats: 2
Alliance/Airline: Any

I have 70K points Starwood, 80K Amex, 60K UR, 130K AA, 82K United, 140K BA.

Thanks

Offline Jay the PRESIDENT

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any suggestion where to search for reward ticket for oneway tlv-nyc around 6/13

haven't found anything too great so far...

Offline tuvz

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Any stops
From: NYC
To: TLV
Departure: june 26
Return: july 19
Class: coach
Seats: 1
Alliance/Airline: staraliance

Offline outinstyle

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Do award upgrade seats ever open up once they are gone?

I am looking to book a ONE WAY LAS-JFK business ticket. Delta and others want 80,000 PER TICKET/EACH WAY. AA has then for "only" 50k each, but spending 50k miles on a one way domestic ticket is a bit much.

Question. I was going to buy a full fare ticket on Delta & upgrade with miles (only 12,500) however they claim that there are no more "upgradable" flights left for the entire week, yet the business class seats look empty online. Do they ever open these seats for upgrades? Does it pay to wait & purchase the full fare w/points upgrade tickets closer to departure date or do I just spend the 160,000 miles?

Offline WhyAich

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Do award upgrade seats ever open up once they are gone?

I am looking to book a ONE WAY LAS-JFK business ticket. Delta and others want 80,000 PER TICKET/EACH WAY. AA has then for "only" 50k each, but spending 50k miles on a one way domestic ticket is a bit much.

Question. I was going to buy a full fare ticket on Delta & upgrade with miles (only 12,500) however they claim that there are no more "upgradable" flights left for the entire week, yet the business class seats look empty online. Do they ever open these seats for upgrades? Does it pay to wait & purchase the full fare w/points upgrade tickets closer to departure date or do I just spend the 160,000 miles?

how much is a paid ticket?
(Dates?)
For great Airfare deals - PLEASE contact me via PM or email: whyaich@gmail.com