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 1839334 times)

Offline NYC123

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Best way go get to Paris
« Reply #1660 on: January 27, 2013, 02:04:01 PM »
I live in NYC and want to go to Paris at the end of August. 2 adults and 2 children between the ages of 4 and 6. Which cards should I sign up for and what is the best way to maximize those rewards so I can get there without the fuel surcharges or stop-overs etc.

Offline jack

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1661 on: January 27, 2013, 03:46:50 PM »
Looking for a last minute ticket this weekend to Israel.  I need to b at work on Wednesday and back at my desk Monday morning
I have Amex
AA
And access to united if needed
Best days would be
1/30 - 2/4 6:00 a.m. landing
Bus. Or First only

Thanks in advance.

Offline shmooz

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1662 on: January 27, 2013, 07:08:28 PM »
Round trip:
Non-stop
From: NYC/PHL/WAS(one stop ok from WAS)
To: TLV
Departure dates: 2/20
Return airports: Any as above
Return dates: 2/25
Class: Business going, could be economy return
Seats: 1
Alliance/Airline: StarA or other with Amex

Prefer to use USair miles since i have them, put on hold a UA from EWR in biz which is great, but could not find good return on 2/26 shushan purim, put me on Austrian at 6:30 am with a stop to JFK which i held for 3 days but am not so happy with it. Might as well not go to sleep after purim...

Could use also UA miles or AMex

thanks





Offline Cbs

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1663 on: January 27, 2013, 10:55:07 PM »
Round trip/Multi city
Any stops
From: NYC or CLE
To: BKK, USM, or HKT
Departure dates: 3/17 or 3/18
Return airports: DEL
Return dates: between 4/11 - 4/14
Class: Business
Seats: 2
Alliance/Airline: i dont care

Miles that i have:
100k Chase UR
35k United

Other Pax
100k Amex - and is willing to buy more of whatever it may be to get the ticket.
i know amex and UR dont go together really but i can prob switch the amex for someone elses UR account if need be.

is United the best way to go on this with the free stopover especially if i may need to cut out a leg in middle and use open jaw?




Offline smart brit

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1664 on: January 27, 2013, 11:11:11 PM »
Outbound there is avail on ua via lhr with thai airways in business for 2 and return from del on apr 11 via vie

Offline Cbs

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1665 on: January 27, 2013, 11:19:47 PM »
Outbound there is avail on ua via lhr with thai airways in business for 2 and return from del on apr 11 via vie
thanx. so id make the "stopover" in bkk and continue on to DEL in beg. of april.
question i have is, if i for whatever reason fly somewhere else on a diff airline in between that stopover time, say singapore, and i dont want to come back to BKK to fly to DEL, can i change it once i started my trip?

Offline smart brit

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1666 on: January 27, 2013, 11:23:48 PM »
I pulled up 2 one way iten. 1 nyc-bkk 2 del-nyc so with that in mind you can do whatever your heart desires in the mean time
(ps bkk makes me jealous  ;)

Offline AJK

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Re: Best way go get to Paris
« Reply #1667 on: January 28, 2013, 12:12:06 AM »
MR-->ANA for flights on US/UA = 43K/pp for economy.

So you need cards that earn Membership Rewards (American Express).
2015: 116K bkd | 1.6M brnd | F: OZ,NH,AA,EK | J: UA,CA,TK,DL,TN,AF,VA | LIH,NRT,ROR,PEK,CNS,BOB,MEL,TLV & Pacific Hopper

Offline Cbs

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1668 on: January 28, 2013, 01:44:11 AM »
I pulled up 2 one way iten. 1 nyc-bkk 2 del-nyc so with that in mind you can do whatever your heart desires in the mean time
(ps bkk makes me jealous  ;)
ya i also checked 2 one ways. but i was wondering if i can make a route change in middle of the trip.

in any case LHR is gone for a nonstop it seems.

Offline ygift

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looking to fly ewr to ocd april 10
« Reply #1669 on: January 28, 2013, 10:53:49 AM »
im looking to fly april 10 return april 11
any ideas how to do it with low mileage?

Offline meshugener

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1670 on: January 28, 2013, 11:43:40 AM »
@ygift
Why not take the subway?
Love me or hate me. I still love you.

Offline Yaalili

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1671 on: January 28, 2013, 11:45:32 AM »
im looking to fly april 10 return april 11
any ideas how to do it with low mileage?

Where is OCD?

Offline Drago

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1672 on: January 28, 2013, 11:46:57 AM »
@Drago:
I recently booked for my dad USAir biz using UA miles. (RT PHL-TLV).
Did you see very low availability?

Offline meshugener

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1673 on: January 28, 2013, 01:56:53 PM »
Looking now for tomorrow TLV-PHL, nothing avail, they say it should open up within a few hours.
Love me or hate me. I still love you.

Offline Drago

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1674 on: January 28, 2013, 02:05:10 PM »
Looking now for tomorrow TLV-PHL, nothing avail, they say it should open up within a few hours.
  is this a route that often opens up last minute only?

Offline MEIR613

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1675 on: January 28, 2013, 02:06:00 PM »
Looking now for tomorrow TLV-PHL, nothing avail, they say it should open up within a few hours.
Why not rock LX A330 5:30 depature.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2013, 02:13:52 PM by MEIR613 »

Offline mmermss

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1676 on: January 28, 2013, 02:10:13 PM »
  is this a route that often opens up last minute only?

When I flew PHL-TLV it opened ~2 days before flight
It's not about the quantity of your posts.  It's about the quality.

Offline meshugener

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1677 on: January 28, 2013, 02:15:15 PM »
@MEIR613:
Not worth the stop (at least for my dad)
He's just a      because he had RT PHL-TLV and he changed the return to EWR only to decide a few hours later to switch back to PHL by when it was gone.
#whatever
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Offline ygift

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1678 on: January 28, 2013, 03:08:45 PM »
oops I meant ord.
(Newark to Chicago)
is there a way to find out when American will be having their reduced mileage awards? do they have them to ord?

Offline Redbull3

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Re: Need help finding a ticket? Post here! Award ticket edition (Master thread)
« Reply #1679 on: January 28, 2013, 03:11:52 PM »
oops I meant ord.
(Newark to Chicago)
is there a way to find out when American will be having their reduced mileage awards? do they have them to ord?

Check out using BA avios to fly american (7500 points each way pp) between ewr-ord, that was my cheapest points bet, but I am far from an expert.