Olivia, the closest hotel to the Athens Airport is the Sofitel (an OK hotel, but probably overpriced)-- theres also a Holiday Inn and a variety of other non-chain Greek hotels. The Sofitel would probably be the best choice (unless something else has been built recently).

Marc, thanks for the heads up on AF and "mixed" award. We are now the proud owners of coach seats on our return trip. Leave Athens on AF at 12:35pm only 50 min. connection in Paris, :banana: than on to Houston Bush on AF than on the Austin arrive home at 11:44pm. This only took another 2-1/2 hours today after 2 hours last night but we are booked an that's what counts. Again thanks for your help. The good news is we also got 70K ff miles back. I am a happy camper.

Carolyn

Carolyn we are holding the same flights exactly except we fly Houston to DFW. We can be plane buddies!!

We stayed on the waitlist for Business ATHENS - JFK - DFW and are confirmed on coach as mentioned above. We do not have to actually ticket return yet until we either clear or drop the waitlist.

Those miles back are tempting though.

After I read Carolyn's post last night (and thought "uh oh") I got on the phone to United after midnight Chicago time. Unfortunately, I was told the flights for my return were not yet loaded into the system and perhaps I could call back in a few hours, and of course "until then, will you be needing a Hertz rental car in Dubai Ms. Case?"

This morning I made a latte and began reading everyone's horror stories here. YIKES! Back to the phone.

Yes, the flights for May 5 were now loaded into the system, but, "unfortunately, Ms. Case, there are no seats available out of Athens on Lufthansa for any class of service". HUH?? What to do?? Had I been calling every three days for the past two and a half weeks for nothing?? He suggested I call back in a few hours, but then said, perhaps Lufthansa may not release the seats at all. ACK!

I pleaded, begged, and finally whined. It must have been too much for him because all of a sudden a seat opened on a 6:30 am flight to Munich. No good, the ship won't even be docked then. Then a flight to Frankfurt opened up mid-afternoon to a connection on United back to SFO. "No, no!" I wailed. "I simply must be on the Lufthansa flight out of Munich I'm traveling with someone else on that flight!" (No one that I know at this time, but surely I won't be alone on the plane ;) ).

Voila!! I suddenly hear "I can confirm you in first class on Lufthansa flight 458 from Munich to SFO. Would you like an aisle or window seat?"

So, I'm done! First class Lufthansa SFO to Frankfurt (where I take Olivia into the first class terminal so we can be driven to the plane), then first again to Dubai, biz Athens to Munich and first back to SFO.

Whew!

Great score, Suzanne!

I will be dealing with AA two weeks from today from the Copenhagen Marriot to re-ticket my return since we won't be flying back to the USA until May 19th.

I'm reasearching international phone cards - anyone ever used ZapTel?

We're planning on staying in Greece a few days after the cruise, so still have all the FF return flight games yet to play. I'm SO looking forward to it (yeah, right!). We'll let you know how it turns out.

Continental's not ready to talk about it just yet. The rep on the phone was interesting .. she said it was "insider trading" to tell us when the upgrades would be posted .. if at all. Do they really wonder why we also fly StarAlliance? That said, the round trip EWR-ATH is very reasonable.

Cheers, Anne

Reading all this I have to laugh. I had a client today say he cant believe I wont do his frequent flyer miles for him. He would be quite happy to pay a fee of "lets say $25 for the service"

Wow, what a prince!! Considering the time it takes to get FF seats, that generous offer of payment would probably come out to about $3.50 per hour. Yikes, you could do much better working at McD's...

too funny - wouldn't we all love that!

$25??? I looked at AwardPlanner today. They've stopped accepting new memberships as of 3/15/07. They charged -- what -- $40? and are out of the game.

Frequent fliers .. a project that requires significant intestinal fortitude.

Cheers, Anne

It would be worth lots to me to pay for this service - most awful time consuming nightmare!!!!

I've learned to call at midnight West Coast time 330 days out. If you're willing to "pay lots" than why bother using miles - just pay lots for the tickets to begin with!

That used to work Kathy SO WELL. Unfortunately now they dont load things all at the same time like they used. They may load coach and not business or simply wait a few days to load certain flights or certain classes of service. Nothing is like it used to be. Those were the good old days. I always managed to get my flights by setting the alarm and waking up every couple of hours starting at midnight. No more. I still try this but learning now that there is no system that you can count on. You start there and see what happens. For instance AF itinerary we are on now in coach is confirmed. There are no business seats loaded and no one knows when they will be loaded - if at all. So you have to call every day. A very tiresome chore.

The rules/regulations keep shifting. If you want to enter the FF award redemption arena, you pretty much have to resign yourself to the fact that most likely, the rules dictated previously are no longer. Being a member of a FF program requires being diligent. Diligence, unfortunately, requires lots of time and patience. Hardly a $25 job!

I don't believe that paying a lot for a trip means why bother attempting to redeem miles earned - Just pay for tickets because, obviously, you can afford to do so. The fact is that a person enrolls in FF mile programs to earn miles for travel and to have the ability to use those miles at some point. If you're a member of a FF mile program and have earned miles, it only makes sense that you'd want to spend those miles you've earned. No easy task many times to spend those miles, but worth the effort, nonetheless, regardless of how much you've paid for your overall trip expenses.

Going into a FF program in the hopes of redeeming miles for tix is a challenge best gone into with eyes wide open and with the patience of a Saint!

I think Kathy meant pay "lots" to someone to do the FF mileage tickets for you, not because you pay lots for the cruise.

The really big benefit to miles is business class air really. That is when you get such a bargain with miles.

Many may know about this, but there are a couple of websites that make playing the FF game easier.

On expertflyer.com (subscription) you can see award and upgrade inventory on some, but not all, of the airlines. I subscribe because AA's inventory is viewable. You also can set up a flight alert so if upgradeable or free space pops in you get an e-mail notification.


I just recently learned about seatcounter.com (free) for looking for United award/upgrade inventory. The trick to seeing the "hidden" classes for UA is to put the airline code in 2 boxes under the itinerary request. I don't know if this works for other airlines - it does not work for AA.

Ngaire - the Air France award inventory shows on expertflyer.com, which I believe Ken subscribes to. Have him set up an alert for "O".

Air France (AF)
A First - Award
O Business - Award
W Economy - Award Reserved for Flying Blue Elites
X Economy - Award

Yes, Leslie he had actually already set up his alert for Business Class award seats on that flight. THANKS for looking out for us.

Not sure if he knows about the United and seatcounter - we never use United. All the knowledge in the world helps.

I'm finally cleared for all of my flights in biz class, and the record goes to ticketing tomorrow. I had to pay 115K points because of Dubai. They don't split the points like Delta. You pay to the farthest point rather than half points each way.

Thanks for the heads up on the Sofitel, Peggy!

Olivia,

Good for you, bis class all the way, it is worth the long hours. It is frustrating when the rules keep changing.

Carolyn

:app: :app: :app: :app: :app: :app: to all who succeeded with FF miles!!! More money for Dubai shopping!!!

Not sure about that Joanna, getting award air was part of the affordability of this cruise! However, we shall see what happens!

answer you later watching the SOPRANOS - bada bing

RT tickets in hand! Phone to my ear at 3am.
Outbound on Delta straight thru and Air France return thru Paris-DeGaul :app: & YAWN

For Star Alliance airlines - enroll in ANA's program and then you can see availability for all Star Alliance airlines by class on their website.

Peter, you mean availability for award travel?

Yes - availability for award travel.

Somewhere we need to get all this information in one place to help people with their award mile planning. I am going to ask Karen to start a new thread - AIRLINE AWARD TRAVEL. Then we can post under that. Shared knowledge will help us all so much.

Ngaire, yes, great idea. But it is all so arbitrary. Seems we are at the luck of the draw anytime we call, whether in the booking time, or just outside of it. Like you say, sometimes you have to call every day. I hate that part of award travel. Wouldn't do it unless it is the only way I will travel in the front area of the plane, because I'm not about to pay those fares for biz class. But...it is a pain.

Good Idea about the new thread. I hate all this but I'm getting too old to fly in the back
of the plane. Seems to be the passenger Status yhat is the key and if you are not Elite you are at the bottom of the barrel. Is "Expert Flyer" worth the money to join??

Thanks,

Jan

Jan - if you fly a lot and your preferred airline or alliance's award inventory is shown on the site (I listed them on the other topic) then I think it is well worth the subscription cost. I would much prefer to be able to see if and when there is space available for upgrades etc. then keep calling and asking.

If you are really into it, you can find "I" (discounted business) space and fares, YUP fares (buy coach with automatic upgrade to business) and more. There is loads of other information available regarding fares and rules, seats, on time average performance and more.

Hi all -

After much thought and debate we decided to cancel CAMEL and instead do a land trip to Egypt and Petra in the next year or so in order to see the area in more depth.

Can't wait to hear all about everybody's adventures in Dubai and elsewhere - we have switched to CAVIAR so we will see some of you then - and more of you on ROAR2 and for sure everyone else on a future cruise.

Leslie, we will miss having you and Brad with us! After reading Anne's account of her land/sea trip to Egypt, while wonderful, I realized I don't have the energy to to it all at once with the grueling touring schedule she had. You and Brad are full of energy!

CAVIAR will be wonderful if you have not yet visited the Black Sea. That was my first BK cruise with Suzanne aboard, as well as Peter, Sheri's parents, Carolyn and Don, and others. We had a great time on the Diamond!