Doug (front) and Charlie on American Airlines, Jan. 10, 2007

Prediction: We'll be reading plenty over the next few months about how few 25,000-mile frequent-flier award seats are available for travel this summer and how, unless you're willing to fly 5 days early on a red eye via someplace whose airport code you don't recognize, you're gonna have to cough up 50,000 miles.

I say this because every March for the past few years I've used miles to buy summer tickets from the New York City area to San Francisco. (We always go to Sonoma County, where my husband's from, in mid- to late June and return in early July.) This year, for the first time, despite trying every trick up my sleeve, I could find no acceptable flights between Newark and San Francisco at the 25,000-mile level. After two frustrating hours online and on the phone with airlines yesterday, I shelled out $1,300 for four roundtrips.

(No way was I gonna burn 200,000 miles to get my family of four to my mother-in-law's.)

While there's evidence that the scarcity might lie only with Continental and Delta, or only on the EWR-SFO route, the real problem, I think, is that planes are filling up fast. The online seat map for my return flight on a July Saturday, for example, shows only one empty seat.

The moral of the story? Buy your summer tickets NOW.

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Comments

I don't think you can draw any conclusions from one failed redemption. There are many thousands of combinations of airlines, routes, class of travel and dates that are used for awards.

For general award availability, while my own experiences naturally has an effect, I rely heavily on experts such as Award Planner (who do regular surveys of many different combinations), as well as anecdotal evidence as shown through postings on Flyer Talk.

More recently some online tools have been set up, which allow any one to check for themselves award availability within an alliance - although as yet all these online tools are imperfect and only give part of the picture. Careful interpretation is required.

Posted by: TheGlobalTraveller | March 19, 2007 at 03:33 PM

Wendy,

How do you get the best exchange rates for getting cash when going to foreign countries? The answer used to be to go to an ATM at the airport at your destination. On a recent trip to Paris thats just what I did. Today when I check my bank statement I found I got hit with a 3% "foreign transaction fee" and a $10 ATM fee! For my 100 euros of pocket change I paid more than $1.46 each.

Needless to say, I have a new bank, but where is one to go for the best cash rates? I was given a tip by a waitress in Vancouver B.C. that the local casino had the best exchange rates in town (providing that you leave before placing a wager).

Thank, Joe

Posted by: joe_kayaker | March 19, 2007 at 08:28 PM

Continental is one of the stingiest airlines when it comes to reward seats, which is one of the major reasons I have moved my business to United.

Posted by: JNelson113 | March 20, 2007 at 12:26 PM

Is there another service available such as Award Planner? As of 3/15, they are no longer taking new clients. We had a bad experience planning a trip seven months in advance with American and were told literally the last minute that we didn't confirm it. Now, we are having an equally difficult time redeeming miles for another trip. I am becoming exhausted with this. Is it simply impossible to book overseas travel now? (Mind you - only the day before, they said they could book every single flight for our non-existent itinerary except for the domestic outgoing which we'd have to pay for. Before we could decide to do that, the flight was legitimately cancelled.) Alas, when we called the day after, those flights we spoke of did not exist, they did not send me the itinerary as promised the following day, and that return overseas flight was gone. Should we just book the returning flights they say they don't have an award for and upgrade? At this point, I would love Award Planner. Any ideas? - S

Posted by: Smdsac | March 20, 2007 at 02:52 PM

hello

Posted by: pparsan | March 22, 2007 at 09:28 AM

Dear Smdsac,
Please see this blog post for an answer to your question:
http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/blogs/perrinpost/2007/04/finding_hardtof.html
Wendy Perrin

Posted by: WendyPerrin | April 06, 2007 at 10:51 AM