Frequent Flyer Miles

I cannot believe what a pain in the A$$ it is to use frequent flyer miles!!!!!!!! My parents were so generous to give their miles, and we called to find out about using them. For the tickets that were the lowest amt of points, they said they had no seats left. You are telling me they have no seats for a flight to Costa Rica, during their rainy season, 7 months for now??? What do they do reserve 2 seats? So we have to go to the next level, which is also coach class, but now we don't have enough points to cover it. We called to find out how much extra we would have to pay and no one can tell us the answer!!
Sorry for making this so long, just had to vent!

Re: Frequent Flyer Miles

We have been having the same issues! We have so many miles and have not been able to use them once! My husband just called the airline that we want to use to complain about it and got nowhere! Does anyone have a success story regarding frequent flyer miles??!!

PS - Costa Rica is incredible!!

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I don't have a success story I gave up my seat on usair once for a free ticket...NEVER DO THAT!!!! It is even more imposible to get a flight that way. I tried 8 different times to use it before it expired....nothing FH has tons of Delta frequent flier miles too and it was a pain in the a$$ to get a flight from them. What they do is only reserve a very few seats to be used for frequent flier miles. And get this, one of the 2 airlines I called (can't remember which) if you put a reservation on hold while you are decided (using FFM's) if you don't call back to hold or to cancel the reservation, they hold it until 1 hour before the flight takes off How stupid is that? They want to have those extra seats to sell at the last minute for more $$$ I don't even mess with FFM's or free tickets b/c all it makes me is pi$$ed off

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I had the same problem with my honeymoon flight. I had enough miles for my husband and I to fly to St Lucia on any airline for free and we wound up paying $1600 to get there! I feel your pain I was really pissed about it !

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I didn't use frequent flyer miles to buy my tickets, but I did use them to upgrade to first class on my flights to Hawaii. I had no problems at all. I booked the tickets through a travel agency and then called American Airlines and getting the upgrades for me and FH was totally painless. I'm sorry that you had such bad experiences!!!

Re: Frequent Flyer Miles

I think upgrading is easier

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I used my frequent flyier miles on American to fly to Hawaii for our honeymoon. I didn't have a problem using them and I left the friday before memorial day. I booked the tickets in mid Jan. I just went on the AA.com and check for seats online (they have an option for using miles) and when I found a flight I wanted I called them and had them book it for me .. I could of done it online but decided it was better to talk to someone...

Re: Frequent Flyer Miles

I can't help, but I want to know where you're going in Costa Rica!!!! We had such a great time there!!!

Re: Frequent Flyer Miles

I had no problems what-so-ever. I bought tickets in May for September..upgraded us to 1st class,roundtrip. Used my marriot & Amex points for 2 weeks hotel and breakfasts,a few dinners and some spa treatments...we did the math and saved just a bit over 10 grand!
You have to have patience and theres ALWAYS a way..its just that these reps on the phone are no help unless YOU ask a gazillion questions.

Re: Frequent Flyer Miles

FH used miles for our trip to Hawaii in August. Amazingly he only booked 2 months prior but he did have to use more miles than just the basic ticket.

We are also thinking of Costa Rica for HM, maybe we should start a separate thread for ideas in the HM forum.

Edit: I know you can buy more miles for most airlines, usually for .025 or .035 cents per mile.

Re: Frequent Flyer Miles

It has gotten harder to get FF seats due to airlines cutting some flights and the price of fuel. Also, since the bankruptcies and Sept 11. If you are flexible with your dates and times usually it works out. I use the miles from Amex almost exclusively.

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I'm so sorry it's been hard on all of you!!!! I don't have any FFMs earned and now I'm kinda glad about it!!!!!

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Ive had so many problems trying to use miles before. I dont even want to bother anymore.

Good Luck though and keep trying, something can always oopen up!

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I'm sorry, I feel your pain. I have tons of FF miles from Delta, but I couldn't use them to go to the honeymoon on the 'regular' one either, I would have had to do it where they used double the amoutn of miles, and then we didnt' have enough. We are going to use the miles soon for a domestic flight

Re: Frequent Flyer Miles

OMG!! I'm so glad that I saw this post. I was thinking of using my mom's FF miles for our honeymoon too. I guess I better get started now! It sounds like this is going to be another stressful item on my list. Thanks for the warning.

Re: Frequent Flyer Miles

I had a similar issue with the miles my mom was giving us BUT eventually they 'found' us two tickets... KEEP TRYING!!!!!!!!!!! Speak to managers...etc...

Re: Frequent Flyer Miles

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Posted by Beth1210

I think upgrading is easier

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I think it depends on the airline. This is what happened with FH and I

We booked everything except the air through our travel agent. We wanted to book economy class tickets and use our miles to upgrade to first class. Between the two of us, we have tons of miles. And I wasn't going to Europe flying in coach, especially on an overnight flight! Anyway, Continental has no problem if you want to do that, HOWEVER for their flights to Europe in order to use your miles to upgrade you need to pay a fee $450 per person, per leg! That's on top of the airfare! So it would have cost us $1800 extra to just use our miles to fly first class. We compromised in the end and are flying coach there and first class back. We figured at this point in the spending game, what was another $900.

PS... try playing the honeymoon card. I had FH do this, and the ticket agent tried to bend over backwards to get us upgraded without the fare. Some agents as soon as they hear honeymoon, they change their tune. Unfortunately, there were no first class seats going out unless we were flexible with our date (just be a day), but we weren't.

Re: Frequent Flyer Miles

Update:
It looks like we are going to have to use the miles for one ticket, and purchase the other. When we call them to book, maybe I will try the honeymoon card to see if we can upgrade... we'll see.

For those who asked me about Costa Rica- FM me and I will tell you all the details!