nwa frequent flyer miles

[wld]

DH and I both have 25000 miles. Now NWA says you can fly free for that. I wonder where. We have checked Orlando, San Antonio, Boston, Seattle, and LA with no luck. Does anyone know how to get flights for 25000 miles instead of 50-70000?
Thanks

 

[MermaidsMom]

You need to keep trying, and plan ahead and call as soon as the airline will open their inventory. Call NWA and ask how far in advance they will ticket redemption tickets then call at midnight (1 minute after) on that date.

 

[Cameo]

We fly Northwest as well (we have no other airline in our area). My husband has over 127,000 and we have not been able to use them for much of anything. We actually donated some to our local humane society so someone there could go to Anaheim for a conference. I was surprised that we were able to find seats on those planes!

The only time we have been able to use them for Orlando was when we ticketed about 3 weeks from the date we were to leave. We used to be able to get the tickets one year in advance, but we haven't been able to do that for the last few years either.

They make it somewhat easier to earn miles nowadays, but you can't use them for anything. I have gotten increasingly disappointed in their mileage program over the past few years.

 

[KLAIT]

Yes, it is harder to use the Northwest points than it used to be. Being the planner that I am, I called Northwest and found out when their "window" of being able t book seats opened up....and called right at midnight that night and at least once per day for several days...we have been lucky and been able to get all 3 seats...

However, the last time, I used this strategy and it did not work. There was always one leg that required more points....we ended up flying into Jacksonville--the lady said it was much easier to get those seats as there is a lot less demand. The thing about Northwest, is they change their schedules a lot during the year....we were booked in and out of Jacksonville...since we live in a small town, we have a connection to a small plane that is on a very limited schedule...so about 3 months before we left, they changed the schedule only allowing us about 20 minutes to connect..I called right away and were were given several options...the best being that we could pick ANY flight we wanted out of Orlando!

 

[rcbarrows]

Interesting,
We booked a flight from DTW to MCO in September for our honeymoon, using worldperk miles, and had no problems. It could be because we booked first class, or maybe because I am a platinum member, who knows. But we had no problems.

 

[jenelope]

I used World Perks miles for my trip to WDW in September. I reserved my ticket back in early March, and picked "Search Standard Award Only." I just checked the same dates and there are still a number of flights available for 25K miles. There are actually more listed now than when I reserved in March. I've always found that I needed more miles if I searched by schedule.

 

[Poohs Pal]

About 2 weeks ago I got a(25,000)point trip for 12/03/05-12/13/05 from flint,michigan. The flight to orlando is a non stop, the flight coming back has a plane change in detroit to flint. Susan

 

[wld]

I never thought of looking at a different airport. Flint requires 3 plane changes now (I am looking at close to the same Dec dates) Toledo requires me in one scenario to fly to detroit and then orlando. It cracks me up that I can't just get the detroit to orlando flight for the miles, since it would be the same flight as I change planes in detroit, but it only shows when I leave from toledo. Now I'm actually a bit closer to Toledo, but going to detroit is out of the way on the plane. Still the times aren't bad and it is a free ticket or two.
Wish I was flying in Sept. and I do usually use the standard award search. The first time we had a free ticket we had no problem with a direct flight.
Thanks, knew you all could help.

 

[wld]

Well, do you believe it? I decided after my last post to stick in Detroit, which I have been looking at for months for different flights. And believe it or not there are several flights to and from for our dates and some were direct. I booked my flight (good times for us too) but with my stupid dial up I couldn't get DH's return flight the same as mine. I called NWA and the person there was very helpful. She thought she could book us both on a later return flight, but as she was putting them in the availability changed and she could only get him. She suggested I book anyway since there is only 1 hour difference. And to keep checking back to see if one or the other of us could switch for the same flight. If it is after midnight tomorrow night it will cost us $50. Still much cheaper than a ticket. Or she said he could try to fly standby on my flight. While we would rather fly home together if we can't an hour in the airport is not much compared to the free tickets! Just one note though..when I booked online there was a $5.00 fee, for her to do it was 20. Since my dialup is very slow tonight, I had her do it rather than lose the flight.
So my advice...keep checking, earlier today there were no flights from detroit with 25000miles.
WooHooo
Now for the hotel...........

 

[Poohs Pal]

Glad you got your flights. I agree 1 hour isn't much difference, but I would call back and try to get them together. For us flint is the closer airport but we have always used detroit. Several friends have said to fly Bishop so DS and DD are giving it a try for december. Susan

 

[nmudisneyfan]

Well, do you believe it? I decided after my last post to stick in Detroit, which I have been looking at for months for different flights. And believe it or not there are several flights to and from for our dates and some were direct. I booked my flight (good times for us too) but with my stupid dial up I couldn't get DH's return flight the same as mine. I called NWA and the person there was very helpful. She thought she could book us both on a later return flight, but as she was putting them in the availability changed and she could only get him. She suggested I book anyway since there is only 1 hour difference. And to keep checking back to see if one or the other of us could switch for the same flight. If it is after midnight tomorrow night it will cost us $50. Still much cheaper than a ticket. Or she said he could try to fly standby on my flight. While we would rather fly home together if we can't an hour in the airport is not much compared to the free tickets! Just one note though..when I booked online there was a $5.00 fee, for her to do it was 20. Since my dialup is very slow tonight, I had her do it rather than lose the flight.
So my advice...keep checking, earlier today there were no flights from detroit with 25000miles.
WooHooo
Now for the hotel...........

Hey!
Where are you going, missy? Why have I not been informed of you and my father going somewhere? I'm always out of the loop.

 

[bicker]

We've been able to redeem NW WorldPerks miles for business-class tickets to Egypt, and for flights to Detroit. There are two redemption levels. If you are aiming for more highly desireable flights, you need to use the higher redemption level.

 

[Brian Noble]

DTW-MCO standard NWA awards during low seasons (September, early December, ...) aren't that hard. During high seasons (Feb, March, and much of summer), well, they are just about impossible.

The trick with award miles is that they are much easier to get for less popular destinations more or less year-round, or popular destinations but at less popular times. I've earned nearly a half million on NWA, and have used about 400K of those, all on standard awards only. Whenever we have a leisure trip coming up, I look into using them, and can about 2/3 of the time. About half of those instances, it ends up cheaper to just pay for the flight. My break-even number is $250---if the flight costs less than that, I don't bother using miles. I also sometimes use them for "gee, wouldn't it be cool to spend a weekend there" trips. For example, I brought my daughter along with me to Paramount Carowinds for a "dad/daughter weekend" on a standard award (I was flying on a 1-2-3 Free ticket that was set to expire.)

By definition, most people are in the majority. So, if you are looking for one *specific* trip, chances are fair to middling that your trip is to a popular destination during a popular time, and that makes it harder to redeem.