Seat Availability on flights booked with Airmiles

[MidnightParade]

Hoping someone can share their experience please on booking flights with airmiles. In a few days we will be able to book a round trip flight for our November trip. Is it best to book it right away or can we wait until April/May? (As we are waiting till the 7month mark to try and rent DVC through Davids for our resort stay *fingerscrossed*)

This is the first time we are booking with airmiles so I'm not sure if availability lasts long or not. As our dates aren't set in stone yet I wanted to wait (you know not wanting to count the chickens until they hatch!). But if they go fast I rather not. And you know, want a direct flight, none of those 3-4 hour layovers in New York or something. We would be flying out of Pearson in Toronto.

Appreciate any feedback or perspective you have! I know allot of people use their miles for park tickets but for ourselves we got more bang for our buck using them for our flight.

 

[hcortesis]

In my experience with Aeroplan, it has always been better to book earlier than later. Not sure if the same is true with Airmiles or not. Good luck.

 

[allybabba98]

I find Airmiles is very limited in their flight selection, and not always the most awesome flights. I would look and if there is a flight that you fits your needs I would book it.

 

[ottawamom]

I have been watching Airmiles and checking availability most of the fall 2015 for a trip in December 2016. I was checking from Ottawa to Orlando, direct flights. I was able to still get two people on one up until a month out (Air Canada and Westjet). I wouldn't leave it that late for my actual trip but it was interesting to know that I could still get something. They seemed to have sales on airmiles flights in the early fall (for late fall travel) so you may want to keep an eye out for those. Personally I would wait until you have firmed up your hotel reservations then book the airline. Those airmiles tickets are set in stone once they are booked.

 

[KandyM]

I would not wait. Airmiles flights disappear.
I have onyx status or I would not have been able to get anything to California on Feb break. Even then, the number of miles needed went up every couple of weeks it seemed and I ended up having to book one way flights going and separate one way flights coming back or we would not have had anything.

I booked for February back in August

 

[mort1331]

You dont have to wait for 7 months to book with Daves. There is also the rrent trade board on here and again dont have to wait for 7 months

 

[mort1331]

The other thing you can do with your airmiles is get your park passes. This way you can book what ever flight and times you want. Your passes are done and no worries about exchange rates for them. You can get 3,5,7 day pass.

 

[momof2gr8kids]

The other thing you can do with your airmiles is get your park passes. This way you can book what ever flight and times you want. Your passes are done and no worries about exchange rates for them. You can get 3,5,7 day pass.

For us, it's worked better to do this and drive to the US and fly out of there, with SW and free bags, rather than using airmiles, paying the taxes and baggage fees, and having 3 connections from where we are to Orlando. Less stress if we needed to change flight dates, etc.

 

[MidnightParade]

Thanks so much for everyone's feedback! (Love having the dis for help and feedback) I think I will call and double check on what the change policy is in case we end up shifting by day or so, but I'm pretty sure we are set on the dates right now. And think I will feel better booking right away for what we want instead of waiting and maybe ending up with some cruddy options later. Plus I think I may get the additional insurance that will reimburse the miles if something happens.

 

[MidnightParade]

You dont have to wait for 7 months to book with Daves. There is also the rrent trade board on here and again dont have to wait for 7 months

Agreed! And we did try at the 11 month mark but no availability for the BWV studio Standard view(which we knew was a long shot going in) so we decided to wait for the 7month mark when the $2 per point premium with David's drops off and we will try for the Poly... BWV preferred.... WLV.... Or plan C and book POR with Disney. But I will nose around the rent/trade board again as well and see if anything works/feels comfortable. Thanks for the reminder!

 

[LemonNeko]

If you wait sometimes flights are still available but they cost more points. We ended up needing to wait and flew Air Canada Rouge instead of Westjet which sucked. I find if you are booking inside Canada the availability is a lot better than if you are booking to the US.

 

[MidnightParade]

Ugh, yeah would like to avoid Air Rouge if possible. Lol. Sooner is getting more appealing every post! Lol

 

[MidnightParade]

Just to follow up, we ended up booking flights using airmiles. We pushed the vacation back by 1 day so we could fly with Westjet (instead of Air Rouge) and saved a few airmiles on the flight as well. Wasn't a big deal with the date change. I will say I will have to think long and hard before using our airmiles for plane tickets again. The availability just felt very limited. If we hadn't already gotten our park tickets from UC I would have changed our plans and got them with airmiles and just payed for our flight. We'll see how we feel after the flight though. I will say I did call and speak to an Airmiles travel assistant and they were pretty good and helpful.

Again thanks to everyone for their help on this!

 

[ottawamom]

Just to follow up because I will find myself in the same boat (booking) in the near future. Did you get the insurance to safeguard your flights. If so how much did that add to the cost. I don't usually bother with insurance but I'm traveling with a friend who won't go with out it and I'm the one doing the budget up for the trip. Where in the booking process do you sign up for the insurance. Do you have to do it when you book or can it be added on later? So many questions, hope you can answer some of them. My dates aren't yet available on airmiles (only Delta) so I will have to wait a while longer.

 

[MidnightParade]

We didn't get the insurance, but you can add it on after you book. They even sent an email pointing it out and confirming we can add it in. I believe they offer it after you input all your information after selecting the flights. I went back and forth on getting it. If we do end up adding it it would be the cheapest one which was $144 and covered air mile reimbursement, the taxes you have to pay for the flight, baggage. I think it just didn't have the medical portion.

When I called and spoke to the air miles travel person they advised that it can take a few weeks for flights to be added once your dates become available. But he also suggested playing around with your dates. And by doing that I found that it didn't seem that Westjet had any flights on Thursdays (for air miles) to Orlando which seems weird but when I checked back a few Thursday's they had nothing either. But they had flights on Wednesdays and Fridays. So we changed our dates to leave on Friday.

I wish you all the best in getting your dates! Let us know how it works out!!

 

[ottawamom]

Thanks Midnight Parade. That seems awfully expensive. My flights from Ottawa will only be 2800AM which equates to about $280 in value (95AM =$10 in cashback) I think I will probably forgo the insurance on my ticket. My friend can add it if the wants. My reason for using the Airmiles is to keep the outlow of $ to a minimum. I've been watching West Jet flights for a while and I am now convinced they just release flights to airmiles as they try to fill flights so I'm not likely to see anything until they've had a chance to sell regular tickets first.

On a side note I was looking at other flights from Ottawa to Orlando. One routing would have me going from Ottawa to Toronto in the morning then from Toronto to Montreal in the early afternoon and finally to Orlando around dinnertime. Are they kidding, I can't believe they would even put that option out there for people to consider. Montreal is a two hour drive max. Go figure.

Thanks again for the info.

 

[ginkybiloba]

I am late chiming in but wanted to share my experience. We booked our flights for later this month (Jan 30 - Feb 7) using airmiles. We booked in late October. We paid $600 in taxes on 4 tickets. We ended up taking the optional insurance ($190) because my in-laws are in their mid 70's and you just never know if one of them might become ill and we'd have to cancel or reschedule our trip. I probably wouldn't take the insurance if we were only using airmiles for one flight, but it would hurt to lose all of our airmiles on 4 flights.

I checked the flight availability many times over the course of a few months and saw that it changed fairly frequently. I was able to secure a direct flight from YOW - MCO heading down, but needed to book MCO - YUL - YOW on the way back.

All that to say, in future I would monitor the available flights and as soon as I saw a direct one that worked with our dates, I would jump on it.

 

[ottawamom]

Ginkybiloba, was the $190 for all four flights or was that per ticket?

 

[MidnightParade]

For us the $144 dollar insurance was for both of us, total. It did seem like more money then we wanted to spend. Trying to make this as low cost as possible as the exchange has gone up a bit since our 2014 trip. Lesigh. Our flights from Toronto came out to 4994 air miles total( for two) It's amazing the variance in miles different flights are! I saw one suggested a flight that for the flight home would route us through Edmonton!!!! Ummm no.

I recommend playing around with dates as well. Just so you can see if leaving one day sooner or later has flights you might be interested in and then look into why you aren't seeing them for your dates. I just booked our November tickets so December will be happening soon! Wooooo!

 

[ginkybiloba]

Ottawamom, it was for all 4 tickets.