The company name is BookYourAward, but making the actual booking is just 5% of the work that goes into your trip. 95% is the STRATEGY OF FINDING your award that is the harmonic convergence of your requested:
* travel date range (give us +/- a day or so wiggle room)
* class of service (typically Business Class)
* reasonable routing (probably not the nonstop, but the best available)
* low level award redemption (saving you 100,000-200,000 per award)
Our Search methodology to FIND your award seats is more sophisticated and comprehensive than airline award booking engines and poorly trained phone agents:
- We’ll check 27 Star Alliance, 11 one world, 13 Skyteam partners (and the alliances are growing)
- We’ll check non-alliance partners; in many cases that means 8-14 additional airlines depending on the program your miles are with
- We check non-hub connections, non-intuitive routings, backtracking routings; BOOKYOURAWARD checks an average of 60 routing combinations to Europe, 50 routing combinations to Asia, 40 routing combinations to Africa, Mideast and Australia.
- We check alternate airports: fly from/to a nearby airport to your no award or high cost award destination, and then recommend purchase a separate inexpensive airline or train ticket...in order to save 100,000-200,000 miles worth $4500-$11,000. (when employing this strategy, always plan extra time in case of flight delays or misconnections)
Please understand that our reputation is built on being creative and resourceful in hunting down low level redemption itineraries. But if you have very specific flights in mind, flights that airlines have told you are not available for awards, we have no magic bullet to open space that is otherwise unavailable.
We combine knowledge, experience, and hard work. We manually prowl a dozen different airline and proprietary award search engines.
We have patience, recognizing that availability changes all the time. A great award can disappear within 24 hours and a dead end search can be re-ignited with newly released inventory.
What we need from YOU:
First and foremost, to manage your expectations. The airlines have done a magnificent job pumping up the hype of their mileage programs sky-high. Many times I’ve had inquiries looking for 5 first class seats to Australia for Christmas and New Years. Those seats will sell out and won’t normally be available as awards. When I share that, the invariable response, “see? I knew these miles were worthless!”
Without a little bit of flexibility, we can be faced with the harsh reality of no award space or double (or even triple) award redemption levels.
Non-stops can often be hard to get. We can come up with connecting options the airlines won’t think to offer you. Sometimes a domestic segment might be in coach, but it’s still worthwhile to get you the long overwater flights in business class.
Free' tickets can cost a bunch of money. International taxes may be a couple hundred bucks. Non-US programs (and most American Express Membership Rewards partners) add fuel surcharges onto awards, usually $500 per person roundtrip.
Getting lots of seats on the same flights is rarely possible, one seat is easy two is often doable but 3, 4, 5, 6 can be a true impossibility sometimes. If four people are willing to split up two and two your chances of success increase significantly.
So, to ensure our best mutual opportunity for finding your elusive mileage award at LOWEST LEVEL REDEMPTION, please consider:
* flexible travel date range +/- 1 day on your desired outbound and inbound travel dates transforms 2 days into 6 days of possible award availability.
* Connecting Flights Airlines restrict award availability or charge highest mileage redemptions on popular nonstop routes because of their perceived convenience. Fly a connecting flight via a hub city to your final destination
An extra 3-4 hours of travel time, including Business Class lounge access during layover in order to save 100,000 to 150,000 miles, enough for 1 to 1.5 future international Business Class awards worth $4500-$11,000.
* Alternate Airport Strategy Option Flights into high demand destinations often require the highest mileage redemption amounts. Instead, fly into a nearby, low profile airport and purchase a separate and inexpensive ticket (or high speed train where appropriate) to your final high demand destination. Modest cost of separate airline ticket and extra 3-4 hours of travel time in order to save 100,000 to 150,000 miles, enough for 1 to 1.5 future international Business Class awards worth $4500-$11,000. (You may wish to overnight when connecting to your return flight, it’s important not to miss flights on separate tickets due to airline irregular operations.)
* The Cost Of 'Free' Tickets Airline passengers have become an easy target for revenue hungry airlines, airports and governments with a wide assortment of fuel surcharges, passenger facility charges, airport fees, luxury taxes, phone booking fees, security fees and change fees. Programs that have the highest add-on charges (approx $650-$1100) for are also the programs that have the most convenient US gateway airports and plentiful connections from their home hub airports.
* Split Up, Sit Up...Front Finding more than 2 Business/First Class award seats on the same flight, if you are a group of 3 or more Split up into groups of 2 or 3 and arrange parallel flights that depart and arrive around the same time and everyone gets to sit up front. Most long haul flights are about sleeping, reading, movie watching with very little social interaction. Get reacquainted once you land and start your trip.
* Patience and Perseverance Give us time to succeed. Award inventory can be dynamic. We will typically ask for up to a 2 week window to meet your parameters with a proposal
* Economy Seat Intrudes on Business Class Award Securing Business Class award seats is challenging on routes with small aircraft with small Business Class seating configurations OR from hub cities with large numbers of top tier status members who hog all the Business Class seats with paid tickets, upgrades or early award redemptions. And many regional jets have no Business Class. For flights under 2 hours, don't be fazed if you are on the other side of the curtain.
* Credit Where Credit Is Due The value of our service is revealing what we consider to be proprietary information. How a given prospective chooses to utilize that information is beyond our control. So, our metric for determining when our service fee is triggered, is straightforward.
1. We will analyze each client's requested award travel parameters.
2. We will advise if the parameters are within our scope of our search methodology, including how much time we need for thorough and ongoing multiple searches . If not, we will suggest revised parameters. * date range * maximum number of stops * maximum layover time * alternate airport/ purchase separate short haul ticket option * connecting hub options * short haul Economy options * add-on fee projections * BookYourAward service fee * time frame for award proposal
3. Once we are in agreement in writing to the original or revised parameters, we will commence our search.
4. You may reject our first proposal that meets all of the mutually agreed upon parameters for any reason. You may change the parameters for our second proposal.
5. If we submit a second proposal that meets all of the existing or revised mutually agreed upon parameters, our service fee will be triggered, whether or not you book the award yourself, through us, or not at all.
