Questions and Answers

Hello! Despite many, many miles traveled (405,000 on UA since 2013), I am making my first foray into using all those miles for a business class RTW trip ticket, to the song of 350,000 miles of any available flight.

I went into the Star Alliance RTW widget and picked out my flights, then called United Airlines to give them my itinerary, which is where the problems started. I received all of my selections except for two: I will have to fly Thai SYD-BKK vs on SQ, which is not a big deal. However, I also have to fly JNB-ADD-TLV on Ethiopian instead of JNB-IST-TLV on Turkish–Turkish is simply not offering business class mileage seats in “I” or “X” right now. Flight is in June.

I flew the absolute worst flight of my life on Ethiopian in 2012 (DJI-ADD-IAD) and would like to avoid it at all costs, especially for such a long flight. I have been advised that I *do* have the flexibility of changing the legs of my flights, so I can opt to change from flying Ethiopian to Turkish on that leg if seats become available.

Furthermore, United also pointed out that they open their Saver awards for this time of year a little later on after there have been more paid seats–in fact, they are not currently available for my flights, and they are doing some finagling for me because I’m Premier Platinum.

So all that said, is it reasonable to expect that Turkish Airlines will open up some more award seats in business if I keep checking back with them? Thank you!

-AG ([URL=’http://www.fearlessflashpacker.com’]The Fearless Flashpacker)[/URL]

This far in advance I think it’s absolutely fair to expect them to open up space later on – though be aware they could open up flights on the days before & after your trip and not on the exact day you need them. As you can imagine, June is the start of the busy summer season so I’d expect them to try to sell as many of those seats as they can before opening them up for award travel. But you’d think sooner or later they’d open at least one seat.