[snip] hitting the fan...

[thekfc]

They must be quoting you Y, B, Q, E, K, H, M, S fare classes - these are their advertised fares.

Fare class G, T, V, W, L, N, X  are unpublished/discount fares (get via TA & calling) and should be cheaper.  G = group discount ticket.
Maybe they have not "released" these tickets yet - airlines do that so they can sell more of the higher fare tickets.

The differences between the fare classes are Y, B, Q, E, K, H, M, S will earn you 100% "mileage accruals points".  G & T will earn you 80%, V & W will earn 70% while L, X & N will not earn you any points and should be much cheaper.

I am not sure how Asiana price their fare classes but for most (Asian) carriers their unpublished fares are much cheaper than their published fares......but you also have to know what to ask for. 

I mostly travel via OneWorld carriers (Cathay/BA/AA), I call to see how much cheaper the unpublished fares are & if it is worth it for me to buy the higher class fare to "score" an upgrade to Business/First class (or status) otherwise I get the lower fare.

[Woody]

I am not sure how Asiana price their fare classes but for most (Asian) carriers their unpublished fares are much cheaper than their published fares......but you also have to know what to ask for. 

I mostly travel via OneWorld carriers (Cathay/BA/AA), I call to see how much cheaper the unpublished fares are & if it is worth it for me to buy the higher class fare to "score" an upgrade to Business/First class (or status) otherwise I get the lower fare.

I'm looking at traveling on CathayPacific in May, do you call after you book online, or do you call to get the lower fare using online as a reference?

[thekfc]

I'm looking at traveling on CathayPacific in May, do you call after you book online, or do you call to get the lower fare using online as a reference?

You call to get the lower fare using online as reference.

[jm21-2]

So she's been doing a lot of stuff in Taiwan. Had a tooth pulled, picking out a wedding dress and a bunch of clothes, stocking up on apparently about a year's supply of specialty food products....she lost everything in her luggage when she moved back to Taiwan and has been slowly rebuilding her wardrobe from scratch. A lot of the stuff needs to be custom-made (she's an odd size for Taiwan) and shipped from China which takes 2-3 weeks and she is still waiting on some stuff she ordered, including a wedding dress.

Was hoping she'd be able to come on April 23 at the latest but didn't seem possible for her to get everything she wanted done in time and I don't want to rush her too much. We booked flight tickets for May 7 last night. About a month longer than I wanted but she's been able to get a lot of stuff done in Taiwan that would be impossible or really expensive to do here. The wedding dress might not get there by the 7th but we figure her mom can ship it on to us if necessary and do the fitting here. May 13/14 is bad luck and I don't want to wait for May 20/21.  I want to be able to pick her up from the airport and have at least 2-3 days off to help her get settled, so the only flights that really work is EVA late Friday night, Asiana Saturday afternoon, and United Saturday morning. We ended up going with Asiana, though she's a bit worried the time for switching flights in Seoul is too low (1h40m).

This will probably work out better as my parents and family will be able to attend the wedding and we can have a more formal wedding...her mom might come too but not sure on that one yet. She's pretty intimidated about flying over here. I have a client who I've helped out a lot pro bono who runs a ministry here and he offered to do most of a wedding ceremony for free at his church as a favor...very tempting. I had thought just to do a court wedding with a nice reception before, but she has been a lot more into wedding dresses and traditions than I thought she would be. I've never had much interest in weddings nad have never been to one before so don't have a clue....

Boy am I going to be glad when this is all over and we can settle down into a bit more of a routine lifestyle....

[Ray]

You’ve never been to a wedding jm?? I can’t believe it!

Oh well, you have to start sometime I guess. You’ll be an expert before this is over… LOL!

Do you have a sister, or a good female friend with some wedding experience who can help her with some of the planning?

Oh, one tip: The reception comes after the wedding ceremony, not before.   

Ray

[thekfc]

Asiana Saturday afternoon, and United Saturday morning. We ended up going with Asiana, though she's a bit worried the time for switching flights in Seoul is too low (1h40m).

I have never been to that airport so I cannot comment but after seeing your post I called a friend of mine (he goes through that airport regularly).

His take:
ICN is very efficient and transit security are efficient as well, so transit should run smooth.

Since Asiana (OZ) allow you to book that flight, that means OZ thinks that there is sufficient time to do the transfer - if there wasn't then they wouldn't permit the booking/connection to happen.

If the transit queues is huge, tell her to explain her connecting situation to an Asiana agent & that agent will escort her to the front of the line. I have done that before with Cathay Pacific.

The only time that she should have problems with that connecting time was if she had luggage to  check but since is flying all the way on Asians then her luggage will be checked all the way to the USA.

[thekfc]

Oh, one tip: The reception comes after the wedding ceremony, not before.   

[jm21-2]

Haha, that came out wrong. I meant I was previously thinking to do a court wedding and then a reception, not that the reception came before the wedding  . I at least have that much down.

My parents just retired and have been planning a month long trip to Europe for a while now, all reservations made, and they leave on April 25. They have always been very supportive and they'd be somewhat dismayed if I marry a girl they'd never even met before, so was hoping she could fly here on the 23rd, meet my parents for Easter dinner, then we'd have a court wedding while they were gone, and a reception/small ceremony with my family after they got back. But I think my mom in particular would really appreciate us waiting a few weeks and my family being able to attend a wedding ceremony for us. Of course my fiance doesn't want to cohabit before marriage which really throws things for a loop. I may end up sleeping on the boat for a few weeks...

Everyone in my family has been married 30+ years or never married....three female cousins and a brother but none of them seem at all interested in marriages or weddings. I don't have any female friends really.

I had a friend from high school who got married a few years ago but wasn't able to attend (we live in different states now). Guess it turned out to be a disaster....beach wedding and it rained....his wife's kids were carrying the rings and dropped them in the sand...spent half the day trying to find the rings in the rain....

[Capstone]

A 1hr 40min layover at Incheon should be ok, as long as her flight from Taipei is not delayed. International transfers are pretty much a breeze at ICN, the process is very similar to International transfers at Narita - you don't have to go through any type of immigration check but you do have to go through an additional security check.  I would make sure and have her sit as close to the front of the plane on her TPE-ICN flight as possible so that she can deplane quickly and hit the security checkpoint ASAP.

[thekfc]

I don't have any female friends really.

[Capstone]

As far as the wedding goes - just have your fiancée make the call and do whatever she wants to do. You will definitely be glad that you did later on.

[jm21-2]

Pretty much all the guys I know don't have female friends, or at least not close female friends. After seeing a bunch of divorces I can say it's playing with fire and both my fiance and I prefer we don't have any close friends of the opposite gender. It is a breeding ground for jealousy and paranoia in most people....and often justified...

[thekfc]

As far as the wedding goes - just have your fiancée make the call and do whatever she wants to do. You will definitely be glad that you did later on.

+1
And that will be one less thing that you have to worry about. 

[robert angel]

Re:

>>Do you have a sister, or a good female friend with some wedding experience who can help her with some of the planning<<

Even if it's your Mom, sisters, cousins, nieces, etc, I think it would be very helpful and always a great memory if they help her prepare the day of and the day before, with makeup, dress and perhaps take her out for lunch or dinner.

Being a guy, all this never occurred to me, but it did to my family and my wife REALLY appreciated it, but never would have let off any disappointment had they not done so. It's just a sweet, thoughtful gesture and also takes some of the nerve biting out of the picture for you.


Never been to a wedding? Man o live--some of the best times I have had have been at weddings--girls, booze, food, music, dancing and everything--whatta riot. Polish, Italian, Irish, Spanish, Asian and good ole NYC style (multiethnic) and in recent years, red neck Baptist weddings, me oh myo... Jm--you need to at least crash a few...

[thekfc]

jm, as Capstone said have her sit as close to the from as possible so she would be in the first group of her fare class to exit the plane.

To give you an idea, here is the seating map for Asiana:
http://ea.flyasiana.com/Global/EA/en/homepage?fid=ABOUT12000#fleet03

If her flight to ICN is OZ712 then it would be an A330-300 & if it is OZ714 then a Boeing 767 but they can (and do) swap aircraft at the last minute.

You can do the same for the final leg to SEA.

[jm21-2]

Looks like they preassigned her a seat when the flight was booked. Not too bad but not too good.

In my family we've always had family-only weddings, and our family is very small. No big parties or anything.

[thekfc]

Looks like they preassigned her a seat when the flight was booked. Not too bad but not too good.

In my family we've always had family-only weddings, and our family is very small. No big parties or anything.

You can always change the seats.

Have her join or join on her behalf Asiana club. Then she can may be able to change/select her own seats. She may also be able to change her seat using the online seat selection by using her Asiana confirmation number. If that don't work...... call. It doesn't hurt to try. 

She can also start accumulating points too. 

Remember airlines always "block out" rows of seats and "open" them closer to the flight date, then suddenly the seats that were unavailable becomes available. 

[jm21-2]

I have miles on about a dozen different airlines and a lot of them never seem to have been recorded right :/.

You beat me hands down at getting cheap fares KFC, no competition.

[thekfc]

There are plenty of times when the miles would not record correctly...... especially when your itinerary are on 2 different airlines. You should always check your account to ensure that they were properly credited & if not ~ call to have them corrected.

If you have miles/points and they are in the process of expiring or you no longer intent to fly on that airline again......then you can always transfer the mile to another Alliance or partner airline program. There are some airlines/programs that will do the transfer for free while others charge a fee. There are some that would not even allow you to transfer miles to or accept miles from certain programs.

Also, be aware that some miles are more valuable than others, so depending on the transfer, you can lose or gain value on your miles.

[robert angel]

Kfc:

We got in on the AAdvantage American Express card (Citi Bank) 'deal' and picked up about 90,000 miles. But in February, when we started looking to apply those miles for summer seats to the Philippines on American Airline's partner airline, Cathay, we were told all the seats allocated for that program were long, long gone.

They told us that if we wanted to book to anyplace for say, June 21st, 2012, we try and should make our reservations June 20th, 2011.

Needless to say, we weren't too happy--do you know if this is common, standard operating procedure, or if there's a way around it? Thanks.

[thekfc]

Unfortunate for American Airlines, that is the case.
They lowered the amount of miles needed for an award but did not increase the amount of available tickets - they only allocate a small amount of award tickets for travel on partner/Alliance airlines and once these tickets are gone. More people available to redeem award but the same amount of awards.

People tend to book their award ticket on AA about 330+ days in advance for an Oneworld award ticket.

You can use one of the following 2 tools to search for available tickets.
http://www.kvstool.com/

http://www.expertflyer.com/

To get around that what some people do is convert their AA miles to another to another airline program but the conversion rate isn't always that great:
http://www.webflyer.com/programs/mileage_converter/index.php

[Capstone]

Needless to say, we weren't too happy--do you know if this is common, standard operating procedure, or if there's a way around it? Thanks.

This is very common amongst American based airlines these days.  The best way around it is to fly enough so that you earn Elite status with the airline - one of the big benefits of obtaining Elite status is expanded award travel availability.   

[robert angel]

Thank you, gentlemen!

It's kind of sorry when we find ourselves looking at finding places to fly to that aren't places we've really been interested in, but might consider flying to just because we can get tickets w/ the 'free miles'.

Maybe we'll actually see if 'it plays in Peoria" after all, and perhaps discover gems among lesser traveled routes.

[thekfc]

Rob,
What the Cap said is so true.

Also, with the amount of  miles you have, you should have Elite status with AA ~ at least Platinum or even Executive Platinum, check into that:
http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/eliteStatus/elite-benefits-chart.jsp

I try to limit my travels on OneWorld Alliance airlines. I took a look at all the OneWorld partners and they programs & I choose Cathay Pacific & British Airways to be my top two and I have built status on both as well as AA (via Citi) I also have OneWorld Emerald Status. If I fly on an airline other than my top 2, I just credit the miles to either BA or CX ~ depending on which one would give me full mileage.
I would love to do an upgrade trip on JAL ~ I have not experience that yet.

For future reference, these are the AA awards:
http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/redeemMiles/makingAwardReservations.jsp

American Airlines Award
•All travel must be on flights operated by American Airlines and/or its affiliates (American Eagle and American Connection).

AAdvantage All Airline Award 
•Travel on one or more of the AAdvantage participants other than American Airlines/its affiliates.
http://www.aa.com/i18n/disclaimers/aadvantageAllPartnerChart.jsp

Oneworld Award
•Travel on oneworld partners and/or their affiliates.
http://www.aa.com/i18n/disclaimers/oneworld_awards.jsp

[Capstone]

Also, with the amount of  miles you have, you should have Elite status with AA ~ at least Platinum or even Executive Platinum, check into that:
http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/eliteStatus/elite-benefits-chart.jsp

Probably not. Most of the miles that you earn via those types of promotions are non-elite qualifying miles - meaning that the miles do get added to your general miles balance but they do not count towards elite status qualification. Most non-flight promotions will only give you a small percentage of elite qualifying miles if any at all. My guess is that out of the 90,000 miles that was earned from the credit card promotion, a maximum of only 10-15K of them were elite qualifying miles.