Thanks for all the tips here, folks. Very useful!

I have my lifemiles and I'm trying to book from Perth to London in October, but I'm getting no availability either in First or business class.

Is that normal? I thought October was low season and getting a flight wouldn't be difficult.

There is availability. The problem is the LifeMiles booking engine...it doesn't offer connecting flights with transit times of more than about 8 hours. I see loads of availability on Eva between BKK and LHR but the flight departs at 1250 which would mean an overnight connection in BKK...LifeMiles will not allow this unless booked as a multicity (more points). A US agent on the phone would be able to do this. The flight you need to be available is the 1AM departure Thai flight (BKK-LHR)...and this one is relatively hard to get

Not sure if Centurian still posts here, but if he/she does, a huge thanks for the heads up re KVS - I joined as a Diamond member for 12 months and I've already had my $75 worth just with the fun of looking at flight combinations for PER - MAN - PER. As has been mentioned before Thai business availability seems excellent from Perth, and I'm liking the availability of Thai first class from BKK to some European airports

ps am keeping the Star Alliance thing in mind, just lookin' for now.

Is any one having trouble with awardtravelr.com
I am getting stuck at the search. Once i've input my search criterion the search engine just hangs.............

Is it the same for anyone else?

Out of four computers I have tried using it on over at least a year, only one works - as with you, it just hangs on the others. I sent them two emails asking if I needed any particular software to make it work, but never got any answer. Still have no idea why it only works on that one machine.

It only started happening this week.
I was searching last weekend with no issues, very strange.

Is there any way to book one way business class flights from Europe to Australia?

Also, I get different answers from united regarding miles for a Europe to Sydney return flight award miles - I have been quoted 100 000 award miles in July and now it is 120 000 award miles. Did it go up recently?

So are people still loading up on dividend miles or have you moved to that other South American one? Avianca?

Also, when US join Oneworld alliance is there any heads up on if we will get screwed with our miles? FOr example they do a 1:1 merge of miles but star alliance want 200k to go first return?

I'm tempted to get more in case Oneworld works out well for us mile holders....

No-one knows what will happen. AA presently require 160k for Australia - Europe return in first though, so not much different but AA's rules are very different to US's; not necessarily worse, just different. They might take the opportunity to increase the miles required when they merge, but that would pee off both AA and US FFs at a time when said FFs are deciding who to fly with in future so hopefully they won't! If only I had a crystal ball.....

hi we have just booked , through flight center London, to go to oz business class, then on to nz then nz back to uk, cost for two £8,400 where as air nz wanted £10,500 just from uk and back gone though Malaysian they have a special on from oz we went air nz

Any miles you see quoted on the United website are irrelevant unless you are planning on booking your award travel using United miles. I'm pretty sure they charge 75k for a one way in business class...if you're seeing something else you're probably looking in the wrong place.

LifeMiles is the choice for one ways...but if you aren't signed up already its probably too late for the current promo they're running.

Louie, I have just unplugged my modem and restarted it.
Awardtravelr is now working. I'm guessing it has something to do with a logged IP address.

Try unplugging your modem for a short time, you'll get a new IP address when it reconnects, see if that works for your other computers.......

Just a heads up o availability - I tried to get flights from Rio to LHR and they found nothing! She kept saying that because they are leaving the star alliance their partners were cutting available award flights.

Literally nothing out of South America on TAP, TAM, etc!

This isn't actually true though...its just something some of them say...they say all sorts of things!

I booked my flight my award flights with United two days ago and I still haven't got a confirmation email, despite the reservation agent saying that they will send a confirmation email. My confirmation number is not working on the United reservation system.

I can't stomach to call them again. They are such a pain. First they lost my reservation, because it wasn't ticketed and now it seems that they haven't made the booking. Anyone else experienced this?