@wasCB14 as your question is directly related to a credit card perk, I went ahead and moved it to the Credit Cards subforum.
There is no need for award availability for the Companion Ticket. The certificate can be used on any booking within the lower 48 states (the criteria is different for those who live in HI, AK, PR, and USVI) that has 2 Main Cabin tickets available with L, U, X, T, or V fares. Those are the lower discounted economy fares (not basic economy, but just the 5 cheapest rates of numerous economy fare classes) and you should have no problems finding tickets in those classes as long as you're booking out at least a month, although you may run into issues for say a holiday weekend or a school vacation week where those fares will sell months ahead.
I just selected random dates from ONT to LGA. Below you can see that the cheapest Main Cabin tickets for the first three flight options are in V, L, and K fares. If you were booking with a Companion Certificate, you would be able to choose the V or L fares, but not the third flight shown as the cheapest fare still available is K. While it can be frustrating booking close-in because higher fares are not available, keep in mind that many other airlines that issues certfiicates like this through loyalty or credit cards will require higher fare classes like Y, where it would be far less expensive to grab two X fares for example than it would to get buy one get one free on a Y fare.
No worries. As long as you plan ahead a little these should be very easy to use. FWIW Reserve's expanded certificate has some similar limitations. You can get S and W fares in Comfort+ only when LUXTV fares are available in Main Cabin, and only I and Z fares are available to choose for First, so no full-fare J business class or F first class fares but with today's prices it would be silly to pay like $4000 for one of the latter for a domestic flight unless you had no choice and a client was being billed for it. 😂
@Anonymous April would not be too surprising to not have any eligible fares available; demand is pretty high right now. Which pass are you using (Platinum or Reserve) and what routes are you trying to book? I just glanced at some random dates for BOS-LAX for example and no issues finding L, U, X, T, or V fares that would be eligible for either pass from early May onward. If those fare codes aren't available, Main Cabin would be pretty full as those fares are a substantial number of what gets sold.
@jcooks wrote:Wait til you have to book award flights on ANA's website
I've heard that one's always an adventure, but often a lucrative one. As I mentioned a few months back in my first response, the companion pass from Amex Delta cards should be pretty to use though as it doesn't need award availability. As long as two seats are available in an eligible fare class, it can be used on one of the tickets. And unlike some other programs, those fares are the plentiful lower end ones rather than the very expensive full- or nearly full-price fares like Y.
@K-in-Boston wrote:@wasCB14 as your question is directly related to a credit card perk, I went ahead and moved it to the Credit Cards subforum.
There is no need for award availability for the Companion Ticket. The certificate can be used on any booking within the lower 48 states (the criteria is different for those who live in HI, AK, PR, and USVI) that has 2 Main Cabin tickets available with L, U, X, T, or V fares. Those are the lower discounted economy fares (not basic economy, but just the 5 cheapest rates of numerous economy fare classes) and you should have no problems finding tickets in those classes as long as you're booking out at least a month, although you may run into issues for say a holiday weekend or a school vacation week where those fares will sell months ahead.
I just selected random dates from ONT to LGA. Below you can see that the cheapest Main Cabin tickets for the first three flight options are in V, L, and K fares. If you were booking with a Companion Certificate, you would be able to choose the V or L fares, but not the third flight shown as the cheapest fare still available is K. While it can be frustrating booking close-in because higher fares are not available, keep in mind that many other airlines that issues certfiicates like this through loyalty or credit cards will require higher fare classes like Y, where it would be far less expensive to grab two X fares for example than it would to get buy one get one free on a Y fare.
You are truly amazing @K-in-Boston I can't imagine how you keep that kind of information in your head.
