After a superb trip nearly a decade ago, Aeroflot Russian Airlines is a carrier I planned to fly this year. But booking award space has proved extremely difficult.
I was hoping to get to Russia next month, but am running into incredible difficulty booking award space via SkyTeam partners.
Aeroflot award space (X for economy, O for business) is searchable on Expert Flyer. I searched for space from LA and found nothing, but did see some options from New York to Moscow:
Booking Aeroflot with Korean SKYPASS
First, I tried booking with Korean Air SKYPASS miles. Korean Air made SkyTeam partner award space bookable online last year, including Aeroflot. But upon searching my dates, nothing showed up. In fact, I could not find a single date with any Aeroflot award space in economy or business class.
I called the SKYPASS call center and the agents were not able to find any space either. I even requested they “long sell” the space in and that failed too. The agent was competent, but I called back SKYPASS against just to double check and received the same answer: no space.
Booking Aeroflot with Delta SkyMiles
Next, I checked Delta. Delta also showed no space. The only thing available was highly-priced awards on Delta’s own metal via Paris, connecting to Moscow on Air France.
But an interesting thing occurred when I searched to Dubai…the Aeroflot nonstop space to Moscow with a connection to Dubai showed up. It appears that Delta can book some transatlantic award space on Aeroflot when married segment logic is at work.
I called Delta as well to confirm the lack of space was not just a website error, but the agents also could not see any space if just booking New York to Moscow.
Booking Aeroflot with Air France/KLM Flying Blue
Finally, I checked with Flying Blue to see if the space was available. Booking transatlantic space on Aeroflot has been difficult for years on Flying Blue so my hopes were not high.
As expected, the space to Moscow did not show up, though the KLM 787-9 itinerary is a great value:
Nothing all the way to Dubai either.
Oddly, not all Aeroflot is blocked with Flying Blue. For example, searching from Moscow to Tel Aviv yielded this Aeroflot option:
CONCLUSION
At Award Expert, when Aeroflot space comes up on ExpertFlyer we will not even offer it to clients until verifying that it is actually bookable. Most of the time it is not.
I don’t know if this a deliberate withholding of space from Aeroflot or a long-term technical issue, but be advised that Aeroflot award space is currently quite difficult to secure using SkyTeam partner mile currency.
I also saw zero Aeroflot space in my search to Moscow last month on Skymiles. I wonder what the taxes would be like as charged by flying blue.
Why wouldnt you just book the married space then call DL to HX segment 2?
The segments would be married and there’s no no-fault divorce when it comes to married airline segments: they could not be separated.
See this for more:
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2016/12/26/married-segments-award-tickets/
Took a look from IAD and found space with a connection via JFK on that date. The IAD-JFK segment is on Delta metal, with the JFK-SVO on Aeroflot. But that price…305,000 SkyZimbabweanDollars 🙁
What is a long sell?
It’s a complicated thing, but I explain the process in this post:
https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2013/09/19/diagnosing-a-problem-booking-lufthansa-award-space-with-us-airways-dividend-miles/
Based on my multiple experience, Aeroflot is doing exceptionally bad working with Skyteam partners. As an example – if I’m on the Delta miles, and flying with SU gives me almost every time 25%. You could verify on Aeroflot web site, and cross check booking codes against Delta table.
As a contrary I will get most of the time 100% miles flying with KLM – Air France.
That’s why I prefer KLM over SU on the route MOW-SFO.
Was able to book SXF to TAS via SVO on SU for 25k SkyMiles via delta.com earlier this year.
I have also been searching for Aeroflot reward seats. I am trying to get a JFK-Moscow nonstop leg, because from there I’m going to Bishkek. But SkyTeam only shows space on airlines like Air France which stop in Paris before Moscow. The point is that Aeroflot is the quickest way! Guess they don’t need to offer up ff space. The price is down to $886 for a multi city JFK-Bishkek then Tashkent back to JFK itinerary so I think I’m just going to have to BUY THEM.
This happens if you’re flying to Moscow, SVO. Try going for smaller cities (Nizhny Novgorod, GOJ, in my case) and you get zero results, with the only option of booking through Aeroflot directly. They are part of SkyTeam, but they really aren’t.
Any updates on if this issue has been resolved? I’m in the same boat as pPam Thomas trying to get to Bishkek and Aeroflot is easily the best option from JFK. The alternative is to get on the TK nonstop – but right now I don’t see any availability from JFK. Do you have any insight on when/if that availability might open up?