Every scenario I put into USAir/AirWest (too early to book, I am putting in schedules THIS season) has it priced much more than RSSC's $500 credit from my area. I think this is one of those times I am going to partake of the RSSC air, because I know they will get me there in time for the cruise, not so hard when you embark in Vancouver, rather than Anchorage with that drive to the ship.

Olivia, I was thinking the same. Then I noticed that flight from Anchorage to Atlanta was longer than JFK to London. Thought it might be nice to try to get first class. Domestic first class is only 45,000 miles if you can get it the capacity controlled seats. If we can't get first class ff tickets, we might go back to using radisson's air.

But that is with delta, right? I try to stick with USAir and now their new partner America West! Still too early to get scheds.

With Delta, we have the choice of Delta, Continental, Northwest, or Alaska Air. You would think I could get one of them out of Anchorage. The nonstop through ATL is best as it is a 7.5 hour redeye....plenty of time to sleep.

Kathy, we are thinking of taking the $500 credit. If we want to go in early or come back late, we also have the $100 deviation fee, so there is $600 per person. If we can get the right flights we can get there and back on AA using our airmiles. Still counts as a domestic flight at 25K miles. The flight back from Anchorage is a bit tricky in that they only have one flight per day and only so many ff seats available.

Has anyone else been successful in holding FF seats? I had no trouble getting one in First for 8/29 departure today.

Aren't we suppose to get free air on MUSH or am I thinking of a different cruise?

We have air Orlando to Vancouver for Wednesday arrival. Since we will be on Mariner, have already arranged with my sister to book return next week.

Marcie, for us east coasters, free coach air is hard to take. Flight from Anchorage to Atlanta is as long as New York to London or Paris. We definitely are trying to use miles for first class and just taking the credit for free air. On the left coast, you have shorter flights so may not be as big a deal.

Marcie, free economy air or $500 off the cruise price.

I wish you good luck Marc! We were unable to upgrade(too late) and then had the misfortune of equipment substitution from ANC-ATL, requiring a refueling stop in Minneapolis! We flew ATL-DUB in much less time!

I'm now starting to look into air for MUSH - does anyone know disembarkation time? And what time is the earliest recommended time for flights out of Anchorage? Thanks!!

You will get off about 9.00am and need to allow at least 3 hours to get to Anchorage. The earliest flight should be around 2.00 pm. Most flights leave very late as you probably know. We got a flight leaving at 4.30 which really made me happy - to DFW of course not where you want to go.

Ngaire: If we plan to deviate which airlines should we be looking at?

Ngaire -

The people on my post MUSH will need to travel Home on Saturday and the pre-crusiers will want to go into Vancouver one to two days earlier.

FYI: We just got our American Airline award reservations for MUSH. We got First/Business class awards. No problems at all. Plenty of availability right now.

American has 3 flights daily from Dallas to Vancouver and 1 flight daily from Chicago to Vancouver.

I checked www.expertflyer.com and came up with the following availability:

Aug 25 & 26:
DFW-YVR: 2 out of 3 flights available in biz; 3 out of 3 flights avail in coach
ORD-YVR: flight is avail in both biz and coach.

Aug 27-30: All flights from both DFW and ORD to Vancouver have seats in both Biz & Coach available for awards.

For the return, you'll have to use your American miles on Alaska Airlines. I'm not 100% sure how to check availability on Alaska, but I had no problem getting 2 first class seats from ANC-ORD.

1st/biz class seats are 45,000 miles each. Coach is 25,000 miles each.

Good luck. Let me know if you need me to check Expertflyer for specific availability.

You can take the FREE AIR from RSSC and pay the $100 deviation fee per person to come in early and fly home late. Or check from you city to see if you can get the air for less than the $500 air credit, or $600 as it will cost if you want to deviate.

Booked my return flight yesterday with no problems - even a day late! I needed to book the return on Alaska Air just like John - just called the AAdvantage desk and they took care of it.

Andrea, you lucky dog. I am having problems with US Air. First, I can't understand the agents who now barely speak English since they switched the service center to Mexico, which I find odd considering that it's US Airways. They tell me there is no awards tix available for our MUSH dates. I call American West (who US Air merged with), who by the way have the sweetest agents and they say that there are award tix available. BUT, I have to book through US air to use my Dividend miles as combining miles between the two airlines won't happen til 2006. So I call US air back and they say they don't care what American West said, their are no tix.

Is there someone who is more familar with redeeming miles that can tell me what to do??