Introduction – EVA Air Awards and Waitlist
EVA Air currently has good award availability to destinations in Asia from the US. For those interested in booking an award flight, I wanted to review how to search for award availability and, in the instance award space is unavailable, how to waitlist for award flights. EVA Air is good about clearing the waitlist, so it’s something to consider if your desired flight date is unavailable.
Below, I outline my recent experience with EVA Air’s award booking and award waitlist process. There are some nuances and pain points to be aware of when booking. Regardless of these issues, scoring a business class award flight from the US to Asia for 75,000 to 80,000 miles (plus fees) represents an incredible value and makes going through some of these hassles worth it, in my opinion.
You may also want to check out my previous post on How Long Does It Take to Transfer Points to EVA Air?
Searching for EVA Air Award Availability
To search for EVA Air award flights, you first must create an Infinity MileageLands Account. After completing registration, navigate here to begin an award search. Unfortunately, EVA Air’s award search tool is not the most user-friendly. As with any award search, input your origin and destination, class, and desired dates.
EVA Air’s award search will return with five days of results with the term “available” or “waiting.” If available, you should be able to proceed with the booking process and complete the award booking with miles. If it shows waiting, no reward space is available to book with miles.
If you want to search for additional dates, EVA Air’s search tool requires you to go back to the original search page and input your entire search over again, which is cumbersome if you have several dates you are willing to travel.
Another issue you can run into with the award search process is booking for multiple passengers. To book an award for more than one person, you must input their Infinity MileageLand account numbers and passwords on the search page. However, just because you search with multiple Infinity MileageLand Accounts, the results will not tell if there is sufficient award availability for your entire party.
In my recent experience, I wanted to book an award flight for two people on a day that came back as “Available” after completing the search process with both MileageLand accounts. After completing the booking, one person got a confirmed ticket while the other returned waitlisted. If you want to make a booking for two or more people, I suggest contacting EVA Air’s Infinity MileageLand Service department to see how many award seats are actually available for your desired dates. EVA Air’s US contact number in Los Angeles has been unresponsive recently, but I have gotten responses from their email (laxrrbr@evaair.com).
One additional issue to be aware of is that booking for multiple passengers on one reservation is a lot of manual effort as it requires you to register each companion as beneficiary/nominee by submitting downloadable forms. My recommendation would be to transfer points to the account of each member of your party and have them book separate reservations (after confirming there are enough award seats as described in the previous paragraph).
EVA Air Award Waitlisting Process
If an award seat is unavailable for your date of flight or not available for all passengers in your party, you may consider EVA’s award waitlisting process. To waitlist for an award flight, complete the same booking process as you would for an available award flight. You will receive a couple of confirmation emails when your waitlist booking is complete.
The first is your electronic ticket receipt which should show RQ under the booking status. This indicates you are waitlisted (“OK” – would mean you have a confirmed ticket)
You should also get an email confirming your waitlist with the booking reference that you can use to view your reservation online (I’ve blurred my reservation number out).
So what happens from here? Your waitlist could clear at any point as EVA Air’s revenue management team determines whether or not they think they can still sell open seats on your flight. In my experience, EVA Air does clear waitlists. I waitlisted for a flight about 2 weeks before the departure date and cleared 5 days prior. I’d watch for how many seats EVA Air is still selling online for your cabin class to get an idea of whether you still might clear. Obviously, if the cabin is sold out or only a few seats are left near departure, your chances of clearing are less likely.
The day that I cleared the waitlist, I noticed my reservation status changed from “waiting list” to “Your booking has been changed, please contact our reservation center”. This status change indicates you have cleared the waitlist, and you may need to contact EVA Air so they can officially confirm your ticket. However, about 24 hours after seeing the message that my booking status “has been changed”, I received the email below letting me know my ticket was confirmed. So I didn’t need to call in, but your results may vary here. If the status of your ticket does not change to confirmed after 24 hours, I would contact EVA Air to make sure they confirm your ticket.
Eva Air Award and Waitlist Cancelation Fees
EVA Air charges $50 to cancel a confirmed award booking or a waitlisted award. While $50 to cancel a confirmed booking is ok, it’s unfortunate that EVA Air also charges you $50 if you were on the waitlist and choose to cancel it (take yourself off the waitlist). I have yet to encounter another program that does not fully refund you if you cancel a waitlist.
If you do not end up clearing the waitlist as the flight departs, EVA will allow you to rebook for the same origin and destination of your flight for a future date but personally I would just cancel my waitlist prior to that so I could use my EVA miles for other routings as well.
My recommendation would be if you haven’t cleared 24-48 hours prior to the departure time, contact EVA to cancel your waitlist.
One final pain point is getting your miles refunded and paying the $50 fee after canceling. To do this, you must contact EVA Air and they will send you a form to complete which you can email back. Upon receipt, EVA Air will refund your miles and charge your credit card $50.
EVA Air Award Booking and Waitlisting Summary
EVA Air has a good amount of business class award space from the US to Asia, costing only 75,000 to 80,000 miles (plus fees). While Eva Air’s award flights are a good value, there are some pain points to be aware of to avoid a frustrating experience. These include a non user-friendly award search tool, no indication of the number of award seats available online, a fee to cancel a waitlist award, and the points transfer time discussed here.
I hope this information helps you to successfully book an EVA Air award and avoid feeling burned in the process. Leave a comment if you have any other tips or experience to share regarding an EVA Air award booking or the award waitlist process.
