Originally Posted by
Xero
Perhaps this is why they have not allowed the booking of partner awards online. Why do it when you can make $20 per booking?
This is a completely incorrect statement. While I agree with you that AA should allow these types of awards to be booked online, to say that that AA makes $20 per booking is flat out preposterous. If anything, AA loses quite a bit of money on these things. Sure, maybe most FTers already know what's available when they call and book, but you can bet that there are plenty of people who tie up agents' time for hours (whether in one phone call or more than one) searching for award tickets. If you assume that agents are paid starting at around $10 per hour (and going up from there based on length of service) and that overhead costs add another 100% to that hourly rate, then it's easy to see how this is anything BUT profit to AA. In addition to this, after a partner award is booked, all such bookings are "audited" by a real person to make sure that the award complies with redemption rules, which adds additional cost to the bottom line. So again, while I agree that AA really should allow partner bookings online, to say that $20 is profit to AA is absurd.