Redeemed

Our family of 4 currently has 4 MilesAAver (40K) each tickets booked for travel to LHR next spring. The return flight was not optimal because it involved a double connection on the way home and was a long travel day with an morning flight out of London (LHR-RDU-ORD-OMA). I have been checking every couple of days to see if 4 seats would open up for a better return routing. There is now a direct 12:50 pm LHR-ORD flight with 4 seats available which would still give us 5 hours in ORD in time to connect with the final flight to OMA. I was hoping to be able to keep the 4 seats we already have ticketed ORD-OMA and change the LHR-RDU-ORD to the direct LHR-ORD. However when I called to do this I was informed that I could not as the LHR-ORD-OMA does not come up as available (apparently there are less than 4 award seats on the ORD-OMA segment). The representative told me that is the way it works. I am not too familiar with AA and it's award policies. I am wondering from any of you AA veterans if there is any way around this? If I try again will I get the same answer from a different representative?

tylerdurden4543

Call back and try again...I'm 90% sure that you should be able to change the routing as long as origin and destination stay the same.

Apieinthesky

100% that routing can be changed on an award (assuming O&D and type of award stay the same), but that's not the issue here.

The issue is that there is no longer availability on the connecting leg, on which the OP is already ticketed and doesn't want to change.

I'm not too well versed on MileSAAver award policies, but I'm pretty sure this can be done. This should not require a ticket reissue, but even if it does, a good agent should be able to hold your seats and reticket those legs.

Call back again before those award seats disappear.

Redeemed

I did call back again. I made the same request that I did earlier in the day (I did not mention I had called before- I don't know if they can see that information). The very polite agent did not even hint that it was NOT a possibility to do what I wanted to do (keep one of my original segments and change another segment). In a matter of a few minutes he was able to switch both reservations (2 passengers on 2 PNR's). I was even informed that we would be refunded $2.50/passenger because we had dropped a connection. I am not sure if the first agent I spoke with today was unknowledgeable or perhaps lazy. It pays to try again sometimes!

Apieinthesky

Sounds like what should've happened the first time. There are, unfortunately, quite a few lazy and unknowledgeable people working the reservations call centers. It's also nice to have FT and know what the actual rule is. Lots of people here know more about many things than those phone agents do.

lingzhou

I was turned down last time by AA agent

gemac

While I agree with everything you say, FT also has its fair share of lazy and unknowledgeable members who are happy to cite nonexistant rules for you. There is no downside whatsoever to making up information on FT, hence many people seem to delight in doing so. You have to be careful whose advice you accept here. There are about a dozen FT members whose advice I rely on, as they are quite careful to only post what they actually know. Others, I take with a grain of salt - they may be right (a blind squirrel does occasionally find an acorn) but it is not necessarily so. It has taken me 10 years of reading FT a lot to develop that list of members that I trust. It is something that anyone can do, provided that they spend at least 10 hours per week on FlyerTalk for 10 years. Until then, I would treat all information that you get on FT as "possibly correct".

mvoight

What happened when you called back?
Agents can change one part of the itinerary while keeping the other part intact. There is no need to have additional award seats available for the flights you don't want to change.

neo_781

This is the number one rule! Glad it worked out for you especially as this is something that you were correct to request.

tylerdurden4543

Remember Doug Parker's mantra, if at first turned down by AA, try and try again.

beachfan

It's called a "drop-hold", and they can do it. If you refer to "drop-hold" it might help.