Thanks to your original 'updated' post I have successfully gotten 2 OW150C awards going to where we wanted to go when we wanted go with only one minor bump (our flights at the moment from cdg-hkg) are one day apart.
The agent whom was booking this for me at the award desk stated at one time you know more about this then I do. Of course after we had completed the task of all the bookings a supervisor called a few hours later (illegal routing do not pass go) to say that I was trying to transit dfw 3x. Spent a few minutes with the supervisor and finally got together a legal routing.
Places that we wanted to go were PVR (to visit our timeshare) ZRH & CDG (xmas and new years) and BKK & HKG (chinese new years) The three trips as three separate awards would have cost a lot more miles then did the OW150C.
Additional thanks to all the others who have populated this forum with posts about how to acquire and use the aa OW awards.
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One question about your itinerary: did it originally have three connections through and no stopovers at DFW? My understanding is that two connections plus one stopover should have been allowed.
One question about your itinerary: did it originally have three connections through and no stopovers at DFW? My understanding is that two connections plus one stopover should have been allowed.
You are correct but we decided to use a different routing to europe via lax-lhr instead of dfw-lgw with a stop.
Originally we were using SMF as an extended home break but decided that LAX with a paid RT home cost about the same and a lot more convenient than a stay at DFW along with the inconvenience (+cost) of getting to our home from SMF and back to there for continuation on the trip. Strange anomaly of how much ground travel to airports cost in relationship to how much flights cost.
(1) The ticket is valid for one year from the date of issuance (not from the date of the first flight).
(2) Once the ticket is issued, a change to the date or time of a flight is free.
(3) Once the ticket is issued, a person is not allowed to change the routing or the airline for a segment. For example, a person would not be allowed to substitute British Airways for Cathay Pacific Airways for the flight from Hong Kong to London.
Isn't the award inventory loaded into the system only for the next 330 days? The ticket would be valid for one year but in reality wouldn't it really only be valid for 11 months (330 days)? Does point #2 get around this in that you can book your award for 330 days with a dummy return date, then change the return date for free once inventory opens up for a later date?
... Does point #2 get around this in that you can book your award for 330 days with a dummy return date, then change the return date for free once inventory opens up for a later date?
Yes, I did exactly that (booking with a dummy return date, 330 days out) on an award I booked last month, and just recently booked the "real" return.
An unresolved question in my mind has been whether airports that are considered to be "coterminals" are in the same city for purposes of the stopover and connection rules. I had looked through a bunch of posts on FT for an answer but never found it. If "city" actually means "airport," then it would be OK to stopover using or connect through LGW. If "city" includes the originating airport plus any coterminals of that airport, then it would not be OK to stopover using or connect through LGW.
The rule, as per aa.com, says "city", not airport... how could one take such an explicit rule to mean anything other than, well, "city"? It would be quite a stretch, I think, to claim that LHR and LGW are two "cities". But of course, if someone can get that one to fly, I'm all for it.
If you haven't already done so, please read the applicable rules on page 1 of this thread.
SFO - LHR (stopover) - PEK (stopover) - SFO would total 16,360 miles. You can see how many American Airlines miles this would cost you by looking on page 1.
San Francisco --> London --> Beijing --> San Francisco with whatever transit points are needed.
I'm basically asking if this is generally considered a good kind of ticket to achieve that kind of trip.
Rogo, add up what it would cost to do a non-oneworld ticket and then compare it to a oneworld ticket and see which is cheaper. Since you are unable to go to Asia via Europe on a standard ticket, you would have to take out one roundtrip to London and another to Beijing. North America to Europe is 40/60/90/125 and North America to Asia1 is 50/65/90/125 so the total trip would be 90/125/180/250. With a Oneworld award, it would be 100/130/180 so it appears the Oneworld award would be cheaper unless youre planning to go coach and you go off peak. But getting separate awards does come with a couple of benefits including changing dates after departure, which I believe that the OW award does not allow, and being able to use more carriers. The downside is that it's more flight miles and more FF miles. Everything is a tradeoff.
Muchos gracias Austinrunner
