AA and All-Partner award travel stopover/transit rules *REVISED w/ ROUTING rules*
AAdvantage All-Partner Awards: (please note; AAdvantage All AA-awards are different, listed in the second section of this post )
Quote:
General Rules:
Passenger has 4/6 hours to connect (depending on domestic or international travel). If there are no scheduled flights within this timeframe, regardless of availability, the passenger must take the next scheduled flight but, may not exceed 24 hours. If the connection exceeds 24 hours, it will be considered a stopover.
If there is a non-stop flight that departs after the 4/6 hour window and arrives at the destination earlier than a connecting flight within the 4/6 hour window, the passenger may be booked on the non-stop flight.
Within North America:
One stopover is allowed in addition to the final destination, at the natural connecting point. This would be the connection which is shown in the most direct routing as determined by the schedules of the carriers involved.
Co-terminals are considered the same point.
North America To/from Other Regions:
A stopover in the Caribbean/Mexico is not allowed. Exception: Travel to/from Mexico; a stopover is allowed within Mexico.
In addition to the final destination, one stopover is allowed at the North American Gateway on the outbound or return, not both.
In addition, one stopover is allowed at the first International Gateway on the outbound or the last International Gateway on the return, not both.
If there is a connection between two airports in the same city under 6 hours vs. a connection at the same airport that is over 6 hours, the customer may choose the later flight without having the connection count as a stopover. I.E. LGW - LHR
Hours Connection Rules:
up to 6 hours Allowed
6 hours - 24 hours Must take next Scheduled Flight
24 hours or more Considered a Stopover
Travel Between or Within All Other Regions:
No stopovers are allowed.
48 Contiguous United States, Alaska And Canada Free Awards
In addition to the final destination, one stopover is allowed within the 48 contiguous United States.
Use the following table to determine the 4/24-hour stopover rule.
4-Hour Rule 24-Hour Rule
50 United States
Canada
Puerto Rico
St. Croix
St. Thomas All other international destinations follow the 24-hour rule.
Last scheduled flight in/first scheduled flight out does not count as a stopover even if the duration is more than four hours.
Hawaii Free Awards
In addition to the final destination, one stopover is allowed within the 48 contiguous United States, or in SJU.
Awards between California and Hawaii, 1 stopover is allowed within California only using the most direct routing.
Use the following table to determine the 4/24-hour stopover rule.
4-Hour Rule 24-Hour Rule
50 United States
Canada
Puerto Rico
St. Croix
St. Thomas All other international destinations follow the 24-hour rule.
Last scheduled flight in/first scheduled flight out does not count as a stopover even if the duration is more than four hours.
Caribbean/Mexico Free Awards
In addition to the final destination, only one stopover is allowed within the 48 contiguous United States, or in SJU.
Use the following table to determine the 4/24-hour stopover rule.
4-Hour Rule 24-Hour Rule
50 United States
Canada
Puerto Rico
St. Croix
St. Thomas All other international destinations follow the 24-hour rule.
Last scheduled flight in/first scheduled flight out does not count as a stopover even if the duration is more than four hours.
International Free Awards
(Central America/South America/Europe/Japan)
Stopover allowed at North American gateway in each direction.
Award travel that originates outside of North America, but connects in North America to go to/from Central America, South America, Europe, Asia or North America, passenger may select either the international gateway or North American gateway as their stopover but not both.
When travel is wholly within Central America or South America, connections or stopovers in North America are not allowed.
Roundtrip Upgrade/Companion/Discount Awards
Based on the rules of the fare purchased
One Way Upgrade Awards
I've compiled a list of award booking classes for each carrier in the AAdvantage program.
You may find this information useful when you're on the phone with an AA rep, or perhaps when checking availability via Galileo, if you can see the relevant inventory.
Please also note that errors and omissions are excepted.
Code:
CARRIER FIRST BUSINESS ECONOMY
--------------------------------------------------------
AA - American Airlines Z U T
--------------------------------------------------------
A4 Southern Winds U T
--------------------------------------------------------
AS Alaska Airlines A W
--------------------------------------------------------
AY Finnair U X
--------------------------------------------------------
BA British Airways Z U X
--------------------------------------------------------
CX Cathay Pacific Z U X
--------------------------------------------------------
EI Aer Lingus U T
--------------------------------------------------------
FJ Air Pacific U X
--------------------------------------------------------
HA Hawaiian Airlines D T
--------------------------------------------------------
IB Iberia Z U X
--------------------------------------------------------
JJ TAM D U T
--------------------------------------------------------
JL Japan Airlines A U/D T/S
--------------------------------------------------------
LA LAN Chile Z U T
--------------------------------------------------------
LX Swiss International A R E
--------------------------------------------------------
LY El Al Israel X R
--------------------------------------------------------
QF - QANTAS Airways Z U X
--------------------------------------------------------
SN SN Brussels A Z E
--------------------------------------------------------
TA TACA D T
--------------------------------------------------------
TK Turkish Airlines Z E
--------------------------------------------------------
TN Air Tahiti Nui A I W
--------------------------------------------------------
S2 Air Sahara R B
--------------------------------------------------------
Notes
BA Economy flights are booked in V inventory for EXP, PLT and travel companions. If V isnt available, X can be used.
JL Business Class award travel within Japan ONLY is booked in D inventory. JL Economy class within Japan ONLY is booked in S inventory.
Here are general routing rules. There are some imbedded tables at the end that are impossible to decipher, will try to clear it out later.
Quote:
Routing
General Rules
Passenger has 4/6 hours to connect (depending on domestic or international travel). If there are no scheduled flights within this timeframe, regardless of availability, the passenger must take the next scheduled flight but, may not exceed 24 hours. If the connection exceeds 24 hours, it will be considered a stopover.
If there is a non-stop flight that departs after the 4/6 hour window and arrives at the destination earlier than a connecting flight within the 4/6 hour window, the passenger may be booked on the non-stop flight. It is not necessary to check every flight/carrier to ensure passenger is booked on next scheduled flight.
When selling seats for through flights and the desired inventory is not available, you cannot opt to sell the flight point-to-point. If sold point-to-point, the error response MULTIPLE SEGMENTS FOR SAME FLIGHT - SELL AS ONE SEGMENT will be received, indicating this booking is not allowed. Overriding the error check by ending the PNR twice is not acceptable.
Within North America
Awards wholly within North America are valid on all partner airlines that market and operate their own service within North America.
Travel between two cities in the United States via Canada/Mexico is not allowed.
Travel between two cities in Canada/Mexico via the United States is not allowed.
Passenger must travel the most direct routing.
Connections of more than 4 hours are considered a stopover unless the passenger is taking the next scheduled flight and it is outside the 4 hours. Any connection of 24 hours is always considered a stopover.
MX award travel is not allowed on non-stop flights between Mexico and Canada
Award travel between Hawaii and North America does not include inter-island flights.
Inter-island award travel will allow a maxium of 2 flight segments.
North America To/from Other Regions
Award travel to/from North America is allowed on any combination of carriers that service the applicable region except as noted below.
Passenger must use most direct routing.
Hawaiian Airlines is not valid for these awards.
British Airways is valid to/from only Canada, the Caribbean and Latin America (Mexico, Central America and South America) for transatlantic travel.
Travel to Europe, Africa and the Indian Sub-Continent/Middle East must be via the Atlantic only.
Travel to Asia and the South Pacific must be via the Pacific.
Travel to/from Fiji/Papeete cannot be via Australia/New Zealand.
Travel to Easter Island (IPC) must be via Papeete (PPT) or use two awards.
North American travel to/from Guam or Saipan, the transpacific segment must be on AA.
MX award travel is not allowed on non-stop flights between Mexico and Canada
Passenger must travel the most direct routing.
Passenger has 6 hours to connect. If there are no scheduled flights within 6 hours, regardless of availability, the passenger must take the next scheduled flight but, may not exceed 24 hours.
A connection with more than 24 hours will be considered a stopover.
Travel Wholly Within or Between All Other Regions These awards do not allow a connection via North America and therefore, do not include travel on American Airlines.
Passenger must travel the most direct routing.
Connecting travel is not allowed outside the region or regions.
Passenger has 6 hours to connect. If there are no scheduled flights within 6 hours, regardless of availability, the passenger must take the next scheduled flight but, may not exceed 24 hours.
A connection with more than 24 hours will be considered a stopover. A stopover is allowed within Mexico for travel wholly within Mexico, as Mexico is considered North America.
Travel Via a Third Region exceptions
Travel Via a third region is not allowed (Note the exception table below). EXCEPTION TABLE:
To/From Via
North America to/from Indian Sub Continent/Middle East can connect in:Europe
North America to/from Africa can connect in:Europe
North America to/from Asia 2 can connect in:Asia 1
Central/South America to/from Indian Sub Continent/Middle East can connect in:Europe
Central/South America to/from Africa can connect in:Europe
Central/South America to/from South Pacific can connect in:S. America 2
South America 2 to/from Indian Sub Continent/Middle East can connect in:Europe
Indian Sub Continent/Middle East to/from Asia 1 can connect in:Asia 2
Indian Sub Continent/Middle East to/from South Pacific can connect in:Asia 2
Africa to/from Asia 1 can connect in:Asia 2
Asia 1 to/from Europe can connect in:Asia 2
Asia 1 to/from South Pacific can connect in:Asia 2
Asia 1 = China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia Asia 2 = Bhutan, Brunei, Guam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Saipan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam
Europe to/from South Pacific:
will allow for connections in Singapore or Bangkok only. Stopovers in these cities for this award are not allowed.
**this rule may actually be this now: Award travel between Europe and the South Pacific will allow for connections in Bangkok, Narita, Osaka or Singapore only. Stopovers in these cities for this award are not allowed.**
Travel on LanPeru direct flights between North America and South America Zone 2 are allowed. Currently, only one market, Miami to/from Buenos Aries, has direct service. These can only be booked by the liaisons. Contact support for booking assistance.
Programs: AA PLT; UA 2P; disillusioned SWA RR member
Posts: 5,318
Great to finally have authoritative info on this!
I just have to say that it is arcane rules like this that are part of the reason why AA's CASM is so much higher than "sane" airlines like JetBlue and Southwest. You practically need a Ph.D. in linguistics and geography to understand those rules. I can only imagine the amount of time spent by agents, supervisors (when the agent can't parse the rule or the customer believes the agent is misinterpreting it), inter-airline liasons, etc. etc. handling this kind of stuff.
Once AA finishes cutting all of the food, legroom, routes, etc. that they can, hopefully they will take a look at the cost of operating the infrastructure that gives us arcane ticketing rules. I know that the theory is that such rules decrease costs and/or increase revenue, but I simply cannot believe that the analysis that presumably showed a benefit to such rules fully took into account the costs of supporting them on an ongoing basis.
Thanks again Jon. Useful information although I wish it were otherwise.
Why doesn't AA make this stuff public? I wouldn't have bothered to take up 30 minutes of an AAgent's time the other day trying to book something in contravention of these rules if I knew they were the rules.
In the past NA award travel permitted one stopover anywhere in addition to the destination, effectively permitting a circle trip i.e. DFW-LAX-JFK-DFW which I have booked several times. If the current rules require the stopover to be at the logical connecting point on the most direct route between the origin and destination then of course such a routing would be impossible since LAX is certainly not on the most direct route between DFW and JFK. Do you think these rules now prohibit circle trips on award travel?
In the past NA award travel permitted one stopover anywhere in addition to the destination, effectively permitting a circle trip i.e. DFW-LAX-JFK-DFW which I have booked several times. If the current rules require the stopover to be at the logical connecting point on the most direct route between the origin and destination then of course such a routing would be impossible since LAX is certainly not on the most direct route between DFW and JFK. Do you think these rules now prohibit circle trips on award travel?
Same questions here - will they enforce this soon? I have booked my daughter for an award trip this summer DFW-PHL-SEA-DFW. They had no problems with it, basically told me I could use about any three US cities in any order for an award ticket. Maybe it's selective enforcement?
A possible explanation is that the domestic award stopover rules are different for a ticket entirely on AA (as opposed to one using AS as well, for example). Is that the answer?
Programs: AA PLT; UA 2P; disillusioned SWA RR member
Posts: 5,318
Quote:
Originally Posted by yellow77
A possible explanation is that the domestic award stopover rules are different for a ticket entirely on AA (as opposed to one using AS as well, for example). Is that the answer?
I don't know if that's the answer, but there is definitely more to the story.
I recently had no problem using AA miles to ticket an all-AS award ticket itinerary OAK-oJNU-ANC FAI-OAK, i.e. open jaw with stopover in JNU on the OAK-ANC part (I've left out the connecting cities for clarity). Clearly JNU is not a "natural connecting point" so this itinerary would seem to violate the rules that were posted.
OK, I'm a little confused now. How are those tables supposed to work? The spacing is gone so I can't tell which places are subject to the 4 or 24 hour rule.
In addition, the wording is confusing me a little. Let's take this scenario: I want to fly LHR-xORD-SYR all on AA. The xORD-SYR leg is more than 4 hours and not the first flight out, but less than 24 hours. The last agent I talked to told me I could not do this. Is that correct?
OK, I'm a little confused now. How are those tables supposed to work? The spacing is gone so I can't tell which places are subject to the 4 or 24 hour rule.
In addition, the wording is confusing me a little. Let's take this scenario: I want to fly LHR-xORD-SYR all on AA. The xORD-SYR leg is more than 4 hours and not the first flight out, but less than 24 hours. The last agent I talked to told me I could not do this. Is that correct?
Wouldn't you be able to take ORD as a stopover-- eliminating the need to count the hours to see if it's a transit or not? (Literally, I'm asking-- I'm not too good at reading these things either.)
And, yes, it's confusing w/o the spacing, that's the only way I got it.
Thanks to Jon for the information! Nice to see it set out clearly.
Comment: I notice the partner award info did not mention open jaws. I was told that one is permitted at either destination or origin, not both.
Question: Regarding travel between/within other regions, it says no stopovers are permitted. Say my award is between the South Pacific and Europe, e.g. AKL-LAX-LHR. The language seems to state that no stopover in LAX is permitted. Is this correct? A bit strange.
Jridge -
Yes, that is correct. No stopovers are allowed on awards that are not to/from North America. Annoying - especially for Oceania - Europe awards, but true unfortunately!
Also, I am not sure if AA still insists that one must take direct flights from Oceania to Europe which severely limits options and can be inconvenient. In the past, I remember reading on here that AA was insisting upon using the direct BA/QF flights because then you were not going via another continent as far as your ticket was concerned (it was listed as a through flight). Another dumb rule!
I think there's something to be said for defining certain terms consistently within the organization, like stopover. If a stopover on a domestic ticket is a break of four hours or more, I don't see why that can't the rule on award tix. Same thing with the 24 hour rule on international tix. I just don't get it. I've read both sets of rules and I don't understand them.
I don΄t get it either. But two months ago i booked an award ticket LHR-ORD-CMH-DFW-MEX-ORD-LHR with a stop over in CMH. At first I had trouble with the agent at a ticket counter in Mexico, because she said I was braking a rule (reservation was made without a problem). The famous rule of only being able to get a stop over in either MIA, ORD or DFW. But after a little chatting, she noticed that the system aloud her to continue, so she sent it to ADVANTAGE Desk in Lima, Peru for authorization and told me that if ADVANTAGE authorize it, it was OK. And they did, so I had no problem and she had no problem. So sometimes it is more of how the ADVANTAGE supervisor΄s mood is and not a matter of rules, jejeje.
AA and All-Partner award travel stopover/transit rules *REVISED w/ ROUTING rules*
