wnissen

Should I be seeing these partner awards in Award Nexus? I'm searching SFO-PAR,SJC,-PAR,OAK-PAR (I should have pointed out that ORY is fine, sorry) but all I ever get is the same flights I can see on aa.com.

Thanks for the pointer about BRU. The train from Brussels to Paris is only 1.5 hours and €70, which isn't bad overall. I was thinking Alsace, but Belgium could be really nice too.

Thanks!

wcaldog

Try booking SYD-HKG on the direct QF127 for First on July 17 and Business on July 16 and you won't be able to. However, other awards on QF that's SYD-MEL-HKG is bookable. The system is just not letting me book the direct SYD-HKG flight. I have talked to 3 or 4 separate EXP agents and they were not able to book it also. It's showing availability to the AA agents and on AA.com, but the agents said QF system is not accepting it.

You must wonder why the non-direct flights are bookable, so it's not really a system issue is it? I finally gave up, and booked the direct QF127 award in F using BA miles and got confirmation immediately. Still want to know if anyone has this issue and way to work around this.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

I checked the seat via my QF account and yes it is there and bookable even for base level members...it's still there in fact... so there must have been two seats to start with!

I have booked the direct QF127/128 through AA before (but was a couple months ago now). So it can usually be done.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

I've never used Award Nexus, so I do not know if it shows availability on IB, TN, or 9W.

wnissen

I finally figured out what the codes were for the airlines (sorry, I'm new at this. Last time I booked award travel internationally was in 2004 and we just called up at 330 days out and got exactly the flights I wanted). Apparently TN is not searchable on Award Nexus because it's just a partner airline, not oneworld. You can search on FlightStats (detailed procedure) though the availability it shows was a month behind what the AA agent was able to get me.

I called about 11pm Central, got a callback a little over two hours later, which refused to hear my presses of '1' and hung up on me. I was pretty dejected. Luckily, they called back ten minutes later and that time I was able to speak to an agent, who found me the Air Tahiti Nui (TN) segment from LAX-CDG for 20K miles on Fri. 11 May, which is the day before we were hoping to leave. Great! Hopefully if I call back tonight I will be able to get the Saturday segment we really want, and pick up the SJC-LAX segment, too.

Thanks to everyone who helped with the partner airline angle, I was getting really worried looking at the lack of AA availability.

MahiMahi524

Moral: should have not asked questions.

I was able to hold HNL-SEA-PDX-DCA-MIA-PTY on AS and AA SAAver economy at 17.5K miles. No more SAAver inventory left HNL-PTY for the dates that would work for me. Stupid me, I got confused with AA award vs Partner Award and thought this would be off-peak to South America so should cost 15K. Wrong. There is no Partner Award Off-Peak Central/South America Zone 1, so 17.5K should be correct.

Anyway, I called and the agent (very nice) agreed with me (incorrectly it turns out) and bumped me up to his supervisor to see if someone could change it to 15K. Supervisor says that is not a valid award and manually splits it into two awards. He says that as the first carrier, AS must publish a route between HNL-PTY for the award to be valid. Kind of nasty about this too suggesting I'm an idiot for not knowing that. He says AA is not the governing carrier because AS is the most significant carrier. Based on everything I've seen, this is wrong, and it should be the overwater international carrier that is the governing carrier. Thank you, HUCA.

Second agent says routing would be fine, but reason award got split was because it exceeded MPM+25%. OK, a valid reason, too bad for me. I hang up, check on gcmap, and the number she quoted (8400+ miles) is off by 1000 miles, and the actual number is well-within MPM+25%.

Third agent doesn't really know the answers to my questions, and after a long time checking with supervisors, says the reason the award is not valid is because BOTH AA and AS must publish fares between HNL-PTY for the fare to be valid. That sounds like BS. I politely ask to speak to a supervisor.

The second supervisor actually tries to be very helpful, but I think with all the notes in the itinerary from the previous AAgents, she couldn't really override the decision to split the award. At first, she tells me the award is invalid for 3 reasons:
1. She says the award exceeds MPM. I point her to the rules for MPM+25%. She says she never heard of this, but looks it up and says I'm right.
2. Then, she says both carriers must publish the fare. When I point out how ridiculous that is, she decides that it is AS that must publish the fare. When I again point out all the reasons why that is not the case, she decides it is the governing carrier that must publish the fare. She is not sure what the governing carrier is, but thinks it should be AA since that is the airline crossing international waters, and AA does publish a fare HNL-PTY. Thus, in the end, she was unsure why routing violates this rule if AA is the governing carrier.
3. That vague "most direct routing" rule. First she says the award MUST be routed HNL-LAX-MIA/DFW-PTY. However, she is then able to route lots of different ways HNL-PTY to spit out 17.5 K. I am able to route via SEA-DCA-MIA to have the computer spit out 17.5K for different dates. So then she is not sure what the "most direct routing" means.

She ends up going and consulting with various people for about 30 minutes while I'm on hold, and comes back and tells me they will have to send this to the Alaska liaison as well as an award ticket specialist who is have a final decision on Monday. Apparently everyone she talked to thinks all my points are valid and don't know why it would be an invalid award, only that someone invalidated the award so it must be invalid.

So after 3 hours of phone calls and several more hours of making dummy bookings to show the AAgents their interpretation of rules was incorrect, AAgents are confused and have punted, and nobody wants to just have the computer auto-price it again to 17.5K. Of course by this time I realize what an idiot I am and how I wasted most of my day, and the computer was correct.

I hope the AS liaison and award specialist actually understand the rules a little better and can reinstate the 17.5K mileage, and maybe explain to me the meaning of "governing carrier" and "most direct route." Hopefully I won't have wasted my time AND end up having to pay for 2 awards that really is only 1 award.

MahiMahi524

Short story: After another 2 hours on the phone Monday, another supervisor fixed the award as a single award.

Long story: After I called back, the AAgent said the award desk said the award was invalid because it exceeded MPM+25%. I asked them how they got that mileage (since it doesn't). After 30 minutes, they and several other people consulted were unable to find where the 8400 miles calculated came from, other than from a note that a prior agent made. After some time consulting with the rate desk, was again told that it was due to AS being the governing carrier and they do not publish a fare HNL-PTY. I asked the agent to look up their rules to who is the governing carrier, and she finally determined it was AA. She was thus unsure why the rate desk told her it was AS. After another while on hold, she brought up the "most direct routing" wording again, but again after searching and consulting several people, was unable to determine what qualifies or disqualifies as a "most direct routing" and I showed her an itinerary that was almost identical to mine for sale by AA.

She thus handed me off to her supervisor, who was also unaware of the MPM+25% rule. He again told me the award was invalid because it exceeded MPM, and after I told him of all my prior conversations, spent about 30 minutes looking in his manual to find the 25% rule. Then he seemed confused and apparently had others looking into why my award was not valid, especially because the rate desk had the "final answer" of splitting the award into 2 awards based on route mileage that was blatantly incorrectly calculated by a prior agent, and obviously had not even looked into the actual itinerary. In fact, there was apparently a note on the itinerary advising AAgents to NOT book the itinerary as one award because it exceeded MPM. So after being on hold again for some time, he said he and whoever else was helping him could find no reason why the first person had split the award, and said he would have the computer reprice it. When he did that, it obviously came back to the correct mileage.

So finally after about 6 hours on the phone over 3 days, and several more hours of learning AA award rules apparently better than almost all the AAgents, the itinerary is back to what it autopriced as. The best part is, I probably won't book this itinerary as the timing is not what I want, and I found better flights.

michael_v

Re story above: if you cancel a held award, don't the seats go back to available award inventory and hence bookable again on AA.com?

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

ScottieFlyer

Hi, I would like to change the date of my award flight from BKK-HEL-LHR with AY. However, on the date I have in mind only MH is available (according to BA anyway) for BKK-KUL-LHR. Would I have to pay the $200 change fee for this?

I know that no fee applies where origin and destination remain the same but what if a route/airline change become necessary to change dates?

Thx, SF.

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

No fee for changing from one oneworld carrier to another, even if the connecting city changes (which will almost always be the case when changing carriers). But some agents may be unaware of this, so be insistent if necessary.

ScottieFlyer

Thanks for this. Unfortunately the availability is already gone but I'll keep an eye open for something else suitable

25milesfromhome

I'm wondering if it is possible to route HNL to CGK as follows, HNL-SAN (AS)-SAN-NRT-CGK(JL)? I would think the answer is no because it exceeds MPM + 25%. The only reason I'm in doubt is that HNL-NRT which has an MPM + 25% of 5746 can apparently be routed HNL-LAX-NRT with a mileage of 8007. Is this route subject to some sort of exception to the general rule?

Happy

We have a CDG-MIA//FLL-LAX-YVR award that the CDG-MIA has already been flown.

I need to change the date on the FLL-LAX-YVR portion to one week later and found FLL-DFW-YVR all on AAs.

Called today and reminded the agent the tickets were originally an Europe to North America award. In the past even the International Portion has already been flown, the change on the remaining domestic portion seems always have to go thru International Desk.

Agent said she could handle it. Fine, I never have such luck when doing change like that to get an International Desk right at the first agent.

She got the date and flights, then she said, hmmm, because the previous one has AS, now it is all AA, the taxes a bit different, you would need to pay a bit extra. I asked why, it was 2 segments on old itinerary and 2 segments on the new itinerary, and US to Canada. She said it was because of dropping AS. (?!)

She went to check with Rate Desk. Came back to tell me there are 2 options (and I think the 2nd option is completely erroneous.)

1) No fee on the change, but I could get back some miles with redeposit and rebook, going thru option 2).

2) Because Off Peak starts on Sept 15th, and the new date is on Sept 17th, I could re-deposit the awards with $150+$25 fee, and then get 7,500 x 2 miles back. It was because we had booked 2 awards initially.

I asked what Peak / Off Peak reward you were talking about? She said it was related to AS flights.

Huh?! Has anyone ever known such thing even exists?

I said No, it was a single award Europe to North America at OffPeak with a stopover at North America Gateway, booked online in January. The departure date from CDG was 04/18 - so that was an Off Peak award Europe to NA.

She said the system showed it was a stand-alone domestic award. Then she looked further and realized the origin was CDG. She said the rate desk obviously missed that too.

She just wanted to give me the options to consider. But she would go back to check further with the rate desk.

At this point I almost want to practice the HUCA tactic but she was all pleasant all along and I was curious what Rate Desk would feed her on the second go thru.

I said $175 for 15K miles seem a bit steep to pay for. If changing from AA/AS to AA/AA creates problem, there is a FLL-SEA-YVR all on AS we could take. (FLL-SEA leaves at 8:10am, too early for our taste.)

When she came back she said Rate Desk said I could do just the ticket exchange to the Sept 17th date with the AA flights no cost, that I did not need to take the AS routing. Then she ticketed them.

I think she is totally confused (a very pleasant lady but seems inexperienced) My guess is, when dropping AS from the itinerary, the system may prompt a fee for award type change. That might be why she felt the need to check with Rate Desk. However the info she came back with about rebook the award with fewer miles, (getting 7500 miles back, sounds very bizarre.

New e-tickets just arrived. It seems correctly done with 0 miles / 0 $.

Still dont know/understand HOW the Rate Desk would initially give her such Crazy information about re-deposit miles with fee then rebook with LESS miles because the date changed from Sept 12 (Peak) to Sept 17 (Off Peak). Even it is viewed as a Domestic (Canada) award initially, since when there is a Peak and Off Peak difference for Canada?!

pogonation

Has anyone been able to book Europe - South Pacific via the Middle East yet (not the 'direct' one flight number QF flight)? Noticed the OP hasn't been updated for a long time and now with EY being a partner QF routing flights through DXB and QR soon to join it would make sense to allow such routings??