bombayhog

Looks valid to me. Good luck with finding availability!

steve32

Hear, hear!

OP has no room for flexability in routing, therefore I predict doom on your being able to actually score this.

Ideally my 6 stopover OW award trip last Fall would have been 11 segments. My final routing was the most efficient at 13 segments, and my parents had 15 segments (two different routes than myself, one with a 2 hour difference, the return home with a 17 hour difference--they landed 17 hours after me after departing from the final stopover a full 12 hours before me). I worked on that schedule with reservations for nearly six weeks, on the phone every night, though admittedly the vast majority of the time was spent working on getting business class award seats on flights into and out of Australia/New Zealand.

PLEASE track the number of phone calls, and total time on the phone with AA international reservations trying to book this, and post it back here.

It will save you time if you have potential flight carriers, flight numbers and departure times at the ready before you call.

Steve

malcolmkettering

OK, sounds like you're the expert I've been looking for! Trying to book a OW35Y for 4 people. So far can only get seats for some of the segments. We are flexible on dates and can even split up 2 and 2 on the first inbound.

Here is the hoped-for itinerary (shooting for late March into April or April into early May if necessary).

FCO-BUD - Málev (one daily)
BUD-BEY - Málev (only twice weekly)
BEY-AMM - Royal Jordanian (three daily)
AMM-ALP - Royal Jordanian (one or two daily)
ALP-AMM - Royal Jordanian (one or two daily)
AMM-TLV - Royal Jordanian (up to three daily)
TLV-AMM - Royal Jordanian (up to three daily)
AMM-FCO - Royal Jordanian (four weekly)

The line I'm getting after 2 calls is that even though there are multiple daily flights, for instance BEY-AMM, there are no award seats at all. Period. So if anyone has experience with RJ and if they release seats later on - maybe this is still too early even though within 330 days, etc, - let me know!

JDiver

Though these are awards using AAdvantage miles, it's really about a validity issue and about an OW35Y plus availability on other oneworld airlines, so it will be relocated to oneworld Forum for the oneworld experts to weigh in on.

Thanks!

JDiver, Moderator

Kiwi Flyer

Routing rules depend on AAdvantage award rules.


Kiwi Flyer
OW moderator

steve32

Really? That is quite interesting.

So the change in OW award routing rules coming this September to include all layovers (not just stopovers) is an American Airlines rule, not a oneworld rule?

Will this change mean that, with the ability to change date/times of flights (but not the routing) on a OW award, that one can stretch a layover into a additional stopover since we have already paid for it in miles (and I assume have to pay any additional departure taxes/fees for such a stopover at the airport if already started on trip, or with another CC charge over the phone with AA if changing before starting the trip?

Given AA's comparatively pretty low FF miles cost for OW awards, there is less room for complaint for their change of distance calculation to include all segments including just layovers, though that can be a pretty big kick when longer routing is forced due to lack of award availability even 330 days out.

Example: Even with two weeks on the phone every night for several hours trying every routing I could think of to shorten the route home from AKL for my parents (in business class), the only routing I could find for them that wasn't even more convoluted was AKL-BNE-HKG-LHR-JFK-BWI, on a different OW partner each step (QF, CX, BA, AA, American Eagle regional jet for final!), with their departing 12 hours before me, and arriving 17 hours after my extremely fortunate lone business award seat AKL-LAX-IAD (I had to get back to work; they are both retired).

Steve

3Cforme

This doesn't speak to availability, but it appears you're trying to break the rule of not connecting more than twice in any city.

http://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do?...orld_rules.jsp

3Cforme

Not sure why you would worry about stopover count with the original ticketing. Emphasis added:

Stopovers

One stopover is allowed per valid city. There is no limit to the number of stopovers. Stopover not permitted at the origination or destination city.
Stopover is defined as more than four hours for domestic flights, and six hours for international flights.
If there are no scheduled flights within this timeframe, regardless of availability, you must take the next scheduled flight but may not exceed 24 hours. If the connection exceeds 24 hours, it will be considered a stopover.

However, once ticketed much flexibility is gone:

Ticket Changes

No changes to routing (including stopovers/connections) or airlines are allowed once ticketed.
Date/time/flight number changes are allowed even after ticketing.

steve32

It's a game of call and hope. You can't just hope for luck on just the direct flights, you need to start hunting around for alternate routings that may have available award seats. No airline is required to have award seats for every flight, that I am aware of, nor that they be loaded at 330 days. Of course AA's shortening of their hold on a reservation from two weeks down to just days makes this exceptionally difficult now. Ask if OW awards are exempt from that change, as it's too unreasonable given how much time it takes to work on booking the full round of flights, especially if starting at 330 days out for a trip that last for weeks, so that it's impossible to hold onto the beginning of the trip until you can book the end. Don't hold your breath, as I had to restart my reservations twice while working on my 33-day trip, spending 6 weeks on the phone almost every night. It went not too badly until trying to fly into Australia, then a major pain and long grueling nights working a couple dozen routings checking for availability every night for two weeks until I got in, then re-reserving everything previous and on the phone as often working on getting back home from New Zealand, and having to pull the trigger on a "less than optimum" routing for my parents at that point as I had no confidence that the Qantas flights into the continent would re-load for me to re-reserve. I also had to accept a coach seat HKG to SYD, and a business award seat never opened up that I found in the 10 months between ticketing and flying.

You might be able to check for award seat availability through the BA.com website.

As noted by 3Cforme, you are routing through AMM three times, exceeding the limit of two (either two connections through, or one connection and one stopover).

Good luck,

Steve

steve32

Yes, that can be done on any/all OW partners. I did the voluntary downgrade on QF for HKG-SYD, but another business award seat never opened up. At least I got my parents into business class.

Good luck,

Steve

steve32

http://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do?...orld_rules.jsp

Routing Restrictions
oneworld awards are based on actual miles flown. For tickets issued on or after September 1, 2008, all flights, including connections, are included in the mileage calculation. For tickets issued on or before August 31, 2008, contact American Airlines Reservations for mileage calculation.

Given the new rules, one can change the dates of flights and turn a previous connection/transfer into a stopover, and it no longer results in a re-calculation of the mileage for determination of which distance award is applied for cost of FF miles. The only difference would be departure taxes/fees associated with the change in the amount of time at that airport/city.

I'm not sure how smooth such a transition that was allowed to be under the old rules, if the re-calculation resulted in a different distance award being redeemed.

Anyone else know?

...Anyone? ...Anyone? ...Buehler?

Steve

steve32

I find it very interesting that AA considers BWI as an additional co-terminal to IAD and DCA, but does not list DFW and DAL as co-terminals for OW awards.

http://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do?...orld_rules.jsp

DFW-DAL = 11 miles

DCA-BWI = 30 miles

IAD-BWI = 45 miles

Might it be a planned "cheat" that AA execs can use to book essentially multiple OW award trips using only a single award, as it's much more economical than as separate awards?

Example:

DAL-STL-ORD-FRA-DFW-LAX-SYD-LAX-DFW = 27,735 flight miles, leaving quite a bit of room for multiple additional stopovers around Europe, and around Australia/ New Zealand and still keep it under the 35,000 flight mile limit of a Distance Zone 8 award (OW190C or OW280F);

...rather than a Distance Zone 5 award [10k-14k flight miles] around Europe (OW115C or OW150F); plus a Distance Zone 6 award [14k-20k flight miles] around East Australia and New Zealand (OW130C or OW180F) or a Distance Zone 7 award [20k-25k flight miles] to include more of Australia and/or more of Asia (OW150C or OW230F).

Looks to me like it's saving up to 100,000 FF miles!

I think DAL should be added as a co-terminal of DFW, and BWI dropped as a co-terminal of IAD and DCA (BWI is only sometimes considered a co-terminal with IAD/DCA on domestic itineraries).

Steve

Blumie

It's not a function of distance.

MCMAHONSMR

All:

I think I'm posting in the right place for help. My girlfriend and I have finally decided to go for a round the world itinerary. I have more than enough miles to cover nearly any itinerary. Right now, we're aiming for JFK-LHR-HKG-AKL-SCL-JFK over a two week period next may. I know all about the caveats about re: availability. Under the current award scheme that itinerary works out to just over 26,000 miles and for Business Class that works out to 190,000 miles each. Seems to me, that if I am going to for that itinerary I might as well through in a couple of other flights (maybe SCL-EZE) or change it from HKG-AKL to HKG-SYD or MEL and then onwards to AKL or CHC.

Can anyone think of some true round the world itineraries that would come in at less than 25,000 miles so I can just pay 150,000 miles?

Thanks for your input.

malcolmkettering

Yeah, you're right. Originally I hadn't planned on the jaunt to TLV but since the distance is so short, I put it in there later without remembering the 2 connection rule because we stayed within the mileage requirement. We really want to only go to Jerusalem so we'll just do that with a taxi from Amman.

The other bummer is the only way this itinerary works is using the pre-September 1 rules, so I really only have 8 weeks to get it all set up. If I had to count the mileage FCO-BUD-BEY instead of just FCO-BEY, that would put me over 4,000 miles.

Thanks for the advice, I'm a veteran at the monotonous multiple call reservations so I'm prepared for that. Once I needed 3 J awards from SFO to Cape Town via Miami when we were partners with South African. Only could get 1 at first and the other 2 were routed SFO-HKG-JNB-CPT - 2/3rds of the way around the world! After calling regularly for a few months I was able to grab 2 more seats with South African fortunately. Hope my luck continues on this one!