kkohany

This is my first time to book award ticket using AAdvantage miles.
I want to book business/first R/T award ticket on YYZ-ICN (YYZ-ORD on AA, ORD-NRT-ICN on JL) in May and of course, there is no award availability. and I don't think AA will allow YYZ-HKG-ICN on CX even if I pay 13.5k for F/C award ticket.

Is there any alternative routings I should try?

Any thoughts and comments welcome. Thanks in advance.

Happy

Did AAdvantage desk tell you there is no award availability?

You can connect at Asia 2 to reach Asia 1 provided you pay for the Asia 2 miles. This is one of the exceptions on the no travel thru 3rd region rules.

kkohany

Happy, Thank you for your reply.

I just checked JL award availability for ORD-ICN segment on Jal.com site and there is no availability until Jun. 06, 2010. Is there any difference between jal website and AAdvantage desk?

For routing exceptions, I looked up AAdvantage All Airline Award rule on Flyerguide wiki and I couldn't find the exception you mentioned.

I should call the AAgent to figure out NA to/from Asia 1 connecting Asia 2.

martin33

I have not run across that case. If you depart in a connection on your way between regions during the off-peak period, that seems like an off-peak trip, to me.

That exception is gone; I think it lapsed when Asia 1 and Asia 2 were re-defined some time back.

To do YYZ-HKG, plus HKG-ICN would be two awards, 55K in Business for YYZ-HKG and 30K in Business for HKG-ICN. That's 170K round-trip. ugh.
If the return could be NRT-ORD-YYZ, the total would drop to 135K, though. Not bad.

The best deal for this trip, however, would appear to be a oneworld award YYZ-HKG-NRT-ICN-NRT-ORD-YYZ, at 17,927 miles. In Business class the whole thing would come to 130K, and one could stop over anywhere desired.

51nan

Hi,

I am trying to get a one way award ticket in coach from CMI to AYT, any day between, July 9 thru 17th.

I think, I gotta get to London somehow because , LGW-AYT on BA seems the only AA/partners route to AYT.

I was just told no available seats in that last BA flight. Weird enough, they told me the same thing, few months back. Is there a trouble for AA agents to access BA fare buckets, or smt. How can I overcome this?

Thanks

PS: I am Gold member

Happy

A quick check on BA's award booking engine shows 0 availability for the whole month of July, nor June, nor August, using BA miles. BA simply does not offer ANY award seat on this route that is my conclusion.

That is why there is nothing for you also.

AA elite status has no bearing in booking partner awards for the most part. Even if you are EXP, AA would not ask partner to open up awards in normal award booking. AA would, when there is involuntary schedule changes wrecking havoc on the itinerary, work with partner to re-accommodate the passenger.

Happy

A question for martin33, before I call AA to clarify...

Is the first segment or the last segment to determine the award being off-peak or peak? Or must the international segments start no later than the cut-off date to keep it off-peak?

Take this example, IST-LHR on May 15, connecting to LHR-MIA on May 16. Would this be off-peak or peak coach award?

I know aa.com treats LHR-MIA on May 15, and then MIA-LAX on Oct 16 a 20K off-peak award.

alien

I can't answer your question. But, I don't see the relevance of the LHR-MIA//MIA-LAX example as both flights are entirely on or inside the Off-peak dates.
Whereas, you are asking about an award where the first segment starts on an Off-peak date with the connecting segment starting outside Off-peak dates. Personally, I think if you called 5 times, you'd get a 1-5 or 2-3 response. And even then, it may or may not get flagged subsequent to booking. Big help huh?

rrgg

I just tried this for JFK-GRU-GIG-GRU-JFK online where the returning GIG-GRU flight is Nov. 30th. Nov. 30th is off-peak and Dec. 1st is peak, but it was priced as off-peak.

sergeic

I'm planning to do a stopover at SFO for this routing:

HKG-SFO-JFK

I'm not sure about the date for SFO-JFK yet. Is it possible to change date when I get to SFO? 2 agents gave me different answers...I just don't want to get some unpleasant surprise when I get to SFO.

It sounds to me that this is a no...as a date change requires reticketing...and since the ticket is partially used it may not be possible...

Happy

Thank you rrgg for testing this.

It did not dawn on me the South America has off peak / peak period as well!

I have the itinerary currently booked as IST-LHR-RDU-MIA May 13/14, held until Sunday. I will inquire the May 15/16 possibility before ticketing the current itinerary.

If I can help it I would prefer IST-LHR-MIA-LAX unfortunately the only date options would be either May 8/9, or May 15/16. It seems BA does not operate IST-LHR on Friday and Sunday or all booked up. No availability on Friday and Sunday for whole month of May. IB has zippo, and only Malev has one connecting thru BDU on May 14 to arrive LHR almost midnight.

EDIT:

Confirmed - it is 20K miles for IST-LHR-MIA-LAX as long as first leg starts in off peak period, and not limited to All AA flights.

I dont understand why the reservation is not showing up automatically after the agent reserved the new itin. I have to do the search by PNR thing to make it show up.

Also even though the deadline for ticketing is 5 days from now on Mar 18, on the detailed page it said Mar 19. I have noticed the 1 day difference between the summary page and the detailed page been going on for a while. This can be misleading and cause problem if one does not pay careful attention.

anotherlincoln

You may want to check the time zone/stamp on it? I've noticed differences in dates for reservations on hold lately too. If it is an intl flight, it seems like it uses the local time of your final destination or departure airport.

In your example, it could be a 7-10 hr difference from US time zones and have the following date on it.

Happy

I have not thought about that re local time of the origin city.

Still, it does not make too much sense because it shows 22:xx for May 19 while the agents all told me till Midnight of May 18. Neither agent could explain why, but told me to use the May 18 midnight time. It does not match with IST local time nor MIA local time!

buschoi

None of the international award reservations would show up. This is probably a system glitch. It is frustrating from time to time when I have to check several international award reservations at the same time.

martin33

I believe the itinerary works because you are in a valid connection for the intercontinental leg of the trip at the time of the season change. I think the rule is not quite as simple as "first leg starts in off peak"-- that works here because there is no way to stop over at LHR. But, going the other way, it can't be abused-- you can't book a July trip MIA-LHR-IST at the off-peak rate just by glueing on a "prequel" trip in the previous March, LAX-MIA.