mouseroyal

Hi All,

I'm IAH/AUS based and I have planned a family vacation to Hawaii this Christmas. When I found 4 available award tickets from LAX-OGG the other day I immediately booked them using BA miles. I've also planned a 10 days visit to LA area but at that time there is no availability from AUS-LAX, so I can not take advantage of BA's stopovers.

However, yesterday several award tickets from AUS to LAX suddenly appeared (I'm guessing AA is releasing the award inventory from time to time) and I would like to change the itinerary to AUS-LAX-OGG and add a 10 day stopover in LAX. I have to cancel the confirmed ticket from LAX-OGG online (surprisingly, no cancellation fees!) and rebook AUS-LAX-OGG over the phone. But the 4 LAX-OGG tickets are the only 4 left when I booked them, so there is no availability after my booking. After the cancellation, I checked again and again hoping that they will show up in the award inventory instantly, but that is not the case... I know I'm a little greedy , but adding a stopover can save me 50K miles! So, my question is, will the cancelled award tickets ever loop back to the inventory and become available on the AA search engine? If so, how long typically does that take?

Thank you.

flyupfront

There's no guarantee that award seats will open up again. If they do, you will be competing with others who want them...so be quick on the draw if the do become available. Any chance the seats you wanted opened up but someone else grabbed them before you could get backto them?

ckpeter

Well, the first question is why didn't you just add the AUS-LAX leg to your BA redemption. I thought BA allows you to change award?

But since you already cancelled the reservations, that point is moot.

The short answer is if a seat was going to return as an award seat, it would have happened instantly.

In this case, since it didn't happen instantly, it means that RM is quite happy that you cancelled the award, as they wanted those 4 seats for sale at the moment. You will just have to keep monitoring the flights to see if and when they may open up.

It usually pays to to keep monitoring seat for release. As you discovered yourself, award availability changes all the time, so it is likely that at some point they may be released again. However, in your case, things are more difficult, because you are asking for 4 seats.

One suggestion I have is for you to book your trip speculatively. Confirm with BA that you could change origin/destination with a BA award, and then book whatever is available now (AUS-LAX). If the other legs open up later, you can add to them. Also, you may want do the same thing with the passengers, so if only 2 seats are available on LAX-OGG, you may book 2 seat AUS-LAX-OGG, and 2 seat AUS-LAX only, and when another 2 seats for LAX-OGG open up in the future, you can add them for the remaining passengers.

HappyCoachFlyer

Unknowable. Canceled seats just go back into the total pot of available inventory for the affected flights, and the yield management software then decides how many of each fare type to offer.

mouseroyal

Thank you for your help! I read some frequent flyer blogs and they all said that any changes to a BA mileage redemption other than data/time will have to have the ticket cancelled and re-issued. So bad that I didn't try it myself, maybe the agent is kind enough to be able to change my itinerary... Anyway, thanks for all you guy's suggestions! I have used expertflyer.com to monitor that LAX-OGG flight and hopefully it will be real-time enough to remind me when they become available .

JDiver

They most likely won't, not like that. Revenue / Yield Management software is dynamic and has many dependent variables - seat sales, changes, etc. Predictive analytics is like that. Good luck in finding a reasonable substitute for the canceled flight.

tylerdurden4543

My experience has been that changes to origin/destination on BA award/AA metal have incurred a change fee (believe it was $75). Date/time is probably what's free.

DillMan

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9700/5.0.0.330 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

In light of the fact that you already gave back the lax-ogg seats I'm reminded of the words of the famous poet Scobby Doo: "Ruh-Roh Raggy"

ijgordon

Cancelling/reissuing the ticket and cancelling the reservations are two different things. It may be possible for them to cancel the ticket while keeping the Hawaii segments and then just add on the domestic US segments, and then re-issue a new ticket. But you'd certainly have to call and talk to a (BA) agent.

azepine00

Shouldn't it be $50 per preson?
http://www.britishairways.com/travel...l/public/en_gb

At least you got lucky there...

wtcmor

I was wondering whether anyone had any updates on this. I have an award on hold from Sydney to London, but wqant to change it from Sydney to Rone. If i cancel, do you think the Syd- London will show up immediately again. it is a first award on Qantas if that makes any difference

ckpeter

You didn't mentioned what miles you used to book the flights, but since you posted in the AA forum, I will assume you used AA miles.

Just call AA and add the LHR-Rome segment. Do not simply cancel and rebook, as you risk losing the SYD-LHR segment.

chutchins

Does anyone know how this works with tickets put on Hold instead of Ticketed? I put an award on all AA metal on Hold with AA miles this morning, but after doing some math, I think I'd rather use BA miles to book the award. If I don't ticket and let the Hold expire, do those spots open right up? Thanks!

wtcmor

Yes they do. The best way though is to cancel the hold yourself and immediately rebook - the return to inventory has been instaneteous IME

pauleeepaul

This may happen - but is by no means guaranteed. See above.