seawolf

+1

Certain 3rd party online agencies can often times get around married segments when booked multi-city.

orongo

“The flight(s) or fare related is no longer available.” This is annoying on third party sites but how can this happen on a carrier’s own site where availability is presumably coming directly from its Sabre host system?

AA.com has to be the worst major carrier site for shopping. Why for example are results spread over four pages? Any meaningful comparison requires additional steps: scroll down and select “View All Results” and then you are ready to sort by price or time. Why not display all the results and allow user to sort by clicking on the column headers?

Speaking of column headers... In the price & schedule display, the column headers “Economy Super Saver”, “Economy Saver” are practically meaningless because they do not refer to consistent attributes. These aren’t Fare Families in the usual (AC, SK, WN) sense. Is there a same day change fee? Will I pay for baggage? Well, it "varies." It varies further depending on AA status. Does it vary depending on OneWorld status? Who knows.

Then there are follow on searches. Look at LAXLGA one ways by price & schedule and then click “Start Over” to look at SANJFK as a possible substitute. Your default search is now round-trip by schedule! I am learning to deal with the eccentricities of AA.com but surely if the point of AA’s disputes with the online agents are to steer traffic to its own site, it could do a better job on AA.com.

lobo411

I have had the same problem with unavailable fares for the last 2 months. The basic problem is that aa is run by a moron former accountant ceo, Jerry arpey, who never took technology or the Internet seriously.

Fire arpey, save aa.

It's just that simple.

NWAOldtimer

I've been having the problem for months. Fairly recently I encountered this repeatedly over a period of 2 weeks while attempting to book flights DTW-LIM. Various attractive combinations of times would appear but when I clicked on them I got the "no longer available" message. This was whether I searched by price or by schedule. The same flights would appear and then not be available for the entire 2 weeks, so it wasn't a question of flights selling out while I was searching. Finally I simply used multicity search to book the flights.

I agree with the other poster that the web site is simply malfunctioning.

JDiver

It just might be more basic than that. AA had the first automatized reservation system (using punch cards) called the Reservisor in 1946, which progressed to the Magnetronic Reservisor, sporting a drum-based memory system, in 1952.



Presumably due to a random meeting onboard of C. R. Smith, CEO, and an IBM salesperson by the same last name, AA joined with IBM to develop a new system, the Semi-Automatic Business Environment, SABER (which was based on SAGE, the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment used by USAF / NORAD to track aircraft,) in 1957. (The SAGE A/N-FSQ7 was quite a device - a vacuum tube computer with ferrite core memory, huge and complicated.)


A/N FSQ-7


1960s SABRE

Since then, basically, layers have been added to that onion (renamed SABRE), and AA's IT system seems unwieldy and tricky (witness two years it took after announcing it that it took to show SWUs in our online accounts). AA has signed a contract with Hewlett Packard to develop an entirely new "next-generation Passenger Service System" named Jetstream <link>. It will be enhanced with availability features AA is buying from ITA Software, an old FT "friend" <link>.

Being first doesn't mean being best later. It's hard to say when Jetstream will become a reality, but the contract and project certainly didn't get initiated because Gerard Arpey is an accountant or a Luddite.

lobo411

Thanks for the run down. I knew that they were leaders back in the day, but I'm suspicious of promises of a newer/better computer system. California has been building a better state gov't computer network for the last 20 years, and now, hundreds of millions of dollars later, it still doesn't exist. You can't just graft a new network onto a 1960s era mainframe network and expect it to work.

But be that as it may, I've come to the conclusion that what I'm experiencing isn't a bug at all. I think it's deliberate.

Here's the results of my experience looking at summer fares this year (I've tried dozens of itins over the last few months).

There are two different patterns, depending on whether the destination is serviced by nonstops. Example:

SBA-BOS:
I was able to book this route as SBA-LAX-MIA-BOS, or SBA-LAX-BOS for every fare I was offered.

I was NOT able to book fares for SBA-LAX-DFW-BOS, or SBA-LAX-ORD-BOS, except at the very highest fare classes. (Generally, only fares > $600 were bookable)

SBA-MCI:
There is no nonstop service from LAX to MCI. I was able to book SBA-LAX-DFW-MCI fine, for every date I tried.

And the above behavior magically disappears after 9/1. I'm perfectly able to book any fare I'm offered regardless of routing after 9/1. I was perfectly able to book any fare I was offered before April. It was only this summer that I was unable to book any deep discount fare involving a connection between LAX - destination that I'm offered as long as parallel nonstop service exists.

I thought maybe the problem was SBA, but I tried running the above using FAT and Sacramento as the origin cities and they didn't work either. Originating from LAX = no problems.

What does this mean?

* It could be that AA is already getting hosed on Eagle flights to the hubs, so maybe they don't want the business unless it's worth it to them.

* It could be that this is connected to the recent DEQM offers. My problems started exactly when these offers were announced. I never had so much trouble booking on AA in my life. Is it a coincidence that all these problems disappear right when the DEQM promo does?

* It could be that they want to save Eagle seats on these routes because they're holding out for higher revenue pax than the deep discount fares I've been trying to book. SBA flights have *not* been oversold or even full, though.

badgerW

I am having this problem right now. Looking into a MR on July 3 DFW-SFO-DFW to take advantage of the DEQM promotion (I am a Texas resident but temporarily live in Colorado for work). ITA Matrix shows $319 ai. Booking these flights on AA.com is a nightmare.

Doing the initial search for DFW-SFO RT by Price & Schedule. Several flights are available at the $149 price. Click on the 9:05AM flight, click "Continue": "...flight or fare no longer available." Ok, try the 10:05AM flight. Same thing. Next down the list is the 7:40AM flight. Ok, seems to work.

Now on to the return flight. There are two flights at $148 listed. Click on the 3:35PM.... no longer available. Click on the 5:40PM.... no longer available. So that's both of the $149 flights gone, but even so, the tab at the top shows "Return: Sun Jul 03: From $148" with both fares showing as unavailable, and no $148 flights listed on the other pages.

Ok, I switch to another browser. One where I have never logged into aa.com before and with all cookies cleared. Same thing happens! The $149 fares still show up initially, then disappear upon clicking them! If they're "no longer available" then why do they show up again, only to disappear again?!

lobo411

Just out of curiosity, have you plugged itin dates for after the DEQM promo ends into the system? When I tried that, I noticed that the problems went away. Not that it helps with our current problem at all, but I'm interested in figuring out what exactly is going on here.

badgerW

Yes, everything seemed to work when searching for flights on September 3rd (after DEQM expires). On the other hand, I also tried August 7th (DEQM still active) and had no problems with disappearing fares on that date either. So it could just be a close-proximity thing.

collector1

I had the same problem trying to book ticket to Madrid via DFW for Nov. 2011. Which is way after the DEQM ends. I called the EXP desk and was told to use multiple cities, did that and got the ticket, but at a higher price. That same route is still listed online today and then when you try to make the reservation you get the message fare no longer available. Still available using multiple cities, Is AA trying to make more money?

dmsdfw

I had the same problem a couple of days ago while trying to book DFW->NRT->HKG and PVG->LAX->DFW. Multi-city search based on price showed exactly what I wanted but became unavailable at the last possible moment, as in after going through all the credit card details and clicking the Finish button. This behavior was consistent and repeatable over several attempts. I finally solved the issue by switching to a search by schedule. However, the fare did end up being $100 more per person. Talking to web services about it, the problem appeared to be with the NRT->HKG segment which was originally showing as a CX codeshare on a JL flight but which only appeared to be bookable as a true JL flight number.

pedropescador

trying to book SMF-CNF for December/January.

ALL options on the first two pages of price/schedule will come back as not available any longer. What a joke.

Tried to book on kayak.com. They show the price, but then just link to AA.com where the same problem continues. I guess AA advertises the low prices to come up high in the search on sites like kayak.com. Of course they only angry any possible customer when the advertised fare is not available.

brp

Unlikely. It's just really bad programming between the front end and the database.

Cheers.

pedropescador

I just went through all 4 pages of offered flights for the return trip Belo Horizonte to Sacramento. NONE of them are available to book, all of them came back as not available.

In general I am a very happy customer of AA, but this is rediculous. I have better things to do than trying to find a fare that is available to purchase.

Peter

Xero

I am currently having this problem booking SFO-LAX-SAN. I called web services in and the web services agent told me that I was seeing this "because the fare is no longer available".

She was completely unhelpful and merely found a flight that AA actually was selling and insisted on a $25 ticketing fee even if I was EXP.