Happy

Seems impossible to find AY seats not even in coach? Encounter error on each click.

Alex_I

Yes, I have wasted an hour investigating this. Most of AY availability is phantom especially for long haul J.

Happy

Well after the first 3 errors I went straight to BA site and found BA did not see any, including coach seats. So I decided all of them are phantom.

May take a TATL cruise to Copenhagen and then spend some time in the Baltics + St. Petersburg, IF I could find a pair of J seats home. No luck on AY or AB.

It is a pure discretionary trip as those "just because" types of scenario so husband refuses to fly coach which actually does have availability on AB from DUS but not TXL.

Managed to find a pair from BCN on AA metal 777-200 with those forward/backward seats. Also put a connection DUS-BCN on hold as it is a forced overnight which AA site is incapable to handle. Put them on hold but not sure would take them.

Onto BA to see if I could find any IB availability. If we must fly from BCN I would much prefer flying IB with a small YQ than AA's weird seats on 777-200.

pfbloom

Somewhat frustrated that the AA awards engine is continually showing phantom award availability on AY Finnair. I've been checking JFK-HEL for the past week for an early June departure and it shows both Coach and Business awards available for many days. Clicking through just gets you a: "that flight is no longer available" error (in small type, top of page no less)....

It's been messed up for some time; and would be great if AA IT could fix this. Are others noticing this? It's a downer leafing through the only other alternatives, BA awards with very large fuel/fee surcharges.....

FlyIgglesFly

I've also noticed this. Quite annoying and has definitely been present for the past few months.

mrkymark

yea in addition, i've had the experience of AY flights that weren't available online but when I called they were! Quite bizarre. My experience was a year ago but online it was a BCN-HEL flight at 0300 that was available. When I called they offered me a 1200hr flight, never seen online. Obviously I loved that but the larger issue is that the display of flights is not reflective of inventory.

Alex_I

Yes, this is a know ongoing problems especially for JFK-HEL flights. I have complained to AA via Twitter about two months ago. They promised to look into that but nothing really happened. At the end I have called EXP desk and they were able to book me through LHR on AA metal and then to HEL on AY.

jiaotze

This problem has been around for at least two years. While people in web services profess to be totally unaware of this issue and are shocked every time they replicate the problem when I walk them through it, no fix has come along.

While not ideal, BA offers a much better picture of availability.

While I don't face tkting charges with the EXP desk, one reservations agent who once did a search for me said she'd waive the fee for ticketing since the website appeared to be displaying availability incorrectly, thus making a call to AA necessary. Of course, YMMV.

pvgman

Definitely happening for more than a year already

Happy

Not just JFL-HEL, it seems most AY flights are totally messed up on AA website, as either error or no show at all.

Use BA site to find availability then call AA to check on it. Or put a dummy reservation that is available on AA site on hold. then call to change it to the date you want that BA shows available/bookable. That is how I booked a HEL-AMS flight this way.

Lavezzi

Trying to book ARN-ORD and the BA site is showing three J seats for the entire journey on AY, but only one seat available if I look at HEL-ORD. Each time I phone AA they tell me there is nothing available for HEL-ORD.

Obviously there's a discrepancy, but if this is truly 'phantom' availability on BA's side, theoretically how far could I go down the booking process on the BA website before it throws up an error?

KVS

What are the Flight #s/Dates?

You may need to go as far as entering your payment details.

nwflyboy

Oh, Antionette...what a piece of work you are...

Spent an hour on the phone tonight. First, go online at 330 days out to book SFO-HEL in C on AA partner AY. I've been checking availability of this flight for weeks. Plenty of availability shown on AA.com consistently. Tonight I go to book the seats, click the button, and - poof - the flight vanishes with the nonsensical result of "Flights are available at different award types. Select another award type above to view." This is the same behavior I've encountered for virtually every AA booking I've tried over the past 2 years.

Mightily pissed, I grab the phone and call. Feed the automated system all my details then I'm shunted to a live agent, Antionette. CS agent listens quietly and just asks "what can I do for you?" I explain what I saw 100 times. She says "there are no seats available." I say, that's not what your website shows. She disagrees. She says she's looking and she doesn't see any seats. I ask, clearly, "really? you're seeing something different? it's 100% repeatable for me...are you viewing the public website, using a web browser?" Yes, she says she is, and there's no availability. Not ready to believe her, I ask again - please confirm that: the public website, AA.com, web browser? Yes, she says. Hmmm. She then quickly starts pushing me on "the web technical support department." I stop her and ask what the technical support staff would be able to do? She says they handle all technical support issues. I say I don't need technical support, I want to know why customers should trust ANYTHING that AA.com shows them...it's clearly providing bogus information, so how is a customer supposed to trust anything there - credit card info, prices, etc.? She says "let me transfer you to tech support." No, I say, why should I talk to them? The problem is with your website, not me. She repeats there are no seats. I've tried 3 browsers on 2 computers, same results, so I ask her again if she's looking at the same flights as me. Yes, she says. And you're seeing something different from me? Yes, she says. I ask her to confirm that she is using a web browser to access the public website. She dodges the question and says she's going to transfer me to technical support. No, I stop her again, and I say I'll talk to your technical support people if it will help you fix your miserably broken system, but first, I need you to tell me....what web browser are you using? She doesn't answer. I ask again, can you confirm you are viewing the public AA.com website via a web browser. She just mumbles "technical support, technical support" over and over. I ask again. She then says no, she's looking in their internal system, not at the public website via a web browser. So why the hell did you just tell me 5 times that you were viewing the public website via a web browser? Silence. "Why did you lie to me?" She asks again if I would like to talk to technical support. I laugh and say no. May I please speak to your supervisor? Yes, she says. OK, you will transfer me to your supervisor, I ask? Yes, she says. OK, thanks. I hear the transfer start.

"Hello, this is AAdvantage web support, how may I assist you?" I explain that I was told I would be transferred to a supervisor. You're not a supervisor are you? No. Can you transfer me back? No, sorry. Oy. As long as I'm there, I explain the issue. She doesn't sound surprised, so I ask if this is a known issue? She doesn't answer. I hear her typing, I ask if she has a web browser and internet access. Yes. Great, I give her the steps to reproduce the issue. She does, and says she is seeing the exact same thing as me. "You must know about this, don't you?" She sheepishly admits that yes, it's a known issue. I tell her I'm not mad at her, I appreciate her being honest - as opposed to the last liar I spoke with - and I ask her if I can give any more info to help them track and ultimately fix the issue. She says she wants to write it up, can I hold? Yes, glad to. I'm put on hold for about 5 minutes. She comes back, starts talking "OK, so I have written up all the steps and the results (basically, she's logging a bug), and in med-sentence - click. We're disconnected. Oy.

I take 5 minutes to cool down. The web support lady was fine, not terribly helpful but there's obviously nothing she can do to fix this. At least she was honest. Not like that evil Antionette...

I decide that I will give it one more shot to get escalated to a supervisor, and I call back. Lucky me, Antionette gets my call. Remember me? Yes - did the web support team fix your issue? Of course not, and I remind her she told me she was going to transfer me to her supervisor, not the poor web support lady. I tell her that I'd like to speak with a supervisor now, and don't lie to me like you did before and don't transfer me to the web support line. She says OK and puts me on hold. I hold for 20 minutes. I'll hold until hell freezes over, lady, go take your break or whatever. After 20 minutes, I hear a click, and I'm dumped back into the initial call center queue. I get another lady who is a bit confused but listens to my story, pulls up my AAdvantage account number and sees a note from Antionette - good, there's a record of who I spoke with. I ask her to transfer me to a CS supervisor, she does. I'm on hold again for a couple minutes, then a gentleman comes on the line and identifies himself as the supervisor. I tell him my story, he listens patiently, apologizes and agrees that no CS agent should blatantly lie (repeatedly). He lets me vent, as appropriate. I ask him if he's familiar with the issue (the phantom award availability issue, not the issue of Antionette repeatedly lying to customers). He says yes, he knows about it. I suggest that while I'd love to see their system fixed, and that the current state of things calls in to question if customers can trust anything at all about his company, I tell him that the most concerning bit here was the open, repeated, and blatant dishonesty of one of their employees. "Antionette could use some..."coaching" on customer service basics" I suggest. He assures me he will look into that and thanks me for calling.

No airline in the world works harder to screw their customers than American Airlines.

JDiver

Respectfully, really? Let the agent know you're "mightily pissed", call her on what she's doing (I'm guessing there's a significant semantics issue here and she's trying to say she sees the same data you do) and tell her she's a liar. Great way to get a customer service agent on your side to try to help find award availability. I've never tried that approach, myself (I've certainly hung up and called again).

JonNYC

^
The enraged "you're a liar!!!" approach (expecting it to help) is mystifying to me.