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Ticket or Award status: On Hold, On Request, Pending, Purchased and Ticketed

Old May 23, 2015, 1:10 pm
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Last edit by: Prospero
"Hold", "Pending", "On Request", "Purchased" and "Ticketed" Status: What does it mean?
Purchased or award itineraries may both show one or more of these


Your itinerary may show as on "Hold"; this means you may have not paid for it yet, or it may indicate your action to purchase (award or purchase" hasn't processed yet. Keep an eye and call if it doesn't process to "On Request" or "Pending" fairly quickly.

Your award or purchased itinerary may show as "On Request", "Pending", "Purchased" or "Ticketed" when you look at it online. To travel you need a "Ticketed" itinerary with a ticket number. AA ticket numbers begin with "001" followed by 10 numbers (e.g. #0012345678901), not a six letter (on AA) PNR*. On UA, 016-, etc.

If one is traveling in months or weeks, it could take a day or more to pass from "On Request" or "Pending" to "Purchased" and on to "Ticketed", depending on whether it needs verification from partner airlines (can take 72 hours or more weekends and holidays) or go to the Rate Desk for approval.

Flights not on American Airlines, American Eagle, or AmericanConnection are on a request basis only. Fares and availability are subject to change. (aa.com)
Q: Why are revenue tickets on other airlines on a request basis only?

A: Other airline reservations are on a request basis only and may take 24 hours or more for confirmation. In addition, some airlines require post-booking reconfirmation of reservations made on aa.com. Please check with the airline for more details. (aa.com)
AA Conditions of Carriage, Section I(a)(2): "No person shall be entitled to transportation except upon presentation of a valid ticket."
Your itinerary online will reflect ticketing condition:

Pending or On Request mean your itinerary is essentially an offer, which might require processing for fees and taxes, approval and confirmation by a partner airline, etc. This can take 72 hours - longer over weekends and holidays, or if the trip is some time away.

"Purchased" or means the ticketing has been approved, but is awaiting issuance of a ticket.

"Ticketed" means you now have a Ticket Number (AA ticket numbers begin with "001" followed by 10 numbers, E.g. #0012345678901) - emailed to you; or, from your booking on aa.com, when you select "Print Receipt", you should be able to print a receipt with ticket number.

When you see your itinerary online, additionally you will be able to "Print a Receipt" with ticket numbers if your itinerary is fully accepted and ticketed. If it is not and you can only "Print Itinerary" rather than "Print Receipt", the ticket has not been issued as yet.

If Print a Receipt option is not available despite status being Ticketed, copy and paste the following URL into your browser on the same page as the displayed trip.

Code:
https://www.aa.com/reservation/printItinerary.do?forward=itineraryReceipt&isReceipt=true&anchorLocation=%2Freservation%2FfindReservationSubmit.do+aacomTripDashBoard_jsp&url=%2Freservation%2FprintItineraryReceipt.do
By travel time, you need one (or more) Ticket Number - do not presume to travel with just the six letter PNR. The ticket number is the "gold standard"; a PNR recycles, and is merely the handle for an itinerary.
To check your ticket's validity, fare class, detailed fare rules, etc. go to the AA Refunds site and enter your AA ticket number and you can see your ticket information before getting to a refund request.

You can select "Request a Receipt" or "Request a Refund"; prior to processing the refund request, you can see the detailed fare rules.

See post #261 for further information on checking ticket validity using the Refunds site.
*In the airline and travel industries, a passenger Name Record (PNR) is a record in the database of a computer reservation system (CRS) that contains the itinerary for a passenger, or a group of passengers travelling together. A PNR is merely a record of an itinerary; it does not imply or replace true ticketing. Your ticket numbers are evidence you have purchased an itinerary and the airline has approved and permitted it.

AA PNRs (passenger name record, aka itinerary or flight confirmation number) is always comprised of six letters (other airlines may use numeric as well), is merely a temporary handle for your itinerary. It ultimately "recycles" some time after the PNR is cancelled or used up.

The ticket number (AA also uses "document number") is thirteen numbers, and the airline designator for AA is "001" (UA is "026", etc.) Ticket numbers are the gold standard, indicating you really do have a ticket, and may be necessary in requesting adjustments, refunds, improperly assigned mileage credit, etc.

With AA you should receive a ticket number on the e-ticket email, and on the receipt. Unfortunately, the exceptions seem to be award tickets, where sometimes we must do a bit of digging.


Older posts can be read in the archived thread here.
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Ticket or Award status: On Hold, On Request, Pending, Purchased and Ticketed

Old Jul 8, 2012, 7:35 am
  #1  
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Ticket or Award status: On Hold, On Request, Pending, Purchased and Ticketed

Recent awards request using oneworld and non-oneworld airline partners about one month away took four days on request, and required a call to get an agent to get the process finished. After that, ticketing was immediate and I received an emailed receipt within the hour. (Once I saw the "Pending" ever 72 hours including only normal work days, I decided to call.)

Purchased tickets to Per and return took a couple of days.

Last edited by JDiver; Jul 23, 2015 at 9:31 pm Reason: Update
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Old Jan 6, 2020, 1:46 pm
  #2  
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Have a bit of a mystery on my hands....

Back in Dec, originally booked 2 RT AAnytime Business awards, all one PNR. A recent schedule change on the return legs facilitated some big changes on our return routing. We are now departing from a different airport, but still a AAnytime J award / same # of miles required. Still on the original PNR at this point. Changes were ticketed and confirmed. Muy bein, mis amigos!

After that was fixed, I called in to then upgrade this new return routing from a J AAnyitme award to a F AAnytime award. Inventory was available according to AA and EF, easy peasy.... until the CS rep #1 indicated that "due to the previous schedule and reservation changes", they could not edit this ticket any further - which sounded rather strange to me . If I wanted F on the return, he would have to cancel the current ticket and rebuild the entire trip, same routing just different cabin, on a new reservation. Ok by me, so he went ahead and did so. Told me that new reservation should show up in 30-45 minutes time on my account. And then we disconnected. Quickly there after, received:
  1. an award cancellation email for the original rese', original miles deposited back in to my account.
  2. followed by the miles redemption email for the correct (increased) amounts on the new F ticket.
Sure enough, about 20 minutes later, a new PNR popped into my account. Albeit, now with the incorrect outbound routing that would not work for us, but at least the return was correct and in F as requested. Hmmmmmm.....

Called back to get my original outbound routing restored on this new ticket, to be told by rep #2 that the award for that specific route was now more than 2X the original price in miles and that she could not put me on it without coughing up the miles. My explaining that all this was brought about by a schedule change and then AA error on rebooking fell on deaf ears.

HUCA, and got rep #3 that saw all the mess in the reservations and told me to sit tight and she would sort it out. About 30 minutes later rep #3 came back and explained that the cancel and reissue on the original PNR by rep #1 was actually not needed, and that she would be:
  1. Canceling and refunding this 2nd reservation (the one with bad outbound routing) that was made to get F seats
  2. Restoring my original (albeit modified due to schedule change) reservation (post-confirmed changes), RT in J.
I agreed to this, and the original PNR came back to my profile and then showed ticketed, RT J with the correct routing, a short while later.

BUT... no more miles came out of my account. I was already refunded on the first ticket (as is expected), and then refunded on the second ticket (as Rep #3 explained), but I was never "re-charged" for her restoring the original PNR.

I let it sit for a week, figuring it would resolve itself, but here we are and:
  • Miles are still in my account.
  • Ticketed (with 2 unique ticket #'s for myself and other pax) per the usual "receipt" link work around, and showing "ticket exchange" as the form of payment.
  • Ticketed and status listed as "OK" on the receipts page of the AA refund site, for each ticket number for each traveler.
  • Called in this AM and asked them to confirm the reservation is OK and ticketed, and for a copy of receipt to be emailed. This triggered the rese' to go to "ticket pending" for about and hour and then it reverted back to ticketed on AA.com as well as the 2 aforementioned "checks".

Anyone ever see something like this before?

I mean, I am happy to cough up the miles if they ever come calling for them, but then again... why poke the bear if it shows ticketed on multiple spots / AA phone rep checks the rese' and says its ok.

I am guessing in another week or two, some system check will catch the issue and remove miles from my account. But it all seems very odd!

Thoughts, comments, concerns, advice?
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Old Jan 9, 2020, 10:04 am
  #3  
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Well to answer my own question......

Called back in a few days later to try again at getting F AAnytime on the return. Finally got a competent agent who saw all the mess and sorted it out.... 2 hours of hold time :/

I asked what were the odds that this would have stayed ticketed and would be travel-able if I had not called in. Anecdotally, she put it at 60/40 that I would have traveled without issue or the miles being taken out of my account.

But, all is well that ends well. Miles were charged from my account, ticket confirmation about an hour later.
Really had to be my own advocate however about retaining current routing, not being charged the current miles rate for the route, LHR APD and exemptions therein, etc.

Glad that its all squared away and on the up and up for our honeymoon.
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 11:14 am
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Endless "ticket pending" -- dealing with a likely "mailer" problem?

I have a family member who's booked an AA domestic award that won't leave "ticket pending" status after a day. I suspect he has a locked account because he did use one of those infamous Citi AAdvantage "mailers" (Sadly, I gave him one that came to my home!). From an overall standpoint, I think there's nothing to do about his account but wait. But what should I advise he do about this ticket? Is there a way to nonchalantly cancel the reservation? Like what happens if he goes into his account, pulls up the reservation and hits the "cancel trip" button? The thought is to then book the reservation through his wife's account (she never used a mailer, so I assume her account is OK). I'm thinking that if he tries to book the reservation in his wife's account before cancelling the reservation in his own account, the website won't allow it, as a duplicate reservation. Thoughts?
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 12:08 pm
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Originally Posted by iahphx
I suspect he has a locked account because he did use one of those infamous Citi AAdvantage "mailers" (Sadly, I gave him one that came to my home!).
I used one from someone else for my Citi AA Executive World Elite and I just booked several overseas tickets on a partner airline that were ticketed with no issue.
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 12:15 pm
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Originally Posted by iahphx
I have a family member who's booked an AA domestic award that won't leave "ticket pending" status after a day. I suspect he has a locked account because he did use one of those infamous Citi AAdvantage "mailers" (Sadly, I gave him one that came to my home!). From an overall standpoint, I think there's nothing to do about his account but wait. But what should I advise he do about this ticket? Is there a way to nonchalantly cancel the reservation? Like what happens if he goes into his account, pulls up the reservation and hits the "cancel trip" button? The thought is to then book the reservation through his wife's account (she never used a mailer, so I assume her account is OK). I'm thinking that if he tries to book the reservation in his wife's account before cancelling the reservation in his own account, the website won't allow it, as a duplicate reservation. Thoughts?
It's unlikely he could ticket before the first one is canceled, as AA's systems are good at detecting duplicates.

There have been scattered reports of people being shut down if they booked travel for people who were shut down, so you might want to be careful about using the wife's account for the time being unless she knows what's going on and doesn't care about possibly losing her AA account.
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 12:41 pm
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Originally Posted by joe_miami
It's unlikely he could ticket before the first one is canceled, as AA's systems are good at detecting duplicates.

There have been scattered reports of people being shut down if they booked travel for people who were shut down, so you might want to be careful about using the wife's account for the time being unless she knows what's going on and doesn't care about possibly losing her AA account.
Right. I think the first ticket would have to be cancelled before the second reservation is made. I know that if I "hold" an AA reservation, but want to extend the ticketing deadline by rebooking, I need to cancel the first reservation before doing so.

As far as the wife booking the reservation goes, she's actually the other pax on the reservation (2 people travelling). I don't think her account is that valuable if she can never bring her husband with her on vacation. Or maybe it is. But in any event, while a ticket is pending at AA.com, can you still cancel it by hitting the "cancel trip" button?
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 12:47 pm
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Originally Posted by iahphx
As far as the wife booking the reservation goes, she's actually the other pax on the reservation (2 people travelling). I don't think her account is that valuable if she can never bring her husband with her on vacation. Or maybe it is. But in any event, while a ticket is pending at AA.com, can you still cancel it by hitting the "cancel trip" button?
I don't know, but there's really nothing to lose by trying, unless the husband only used one mailer and might not really be locked.
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 12:49 pm
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Originally Posted by iahphx
But in any event, while a ticket is pending at AA.com, can you still cancel it by hitting the "cancel trip" button?
If the customer has signed up for multiple (3+) Citi cards in the past couple years and the ticket is stuck in pending then their account is certainly locked, it doesn't matter if they cancel the ticket or not. If the ticket isn't cancelled then it'll just sit in a pending state until the flight comes and goes.

Frankly their account will eventually be shut down regardless of what they do.
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 12:49 pm
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Originally Posted by iahphx
But in any event, while a ticket is pending at AA.com, can you still cancel it by hitting the "cancel trip" button?
I booked a couple domestic japan award bookings on JAL via AA miles and canceled with the cancel button before they ticketed last week. Points were never reduced and it canceled without having to call AA to have my points redeposited.
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 1:19 pm
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Originally Posted by seigex
I booked a couple domestic japan award bookings on JAL via AA miles and canceled with the cancel button before they ticketed last week. Points were never reduced and it canceled without having to call AA to have my points redeposited.
Thanks. That makes sense to me. Logic would say the system doesn't charge the credit card or deduct the miles until the ticket is actually issued. If the system is "smart enough" to be able to cancel the reservation while waiting for ticketing, that's a good thing in this situation. What I don't want to happen is for more "eyes" to go on his account (I figure he has enough trouble!). I will recommend this strategy, unless somebody has a better idea.
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 2:06 pm
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He should pick up the phone, call AA and ask that the ticket be pushed through. If his account is locked, he will be told so. At that point, I would simply ask the agent to cancel the reservation and then end the call. He may then book whatever he wants.

There seems to be an aversion on FT to being direct. But, there is no evidence that AA punishes customers for having asked, e.g. "we were going to reinstate your account but because you called, we're terminating it."
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 2:35 pm
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Originally Posted by Often1
But, there is no evidence that AA punishes customers for having asked, e.g. "we were going to reinstate your account but because you called, we're terminating it."
It also seems very unlikely that an account that hasn't been locked, but where the owner calls to get a pending ticket pushed through, is going to cause the front-line agent to do an on-the-spot audit of how miles were earned in the past, pick up on the improper use of mailers, and then lock the account on the spot.
deeruck and nancypants like this.
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 4:37 pm
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Yesterday AA was having website issues. It is documented online on down website
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Old Feb 8, 2020, 5:13 pm
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Originally Posted by Often1
He should pick up the phone, call AA and ask that the ticket be pushed through. If his account is locked, he will be told so. At that point, I would simply ask the agent to cancel the reservation and then end the call. He may then book whatever he wants.

There seems to be an aversion on FT to being direct. But, there is no evidence that AA punishes customers for having asked, e.g. "we were going to reinstate your account but because you called, we're terminating it."

I am still confused, stunned, and alarmed that this wasnt everyones first thought/suggestion.

Last edited by rumboj; Feb 10, 2020 at 4:14 am
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