FlyerTalkUserName

I tried to call and snag the blocked seats at check-in and couldn't get them. Was told to try at the airport. Checked back a few hours later on ExpertFlyer and they were gone. Contemplated asking the couple in the seats how they got them but refrained.

TGGDEL

@FALyerTalkUserName
Interesting, so they were assigned within 24 hrs, but possibly not at the airport. Maybe a status thing then. Thanks! I'll see if I can snag any window using EF seat alerts.

FlyerTalkUserName

Etihad allowed check-in at 48 hours (I called around T-44) for my flight so I think the seats were assigned between 44 and 30 hours prior to departure.

Highly doubt somebody went to the airport at T-30 to get seats. Also this was ex-HKT so unlikely that it was connecting traffic getting access to the seats at their origin.

olouie

Wow. Etihad liaison is really useless. After they announced the SFO to AUH flight was being cancelled after October I called to get a rerouted. It's been almost a month with no response. Called AA multiple times and every time the agent claims they can only wait and remind the liaison of the request. Sigh ... was looking forward to flying with them, but might have to change my plans based on how this is going so far.

m0hamed

I have said this several times. Best to change plans.

Acid

When a route is cancelled, the airline has a plan to accommodate ticketed passengers. When Jet Airways cancelled their Newark service last year - I was asked to move to Etihad (BOM-AUH-JFK) which i didnt agree to as timings didnt work for me. Encountered rude call center staff. I filed a DOT complaint and Jet Airways US office would call me every few days - I was allowed one date change and my desired routing via Europe. They told me I was the only one not agreeing to their Etihad option (it was in coach and I would lose a work day).

fly747first

^

FlyerTalkUserName

Checking ExpertFlyer I see 1 F seat from the US to AUH for 12/13 through 12/26. DFW-AUH on 12/24.

18 Y seats per day JFK-AUH. Looks like that second A380 has really freed up some seats.

JonNYC

Agree.

ft_515

I started earning AA miles in January this year with the specific goal of booking this ticket with Etihad.

A lot of things did not go as planned. Some of my CC apps were rejected so had to rely on MS and thankfully I travel a lot so made up a lot of miles that way.
But I expected finding FC award space to be the toughest part since FC seats are very limited and I read about Etihad's history with keeping FC seats availability guarded. Some blogs even said Etihad would only release seat availability a day before their actual availability which is a scary way to plan an international trip.

By July my AA miles balance was where I needed it to be. I immediately logged into Etihad guest and checked Guestsaver slots for apartments availability in early-mid December- nothing for months and nothing way into 2018. Next, called the Australian customer service line and result was the same - rep could not find any seats for December. Starting to lose hope, I logged on to flyertalk hoping to find other options. That was when I found the NZ phone number.
When I called NZ number, I wasn't expecting the process to go through as easily as it did. The NZ rep, by the way, was super nice and super helpful. He was immediately able to pull up FC award availability in my travel date range. In less than 20 mins I had the ticket booked. I was charged a total of 36USD and 230K miles for the reservation for 2 tickets.

Once the ticket was booked it immediately showed up on my aa.com account under 'Plan Trips'. The status showed 'On-request' since it needed to be reviewed and ticketed by Etihad which takes 48-72hrs. I booked the ticket on Friday and the status changed to 'ticketed' on Monday. During the 2 day wait I was assured my tickets would be blocked and not available to others.

The booking was ticketed, but there was more. When I checked the ticket details on aa.com, I did not see seat assignments. So I headed to Etihad.com to check if the seat assignments would be available there. In order check the ticket on Etihad.com there is a separate Etihad reservation# you will need which is not available on aa.com. You will have to call AA to get it. Anyway, no seat assignment was showing on Etihad.com. So I called Etihad directly. Again the rep was very helpful and made sure my companion and I got seats next to each other. You will be required to provide your travel information such as PP# etc for seat assignments. The rep assigned us seats 3&4. I was finally done and could breath a sigh of relief.

olouie

Looks like it. This sucks since I will then give up my apartment booking on the way back. When I got into AA I see the new flights, but no more information can be displayed. So its somehow kind of in the system. It also sucks that AA basically just shrugs and won't open up any extra space to get me to another domestic departure airport - just wait it out for now.

reverted

Congratulations on getting your booking! What route will you be flying? The Etihad rep was able to assign both of my seats on my Dec reservation without asking any sort of travel document/PP number. Odd.

FlyerTalkUserName

I've had two different occasions where I was able to get an agent to open up space on domestic legs when there were schedules changes. One agent got me the last two seats in F on a JFK-MIA flight 4 months out. Had to put me on hold but got it done.

Have you been able to identify space on EY then called AA and requested they open up space to connect you to the EY flight? I thought the issue was finding space on EY, which I wouldn't expect an AA agent to be able to help with.

Can you connect via Europe or on QR on the outbound in order to preserve your return flight?

anabolism

I'm puzzled that an agent at the AA NZ number call center was able to book Etihad F award space that Etihad's own award search didn't show available.

[QUOTE=ft_515;28589193]The status showed 'On-request' since it needed to be reviewed and ticketed by Etihad which takes 48-72hrs. I booked the ticket on Friday and the status changed to 'ticketed' on Monday. During the 2 day wait I was assured my tickets would be blocked and not available to others. \[quote]Just to clarify, since you booked using AA miles, it's AA that issues the tickets, not EY. There is a review process for all AA award tickets involving partner flights. That's not specific to EY. Since the itinerary is holding confirmed space during this process, the seats are removed from availability and are normally safe. It can happen that a partner airline cancels the space before ticketing, but that's rare.

You do have to call EY to allocate seats. This is covered in the Wiki at the top of this thread.

Animgif

Read through but wasn't able to find an answer to this.

When I search EY's site NYC - AUH - NYC RT there is no Guest J availability AUH - NYC. When I search the same dates one-way AUH - NYC I see lots of Guest J availability. EF also sees the same Guest J availability but AA is not able to see or book it. Any suggestions as to what's happening? Is this phantom inventory or is there some way to get AA to see it?

Edit: AA being AA US and AA Australia.