INDFlyer

Thanks Dave for the quick reply. ^

SeeBuyFly

I called the NZ number today. Having failed to book the desired award, I immediately called the Oz number...and the same person answered.

So the business of NZ being different and better is presumably nonsense.

Dave Noble

It may be the same person, but when you call on the NZ line, the operator will have a NZ point of sale selected , whilst when calling Australia will have an Australia POS

POS can make a difference in availability for tickets

millionmiler

Interesting. I learned something new today.

SeeBuyFly

If Australia and New Zealand can't snag an USA-XXX award that shows on etihad.com only if you search for an XXX-USA-XXX round trip (then etihad.com says there are 6 awards available!), what options are left?

My guess is that I should not call any national number that is only open local business hours, because it is probably a local travel agency, plus I might have to call in the middle of the night. Has anyone tried Japan, Indonesia, etc., which are open 24 hrs? Or would Abu Dhabi be a highly favored POS (it is only open 9-5)?

I realize I can just try these myself, but I was hoping for some data points.

SFO777

If you only called twice (once OZ and once NZ) and spoke to the same agent, you really only tried one agent. HUCA and try more agents until at least 3 or 4 tell you no. Try different times of the day so you get different shifts.

SeeBuyFly

Actually when I got the same agent I hung up (rude, I know) and called Oz again later. But I will try doing what you said.

Thunderroad

I've done a fairly thorough search at the EY site for JFK-AUH-JFK first class (searching both OW and RT) as an award ticket for much of the coming year (up to about 330 days out) and a lighter search for LAX-AUH-LAX, but have come up completely empty. I know F award availability on EY comes and goes. Does anyone have a sense of whether we're in a particularly dry period now, or am I doing something wrong?

Also, if the particular problem is JFK and LAX F availability, any sense of which are better routes to look for?

Thanks for any advice.

erik123

When you search use AUH as the starting point.

NecessaryIndulgences

I just searched as well, starting as far out as Guest First seats are currently available, which is June 23, 2018.

AUH-JFK has 2 seats available every day for as far back as I went (I clicked back for about a month).

AUH-JFK-AUH also has 2 seats available for all but a small handful of dates for the 3 months I clicked through.

Availability is crazy good right now.

If you are originating in the US, I would suggest finding availability for dates you want by repeating the searches I just did, looking for the JFK-AUH dates on the backend of the RT AUH-JFK-AUH search. Then call NZ and try to get it done.

The Wiki states that this loophole has been closed, but there has been so much weirdness with booking these awards lately that I wouldn't take that for gospel.

To answer your other question - LAX is served by the 777 as best I can tell. JFK is the A380. These are vastly different experiences in F in my opinion. To each his own, but I personally would not waste AA miles on EY's 777 product.

anabolism

DFW has pretty good availability. I think even U.S. agents could see it when I booked it earlier this year.

JFK is served by two A380 flights, while LAX and DFW have one 777, if I recall correctly. I would not call EY 777 F a "waste" of AA miles. Quite the opposite. The two F experiences are, as you say, quite different, and it's well worth booking the A380 at least once, but many people prefer the 777. I personally prefer the A380, mostly because the chef has a kitchen to work in and can prepare customized meals, but overall both are very nice. If flying alone, the A380 offers much more privacy, but if flying with someone, the A380 is very isolating; you can't interact with each other except through a small "kissing window" while in bed. The A380 has separate bed and seat, and some people find the bed too narrow or prefer to sleep with their head raised, which is difficult on the A380 since the bed is fixed flat. Both offer doors that close for enhanced privacy.

NecessaryIndulgences

Fair enough - you make some very good points about the merits of both aircraft configurations. I love the volume of space in the Apartments, even though it comes at the price of being somewhat separated from a traveling companion (I'll see her for 2 weeks once we get there, lol). The galley difference is amazing. The lower cabin altitude and higher humidity level of the A380, for me, makes a noticeable difference in the effects of jet lag.

In the end, if I'm going to spend 430,000 miles for my wife and I to get to or from Australia one way, it's not going to be sitting on a 777. But that's definitely just a personal preference.

Thunderroad

D-uh! (Homer Simpson head slap.) Thanks for pointing this out to me. I knew there were some quirks and tricks to booking EY F, but didn't know about this one.

Thanks very much for this info re availability!

My wife and I have flown both the EY 388 and 777 in F. I'd rate the 388 as the best F anywhere. But IMHO the 777 is also great, maybe in the top five or so F experiences. Coming from the West Coast once in the middle of the winter, we opted for the 777 because we were super-cautious didn't want to risk the connection being messed up by bad weather connecting through NYC (especially since it would have been a separate ticket). Aside from that, we'd always opt for the 388 as we find we can share enough time together in one of our two apartments.

Having said that, YMMV and we're all certainly lucky to have such first world problems.

Thanks again for the help, folks!

SeeBuyFly

I have now done all that, seven phone calls without success.

It's a bit strange because I'm looking for JFK-AUH around Dec. 18, and I would not normally expect to find many awards during vacation season in spite of the two A380 flights. However, there's >6 award seats available on one or both flights, most days, when using the round-trip search trick on etihad.com. But they aren't bookable via AA. More EY weirdness.

reverted

I read about this occurring last year on this thread but wanted some recent input on my options.

I was on JFK-AUH in F x 2 people on EY102 departing 2:15PM for Dec 2017. I just got an email saying I was moved to EY100 departing 10PM still in F x 2 people (thankfully I suppose). Called AA and they said there was a schedule change from 2:15PM to 2:00PM -.- and that EY moved us to the later flight. Agent put in a request to have us moved back to their EY liaison and to call back in 4 days.

Any recourse/assistance? I had already booked our flights to JFK on another airline to arrive the morning of and was planning to sight see some in AUH before our continuing flight to HKG.

Any success of having them move you back to your original flights?

Edit: Changed Dec 2018 to Dec 2017