Book awards on EY partner airlines
Feb 26, 2017, 1:09 pm
#323
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Feb 26, 2017, 10:44 pm
#325
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2000
Posts: 17,404
Does anyone have any experience with a schedule change on a partner award ticket booked with Etihad miles? I have an AA flight connection that's increased by four hours! It would be extremely nice to get it modified. Of course, award seats are not available on the "correct" itinerary, so I'd need Etihad to call AA and get AA to give them to me. If I had booked directly with AA, it would be a fairly easy phone call to get the right flights. I'm guessing my phone calls with Etihad will be dreadful.
Feb 27, 2017, 1:30 am
#326
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 354
Does anyone have any experience with a schedule change on a partner award ticket booked with Etihad miles? I have an AA flight connection that's increased by four hours! It would be extremely nice to get it modified. Of course, award seats are not available on the "correct" itinerary, so I'd need Etihad to call AA and get AA to give them to me. If I had booked directly with AA, it would be a fairly easy phone call to get the right flights. I'm guessing my phone calls with Etihad will be dreadful.
Feb 27, 2017, 10:20 am
#327
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2000
Posts: 17,404
Yeah, I can see that. 
I just called and got the Manchester desk, and it seemed like I was talking to one of their most competent employees. We went through the situation, she understood the problem, and put me on hold to talk to her supervisor. Her supervisor apparently told her "no, there's nothing we can do" and I wasn't allowed to talk to that supervisor.
I'll HUCA a couple of times, but it looks grim. A good reason not to use Etihad miles for CONNECTING partner awards, because there's just too much risk of an "unsolvable" problem like this one.
UPDATE: Three HUCAs and no success, both in London and what I assume to be Abu Dhabi. Is there any way to directly reach a supervisor at Etihad? I assume they COULD help if they wanted to. I also assume they do have a "liaison desk" to assist with changes/cancellations on partner award bookings. Or do they really just have a policy of "tough luck" and refuse to even try to help on such bookings? Weird, at least compared to my many previous experiences with other airlines and partner bookings. It's certainly a customer-unfriendly way to do business, for no apparent reason.
I just called and got the Manchester desk, and it seemed like I was talking to one of their most competent employees. We went through the situation, she understood the problem, and put me on hold to talk to her supervisor. Her supervisor apparently told her "no, there's nothing we can do" and I wasn't allowed to talk to that supervisor.
I'll HUCA a couple of times, but it looks grim. A good reason not to use Etihad miles for CONNECTING partner awards, because there's just too much risk of an "unsolvable" problem like this one.
UPDATE: Three HUCAs and no success, both in London and what I assume to be Abu Dhabi. Is there any way to directly reach a supervisor at Etihad? I assume they COULD help if they wanted to. I also assume they do have a "liaison desk" to assist with changes/cancellations on partner award bookings. Or do they really just have a policy of "tough luck" and refuse to even try to help on such bookings? Weird, at least compared to my many previous experiences with other airlines and partner bookings. It's certainly a customer-unfriendly way to do business, for no apparent reason.
Last edited by iahphx; Feb 27, 2017 at 3:39 pm Reason: more
Mar 1, 2017, 10:32 am
#329
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Join Date: Mar 2000
Posts: 17,404
I HUCA'd a couple more times. No luck -- and they've now put "notes" in my record telling their agents that I've called and been told there's nothing they can do. 
This looks hopeless, unless somebody has a contact at Etihad. The cancelled flight has made my AA connection 8 1/2 hours. A simple phone call from Etihad to AA would likely solve the problem.
I had an almost identical issue last year with a LATAM connection booked using AAdvantage miles. I called AA and they sent my problem over to their liaison desk, which made a phone call to LATAM and quickly rebooked me to the logical flights. I've had BA Avios do the same thing for me with a cancelled partner flight. But there seems to be nobody at Etihad who is willing to make any effort to help me with this rather routine problem. It seems to be a combination of incompetence and indifference. Sad!
This looks hopeless, unless somebody has a contact at Etihad. The cancelled flight has made my AA connection 8 1/2 hours. A simple phone call from Etihad to AA would likely solve the problem.
I had an almost identical issue last year with a LATAM connection booked using AAdvantage miles. I called AA and they sent my problem over to their liaison desk, which made a phone call to LATAM and quickly rebooked me to the logical flights. I've had BA Avios do the same thing for me with a cancelled partner flight. But there seems to be nobody at Etihad who is willing to make any effort to help me with this rather routine problem. It seems to be a combination of incompetence and indifference. Sad!
Mar 1, 2017, 10:52 pm
#330
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 610
It will be very hard to get anything done now they have made notes in the reservation.
One avenue I've had success in a situation similar (think it may have been AA / Gulf) is contacting AA explaining the situation due to the schedule change, they maybe able to open a seat on the more suitable flight and add flight to the itinerary, once they had done this I had to call the other airline who then had to reissue the ticket.
One avenue I've had success in a situation similar (think it may have been AA / Gulf) is contacting AA explaining the situation due to the schedule change, they maybe able to open a seat on the more suitable flight and add flight to the itinerary, once they had done this I had to call the other airline who then had to reissue the ticket.