Originally Posted by
NE flier
I've run into an issue booking an explorer award for my parents and was wondering if I could get some advice from the experts on FT. In particular, I had a disagreement with the (EXP) AAgent about how many times an explorer award can touch a particular city. My understanding is that my parents can connect in a city twice AND have a stopover. The AAgent thinks that they can touch a city twice regardless of whether they have a stopover. I couldn't find the official AA rules so I was hoping I could get a reading on what you all think. The itinerary I want to book for my parents is:
JFK -- DOH (stop) -- Bom (stop) -- Doh (connection) -- IST (stop) -- DOH (connection of about 20 hours) -- TXL (stop) -- JFK. (All legs are on QR except TXL--JFK which is on AB).
The aagent had no trouble pricing this at 130k miles in business. She was concerned that the proposed itinerary doesn't have any flights on AA but eventually confirmed that this itinerary is valid except for the issue of how many times it goes through DOH.
Not wanting to lose availability, I took her suggestion and booked
JFK -- LHR (connection) -- Bom (stop) -- Doh (connection) -- IST (stop) -- DOH (connection of about 20 hours) -- TXL (stop) -- JFK.
But this requires paying BA YQ and potentially the APD. The total taxes quoted for this itinerary were ~$750, which are a bit higher than I'd like.
What say you all? Is there any chance I can call back and have an Aagent substitute JFK-DOH (stop) -- Bom for JFK--LHR (connection) -- BOM?
If I let the hold expire, is there a chance I can get another aagent to book my desired routing?
Thanks for the help!
The agent might think the 20 hour connection is a stopover. And, they just might be right. If there is any DOH-TXL flight before that flight, even if there is no award availability, then that 20 hour "connection" is actually a stopover. Specifically, these parts from the first post come into play here:
(1) The American Airlines English-language website formerly quoted the applicable stopover rule to be as follows:
"Stopover is defined as more than 4 hours for domestic flights, and 6 hours for international flights. If there are no scheduled flights within this timeframe, regardless of availability, you must take the next scheduled flight but may not exceed 24 hours. If the connection exceeds 24 hours, it will be considered a stopover."
(2) A person may stopover in each city 1 time. A person, however, may not stopover in the person's originating or final destination city.
(3) A person may connect through a city not more than 2 times. A person, however, may not connect through the person's originating or final destination city.
You are definitely allowed to pass through DOH 3 times, making sure that two are connections can be the difficult part. I would definitely call back and see if I could get that one ticketed. That said, I would also see if there was a possibility of making the first DOH visit into a connection, and making the third DOH visit a stopover. Of course, I don't know what kind of schedule your parents are working with
.