Originally Posted by
aj411
Am I really likely to be able to find availability for three?
In Y, yes. In J, likely. You have a good advantage that you're looking so far out. Be sure to check first day your dates are open. If your dates aren't flexible and you see seats on your eastbound in J before your return dates become available, you may want to book with a dummy return to lock in your desired eastbound as the J will be more difficult to find (as you know). Keep in mind your travel must be completed within 1 year of booking.
Originally Posted by
aj411
Also, dukerau, how did you find the MAD route above? I have search routes on Kayak and AA and didn't see anything other than through via ORD or PHL (and one Paris routing using AB).
I'm thinking I should search directly on AB for starters?
I used award search engines. I did neglect to mention US - you will be able to fly through CLT or PHL so that opens more options.
Originally Posted by
aj411
Had no idea we could change routing later. Do you do that with a phone call?
I had to call since IB isn't bookable online. I think AA may require calling for all international changes. No fee unless you're within 21 days of flying (though I wasn't charged at 19 days out for some reason). You don't have to worry about the close-in booking fee since you're AA Gold though. Oh, and you can change routing but NOT origin or destination without paying a fee. I did read somewhere that as long as the origin/destination region stay the same you can change the city, but that's not documented on aa.com as far as I can tell (would love to see otherwise).
Especially for your J flights, a great itinerary may not open up until the days/weeks prior to your flight (or it may never open up). That's why I recommend booking anything you're willing to take and hoping for something better.
I have no doubt that KVS is a very powerful tool but if it is too daunting for now, you can use qantas.com for searches. aa.com won't show IB, Iberia.com just sucks in general, and BA.com often doesn't show partner availability if there is BA availability. Qantas.com doesn't have those issues, so you should be able to pop in MSP-DUS or whatever route you're looking at and it will show you what's available (and it has a calendar search result view like UA and AA). And no matter what method you use, always concentrate on the long flight first. Search ORD-all European airports, JFK-all European airports, etc. If the only piece you can't find available is the dinky MSP-ORD flight you'll just see no availability searching for MSP-FRA.