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Originally Posted by godsquare
I am looking to book an award reservation on AA metal between ORD->KOA in Jan-Mar 2016.
I notice that there is only one flight from LAX->KOA leaving LAX at 9am. Therefore, with the 4 hours connection rule, it is virtually impossible to fly ORD->LAX->KOA since there is no flight from ORD->LAX that will arrive LAX between 5-9am.
Then, I found this
Stopovers
A stopover is defined as more than 4 hours for domestic flights and over 24 hours for international flights.
However, if there is not a scheduled continuing flight within the 4-hour window, you’re limited to taking the next available scheduled flight within 24 hours. If there’s a non-stop flight to the destination from your connection city that departs outside the 4-hour domestic stopover window, but arrives at your destination earlier than if you took a connecting flight that departs within the 4-hour window (i.e., the non-stop gets you to a destination faster), you can book that instead. The same rules apply to international flights, except the 4-hour window becomes a 6-hour window.
from this page:
http://thepointsguy.com/2014/11/over...routing-rules/
Based on this quote, it seems like I can book an award from ORD->LAX that will arrive LAX at 11pm the day before, then fly LAX->KOA, which leaves LAX at 9am the day after without paying two award tickets? However, I cannot find this reference anywhere else.
Anybody knows if this is true? I have a constraint that I have to fly strictly on AA metal so flying AS instead is not going to help me in this case.
Thank you very much,
AA flies to KOA from both LAX
and PHX.
In any event, on an all-AA-metal award itinerary, you now have up to
18 hours to connect when traveling to or from Hawaii, so it is not even necessary to take the last flight of the day into LAX (or PHX). However, aa.com typically mis-prices these connections, so you should:
1) Book the two segments on aa.com's multi-city award-booking engine. Do not be concerned if the itinerary mis-prices as two awards;
2) Hold, but do not purchase, the award reservation, and note the record locator;
3) Call the AAdvantage Desk and ask the agent to re-price the itinerary as a single award; and then
4) Go back to the held itinerary on aa.com, verify that the award is now correctly priced, and then complete the award purchase.