Originally Posted by
cheltzel
My apologies for not having read the entire thread (all 720+ posts). But I have done a bunch of thread searches and have really focused on the last 70 - 90 posts.
My situation is I want to book a QR business award trip to Africa (using AA miles). I have found availability from at least two gateway cities all the way through to my destination. However there is no award availability between my home airport (ORD) and any of the gateways. So I plan on purchasing a positioning flight. All of this will be done on AA (001) tickets.
It appears from the posts I have read that if I book the award flight and the positioning flight during the same call and request (asking nicely but insistently) I will be able to get this done on one PNR or at least be able to link the 2 PNRs for the purposes of checking my bags all the way through to the final destination (ORD-PHL-DOH-XXX).
Is this the case?
Yes and no. If you can find a willing AAgent that knows how to book the QR award and paid AA flights all in the same PNR then you will be good to go with regards to checking bags through.
However, if you book the flights as separate PNRs, then you will not be able to check bags through. There is no "linking" PNRs or anything like that that you can do that will allow bags to be checked through once you have 2 separate PNRs.
I would call AA to put the QR award on hold, and also ask if they can add the paid AA flights to the same PNR. If you happen to get a yes, great, I would ticket the award right then. If the AAgent says it's not possible or doesn't know how to add the AA flights, then keep the QR portion on hold, and keep HUCA until you have success.