Was trying to book a reward flight SLC > JFK 4/7/18 and back LGA > SLC on the 6th (outbound Wednesday 4th July return July 6th) all economy and after trying on ba.com and getting errors I googled and discovered that this is a known issue discussed on FT and also a recent article on HFP (
https://www.headforpoints.com/2018/0...lines-flights/). As per the advice on HFP I phoned the gold line armed with my flight numbers.
Starting with the outbound flight details when I said reward flight the agent said "you do know you can do this on BA.com right?". I said "I've already tried this but got an error. It didn't say no reward availability but rather 'there was a problem with your request, please try again later'. I'm aware that there's an issue booking these types of reward flights from reading others' experiences on Flyertalk" and he said "no there was a system issue, but it was resolved last week we all got an email about it. I'll have to charge you extra for not booking online if you proceed" to which I accepted and he proceeded to search the flights. No availability came up on the outbound. I asked him to search for Thursday. Again, no availability. After getting no availability on Friday he said "Listen, I'm not going to search the whole month for you there's clearly no availability" in a tone that I was a bit uncomfortable with. I said I wasn't going to ask for any more in July, but could he please search for any on the 8th March 2019. Again; nothing. I commented that there was plenty of reward availability on the AA website for all of those dates but he said "AA are known to hold back most of the reward seats for their own flyers anyway so you can't use their website to search for seats you should always use our own reward finder".
I have no idea how much truth there is in this but wasn't going to query it further. I politely said "but I believe the reward finder isn't functional for this type of search at the moment. Otherwise it would of told me that there was no availability rather than saying there was a problem with my request like it usually does when there's no availability. Can you please try DFW > SLC on the 4th July please?". Again; "no availability", but this time he added "Sorry Bobby (my name on his screen was Robert), but our policy is to only allow 5 reward flight searches per call as they can so easily be done online. I'm going to make a concession and do one more search for you but if you need any more after that you'll have to call back in" which I thought was odd given we'd only been on the phone 3 minutes at the time and each search was quick (and there was no queue when I got through initially). I have no idea if the 5 search per call is true or not.
But anyways after he said that I said "Okay, it doesn't surprise me that your system is saying no availability. I read on FT that the problem affecting the online reward search tool can also affect the call centre systems as well sometimes, so I won't take up anymore of your time" to which he responded.....
"You can sit there typing away on Flyertalk all you want but I actually work for British Airways, so who do you think knows more about the company?"
I was completely taken aback at first. His tone was completely derogatory and at first I thought he was being sarcastic - after all; it's well known that this subforum collectively has more knowledge and can be more helpful than most of the BA call centre staff we come into contact with - but after I realised he wasn't being sarcastic and had a second to compose myself (I don't know why but what he said took me off guard and angered me) I said "actually before I go, can you please try LHR > SLC on the 4th of July please". He let out an over-exaggerated sigh and typed away and came back with "Yep; there's a few seats left. I've got 1 option connecting via Philadelphia and 2 options with good availability connecting via Dalla..
..oh. I see what you've done to me here". I could feel the pain in his "oh". I wasn't 100% sure if my idea was correct or not given the nature of codeshares and my lack of knowledge of specific fare classes and restrictions but in this instance I guess I was right.
He proceeded to put me on hold for a few minutes and then came back with "I've just spoken with my manager and he's checked something. There is availability on the flight you initially wanted to book but I'm unable to book it due to a systems issue. If you call back next Wednesday the issue should be sorted and we'll be able to book them for you then". I thanked him for his efforts in trying saying I'll call back on Monday but before hanging up I couldn't resist....
"What was that you were asking about Flyertalk earlier on? I think we both have an answer to that question now!"
I just wanted to share this experience as it really was a frustrating one for a couple of different reasons. I don't know if AA do hold back most of their reward seats for AAdvantage members or not but there seemed to be lots of availability for SLC > NYC (my initial search before choosing the JFK specific one).
My main questions for the team here are:
1) Is there any way aside from calling up again to purchase the redemption before next Wednesday (I'm not even holding out much hope I'll be able to do it then)? - I don't have an AAdvantage account and don't mind opening one up if I can easily transfer Avios there without losing their relative value.
2) Is this even a route I can get a reward ticket on? - My initial thinking was that the reason the system gave me an error was because it's SLC > JFK and that BA don't have a codeshare on that flight and thus it won't go through.
I know I can't get a revenue ticket issued by BA for that route (the error about no traffic rights comes up) but my logic was why would the HFP article tell me to use aa.com to find out reward availability for US domestics and call and book if it isn't possible for routes without a codeshare on?
Many thanks in advance,
Bobby.