Originally Posted by
handspring088
I agree with all that you have written. I have found the BE agents to be conscientious with trying to figure out why an Advantage booking is working when a BE booking is not.
They were the ones that said that a single connection to a "gateway city" would work, but two connections would not. So..... MDT-CLT-PHL-LHR would not work, because the CLT-PHL segment was invalid for a BE award. However, MDT-PHL-LHR would work.
So, the BE agents were helpful. However, I would appreciate better transparency for how to construct awards on BE.
I'm thinking this all has to do with MPM (maximum permitted mileage) between the cities. But where this is defined for BE awards, I dunno.
I know with some cancellation reroutings, they sometimes reference 125% of the distance of the most direct route. In published fares, the MPM between the cities is explicitly defined, with additional variance allowed for connections in certain hub cities.
So let's look at my routing:
SAV-DFW-PEK - 7893
SAV-CLT-MCO-LAX-PEK - 9142 (116%)
SAV-PEK MPM (typical fare MPM) - 8778 (+2000 if via LAX)
Looking at it either way, my routing is convoluted (praying for schedule change), but seems to meet both of these MPM restrictions.
Now, let's look at yours.
MDT-PHL-LHR (most direct) - 3614
MDT-CLT-PHL-LHR - 4392 (122%)
MDT-LHR (typical fare MPM) - 4329 (+1000 if via ORD, DFW or MIA)
If my theory is correct, perhaps you are being denied because CLT does not have a connection point MPM allowance (it would be logical to have one, but maybe MDT-CLT is relatively new?).
So, let's look at alternatives...
MDT-CLT-ORD-LHR - 4952 ( < 4329 + 1000)
MDT-CLT-MIA-LHR - 5474 ( > 4329 + 1000)
MDT-CLT-DFW-LHR - 6087
MDT-CLT-LHR and MDT-CLT-ORD-LHR meet the MPM of a typical published fare for MDT-LHR...other routings do not. Or if there are direct flights from MDT to ORD, DFW or MIA, investigate them.
If you are still pursuing this, see if you can find out what the rule is...and maybe this will help.
Or maybe they make up the rules on the fly...