Originally Posted by
Misco60
The post you've linked to doesn't really support your claim that you "have had several flight bookings actively blocked by telephone sales staff" on the grounds that you were flying only to gain status. Rather, it seems you were unlucky in getting a sales agent who didn't know how to book a complex, indirect itinerary.
Itineraries such as OTP-PHX are very easy to book directly on the AA website, at the price quoted by Matrix; you don't even need to use BookWithMatrix (which rarely works satisfactorily for me).
I’d concur with this - I very much doubt the agent went away to consult a supervisor either. Even if it happened, in any management structure it’s also very unlikely they knew any more than the agent about the day to day processes, so if told something wasn’t possible they’d more than likely just accept the agent’s word.
The restriction you encountered with not booking onto an AA flight number with BA metal is down to BA policy and nothing to do with your routing - it would have been exactly the same if you’d been trying to book OTP-LHR-PHX direct on AA codes.
If AA doesn’t work a TA could certainly book it. I had what I thought was quite a simple itinerary on SK recently which involved an open jaw of ARN-CPH-SFO-CPH-LHR. The saving doing it that way was considerable compared to just going back to ARN, and I gained a protected connection back to the UK. The SK website couldn’t cope with it, and so I used a TA (Propeller as it happens) who achieved what I needed in minutes.
I don’t therefore think there’s any conspiracy with any airline in trying to deny us cost savings/miles/TPs by creative routings - it’s just that we are in such a minority it’s (a) not worth investing in the IT to offer more functionality and (b) most certainly not worth the effort of actively stopping us.