Originally Posted by
QHatoff
Thank you for the advice from everyone upthread. I have made a Qantas account and continue to search for any awards that might open up. I have to say though, having followed award space daily for the JFK-YVR route for the past two months, there seems to be a new filter or blackout in effect. It appears that all space gets locked out at the eleven day mark. Twelve days out, CX 865 will have economy 7+ / business 7+ / first 1 or 2 and then right at eleven days out it 0's out across all classes and stays that way until departure. Strangely, I can call AA and book award seats on CX 865 JFK-YVR-HKG without issue, but they are unable to see seats only on the JFK-YVR leg. One helpful agent thought this was an error and tried to hold JFK-YVR-HKG drop the second segment, but her system wouldn't process it.
Married segment to control inventory. CX has been aggressively employing this tactic on many routes, not just to partners but to its own Asia Miles inventory as well.
Yes, agents can no longer perform the drop segment trick - not only CX may not allow it, but also according to
JonNYC a couple months ago, AA has warned its agents NOT to do this, and they would be reprimanded should they try it. He has posted in the AA forum to tell people not to try it because of the internal memo.
Now it looks like the system has changed to effectively block it.