Originally Posted by
PGHflyer
Ugh, it has been awhile (never availability) so had never heard of this lunacy until now. Been doing the 12AM CST nightly wake up and tonight this married segment thing appears to be hitting me (I swear I probably triggered it myself by searching so much, as every day is open but the day I want:
Trying book two people in T from BWI to SCL, via BWI-MIA-SCL. Expected each one way ticket to be 30K. Boy am I naive!
- First Try - Normal search for my itinerary shows as costing 57.5K each one way for my preferred routing. All 30K options are 2-stop, long layover itineraries in JFK / LGA / ATL.
- Second Try - Search for multi-city itinerary (forcing the legs I want). It shows each leg available at the MileSAAver rate (12.5K for the domestic, 30K for the international) for a combined total of 42.5K. Lets me enter all my information, and when I get to the final page to complete, it gives a "flight is no longer available" error and re-selecting those flights now prices at 75K.
- Many More Attempts - Same thing over and over, it is available in multi-city but not confirmable on the last page.
- Final Attempt (so I can go to bed) - Book each leg I want one at a time as its own reservation (one for BWI-MIA at 12.5K each, one for MIA-SCL at 30K each). I put them on hold and am illogically hoping I can call and have them combine the held PNRs into one reservation and get it re-priced based on the award chart.
Every time I try and use my miles, I hate them more.
If you're doing the 12am CST thing, I assume you're looking right at the 330 day window? First off, AA definitely doesn't release all seats right then and there. Typically if you give it a few days you will see more options filter in (especially in economy).
That said, looking for 2 seats in economy from BWI-SCL shouldn't be
that hard, so personally I would not settle for having to book separate tickets or any of this married segment nonsense. Looking this far in advance it's highly likely that better options will open up as well. You have tons of time.
Last point, booking this far in advance it's almost certain you will have multiple schedule changes between now and the flight date. If you see a 30k option all on the same ticket, book those now, even if the routing is less than ideal with multiple connections etc. Then, months later when a schedule change hits and your flights get adjusted, call AA and request the better routing.