Originally Posted by
guv1976
That is a non-sequitur. You can put any flights you want on hold, while you check with friends, price hotels, try to get the time off from work, etc.
If aa.com is showing phantom award availability, that's on AA, and no one should blame you for that. But if you see (apparent) award availability, and you nail things down -- with friends or otherwise -- without actually securing the award flights on a hold that costs you nothing, that, I'm afraid, is on you. If there had been real availability on QF when you first looked -- which, for all you know, might have been the case -- and someone else booked it (or QANTAS withdrew it) while you were consulting with friends, that surely would not have been AA's fault.
It's a group of people. Coordinating dates means looking at dates spread out over months. There is no way I could have put tickets on hold for all the various dates we were considering. Again, I moved immediately in once we decided on our time frame with every intention of putting the ticket of hold to give everyone a few days of wiggle room.
I totally understand that while we were discussing, a ticket could have sold out. I felt relatively safe taking the chance, with multiple days of awards availability. But that would be on me, and thus not a problem I would be here asking about.
But as it turns out, none of the tickets were actually available. I did not know about phantom availability. I have booked quite a bit through AA's site over the years and never experienced this. Clearly, it is well-known by members here. But it was a shock to me, thus why I turned here for more info and help.
No, I don't think it is on me to know that AA regularly has false tickets on their website. I think it is on them.
Originally Posted by
asf-07
Are you simply searching LAX-SYD, or is there a different departure point? The LAX-SYD segment may be available from certain origins and not others. It sounds like you're trying to piece something together that the system won't allow.
Searching LAX-SYD. No tricks.
Originally Posted by
wco81
You also have to be careful that some of those 80k awards are F or J for short flights but the TPAC itself is in Economy.
Now this is something I HAVE experienced a lot on AA's awards portal. So I am always careful. No, the long flight was definitely in Business Class.
Originally Posted by
CPMaverick
See if you can book the long leg (LAX-MEL or LAX-BNE). It sounds like the award flights you wanted were LAX-MEL-SYD. So just try to LAX-MEL leg. Cheap flights can be found within Australia.
Tried and failed. Thanks!
I actually called AA when trying to get these booked, and they had someone from technical support call me back. He said that there is awards availability on Quantas, but Quantas hasn't released the seats to AA to book on their site with AA miles. They said the system is not supposed to post the tickets unless they are available from AA, but this is clearly a glitch.
He also said that Quantas could later release the ticket for the flights to them and AA would have the awards availability. I asked how I was to know that when visiting their site, as it seems like I just have to keep seeing a ticket, trying to book it, and striking out, over and over, in hopes that one day it works. Making it hard to see when a real ticket actually does show up. He said he sent a note on these dates to the tech department, so the glitch (for this batch of tix) should be resolved and the phantom tickets removed from their search results in 24 hours. We shall see.....
Originally Posted by
pdcarg77
IME, phantom availability happens quite often, specially with partner airlines. It's quite frustrating.
I remember one FY JFK/HEL flight that would always be available, but when trying to confirm it, you just couldn't.
It's a glitch in the system I guess.
Perhaps try some other ways of finding availability (there are a few sites you can check) and you may actually come accross an actual space.
What dates were you thinking? Some of us can give you a hand looking for some alternatives..
I am searching for LAX-SYD (really any USA airport to SYD works, bc a domestic flight is no big deal) in business (maybe premium economy) June 30 - July 3. I appreciate any help! I have tried searching through various methods, but I'm not finding much.