Originally Posted by
shd9
Using married segments for F (requiring both flights to be empty enough release Z seats) seems a little bit too too much.
That's not
quite how it works, to my understanding. There could, in theory, be Z inventory on SFO-JFK when you search SFO-JFK-LHR, but only U (or T!) on the JFK-LHR segment. And there could be zero Z on just SFO-JFK. So the availability of the Z on SFO-JFK is not really tied to whether there is availability on JFK-LHR or not, but it's tied to whether your flying from SFO to JFK vs. LHR.
But this can make it difficult to piece something together like JFK-SFO-HKG, because I don't think ExpertFlyer can handle the married segment logic on an AA/CX itinerary, and you can't search CX on AA.com, so you have to speak to an agent. (And this assumes that AA is applying married segment logic to multi-airline itineraries, I'm not sure, but I think they've been starting to.)