Originally Posted by
madrooster
Travel agents can put whatever they like on the same PNR quite easily. The most ideal being you have the AA and AY issued on the same PNR during initial ticketing.
You can't do it with existing AA website/AY website made bookings. There are ways to combine two AA website bookings - travel agents are able to do it. However if you had an AA and AY booking on separate PNRs booked via a travel agent, then it's easy for a seasoned travel agent to combine them. Although the more ideal situation is for the two tickets to be issued in the same PNR outright to avoid that issue.
Besides, if you had an AY ticket and an AA ticket, you would absolutely want to use a travel agent outside the US as non-US travel agents can exempt the US and ZP taxes on the AA domestic ticket when there's international carriage on a separate ticket. It's roughly a 7-8% saving off any AA domestic ticket. The same applies for AS, HA and UA tickets in the same manner - but not DL.
You can have an award and commercial ticket in the same PNR, even if they are NOT issued by the same carrier. For example a QF award ticket issued on QF ticket stock for SYD-JNB on QF63 connecting to a BA commercial ticket for JNB-CPT issued on BA ticket stock. Through-check works just fine in such a scenario.
A travel agent can indeed book segments on multiple carriers in one PNR, and ticketing can be done a the same time, or segments can be added later on and ticketed subsequently. However, it is not possible to "combine" bookings made in separate PNRs initially, whether booked on AA.com or by a TA. Other than dividing all segments in a multi-passenger PNR into separate PNRs, air segments cannot be moved from one PNR to another. Special requests can be added to a PNR to advise airlines of connecting travel to another carrier on another PNR, but, unless booked in SABRE, AA will not have access to the reservation details for connecting travel.
Originally Posted by
beachfan
The wiki citing if the new policy has me confused. It cites AA-OW misconnects when the tickets are in the same PNR and is silent about different PNRs.
Assuming its a typo seems risky. I’ve had to cite/refer to T&Cs with agents before. Any experiences subsequent to the effective date of the change?
It's a risky assumption (although seems pretty clear to me its a typo), but in practicality, it is difficult for AA to declare whether the reservation meets the "single PNR" requirement or not unless the entire itinerary was booked in SABRE. When travel is wholly via AA, it's obvious whether it's a single PNR or not. But, for example, a Worldspan connected travel agent booking AA and JL on a "single PNR" would actually be generating three separate records. One in Worldspan, one in SABRE (AA segments) and one in JL's CRS. From AA and JL perspective, the travel is in different PNRs, but the itinerary was booked in a "single PNR" by the agent.
I believe the intent of the policy is to continue to provide protection across all Oneworld connections. Getting AA/OW agents to acknowledge, understand and apply the policy is another story, typo notwithstanding.