Originally Posted by CTPremEx
Plat90s
As a recent convert to AA (2 yrs now) my experience is that the AAmerican agents are really bad compared to UA Intl Awards.
One example: 4 separate 1-hr calls trying to get the AAgents to book me two J awards to South Asia, any city, any dates in a 3 week period. all of them stopped when they could not get me to LHR. After much prodding they'd look at Swiss, Finn, Turkish etc. Finally I did my own research over 2 weeks, checking availability and came up with 12 possible itins, and supplied each. I have booked far more complex itins with UA, for more seats and had great experiences with knowledgeable UA staff. (the AA reps didn't even realize that THY was a partner!)
This is especially true for trying to claim awards to South Asia. Star Alliance has better availability into/out of South Asia than OneWorld or AA partners. The lack of creativity on the part of AA's non EXP desk is amazing. At UA, I find that their award search people are more creative on average -- especially for South Asia -- independent of award availability.