Originally Posted by
kayexalate
Thank you! just to clarify though...you mentioned NOT holding tix on AA b/c that would impact AS availability. If it does, wouldn't that imply that AS and AA are accessing the same "pool" of tix? (which from what it seems like, is 4 Biz class seats from HKG-SFO, and 5 biz class seats from BKK-HKG). My plan only will work if there are 4 Biz class seats, as I don't want to split up the family with part in Biz and part in PE/Econ.
AS is not fully integrated into the alliance awards yet. Until they are the pool has had differences in the past. There may be an ALLIANCE_POOL of 4 and and AS_POOL of ALLIANCE_POOL-1 so if the alliance pool is 4 the AS pool may be 3 but if you hold two seats from the alliance pool then alliance pool now becomes 2 and the AS pool becomes one. So even though they are drawing from the same pool AS only has access to the shallow end but the alliance has access to the whole pool.
AS is technically a member of the alliance now but they have not fully integrated their partner awards to make alliance awards available so you may still see differences in the availability which is why I suggested booking AS first. It may or may not matter depending on how CX allocates the AS pool. I would try to glean as much information as possible and then decide how best to proceed.
Originally Posted by
kayexalate
When using the BA tool, I do see some discrepancy between availability on CX for business class seats compared to AA, so not sure what AS sees. Also BA shows some flights on Qatar (BKK-DOH-SFO). Does AA or AS have access to those as well? I wouldn't mind a couple days in Doha, although I know I can only get that stopover if using AS miles since they allow stopovers. But it never shows up on a search on the AS website, so not sure if Qatar awards are not available at all, or I just have to call AS like you have to for CX awards).
I think AA does not allow a routing through DOH when booking from Asia to the US. You could use AA to book two Qatar awards BKK-DOH and separately DOH-SFO. We do not know what AS will allow yet on Qatar.