Hi

To the IB experts here, I saw IB award sears on ALL 3 sites - IB, AA & BA. My IB account is inactive with zero balance since they expired my 500 Avios in Dec 2020. The AA & BA accounts are active with enough balance to book.

When I tried to book thru AA, the site gave me the error "One of the chosen flights are not available. Please choose another flight." The thing is, this is a direct MIA-MAD flight, shown available on all 3 programs' websites.

I recalled AY (FinnAir sometimes had this issue long ago but the AA phone agents could book it. However an AA phone agent said he encounter the same issue and could not book it. He further claimed that IB would withhold the last 2 seats so even it was shown available on AA site, they were not bookable. I find this is a misinformation at best because I have booked same flight different date 2 or more weeks ago and subsequently canceled it due to the date is too early.

Then I went to BA site and attempted to book the "not available to AA" flight, BA took me all the way to the final step, asking me which payment option I would choose. So the seats are there.

This makes me suspect the issue is AA's own system unable to communicate to IB system at this moment - may be this is due to Sunday in the middle of the night in Europe, or because US just changed to daylight saving time...

When I booked the earlier date's flight, AA returned "On Request" message, said "some partner flights require 24 hours to confirm". When I checked days after, it became On Hold, ready to be ticketed. I ended up canceling it without ticketing. To my surprise, the seats returned to be available on AA site almost immediately. Though it might not be the real case now seeing how AA site behaves.

Do BA and IB use the same system therefore BA can readily book IB award while AA cannot? I also notice the flight is an Off Peak on IB but a Peak on BA which also costs 5K more than AA costs. The miles cost go like this - IB 42.5k, AA 57.5K, BA 62.5K.

YQ is the same for all 3.

This may force me to use IB account eventually. So the first step is to get eReward transfer done. Then HOPE BA's Combine Avios would work... My BA is a Household Account. Do I need to first dismantle the Household Account first before I can transfer BA Avios to IB?

Then, based on the info here, BA to IB transfer currently is NOT working... Yike!