Thank you all. Original thread updated to clarify things based on your responses.
Originally Posted by
VegasGambler
I feel that this is being made more confusing than it needs to be.
A segment is a flight between two airports, with the caveat that a direct flight with a stop (ie, both flights have the same flight number) is one segment. This is standard industry-wide and really has nothing to do with AA.
A segment is qualifying if it's either a revenue flight with your AAdvantage account attached (including partner flights) or if it's an AAdvantage award flight operated by AA. There may be one exception -- I'm not sure if partner segments that don't earn LP are qualifying; I suspect that they are not. Some confirmation would be nice here.
I have no clue what is meant by "bonus segment".
Flights being on the same PNR or not is irrelevant.
Great explanation, and it actually highlights where most of the confusions remain... in the "qualifying" piece. The definition of a segment is helpful, and that a separate booking not being a requirement is a huge plus. But it's the "qualifying" piece that appears to have most of the gotchas.
A "bonus segment" doesn't seem to exist today, unless someone knows of one, I certainly don't, which is why I asked. You don't know bonus means?
How about "fly one segment and get two if you book on F" -- i.e. a cabin bonus. But it seems none exist today. Maybe AA will have a promo one day for double miles
and double segment earnings, or earn X segments after a certain credit card spend, who knows
Originally Posted by
FlyingEgghead
That was not true, at least in the recent past: AA<->AA connections and indeed AA<->OW connections were protected even if on separate PNRs (even after they stopped through-checking luggage). There has been seemingly inconclusive discussion in other threads of whether and how the protection policy has changed. You seem confident in your statement -- can you provide your source that AA<->AA is now unprotected on separate PNRs?
Oh my only confidence is that there is zero confusion in the former scenario (the PNR has both flights and you miss the connection due to the first flight's delay) but there is potentially some confusion and/or changing policies on the latter. In any case, this seems moot for this thread since it doesn't affect the segment count at all as pointed out by VegasGambler.