Originally Posted by AinthePNW

It may not be phantom award space - rather AS’ terrible IT. I had a summer trip to Europe booked on Aer Lingus in business (SEA-DUB, DUB-BRU). Aer Lingus cancelled the DUB-BRU flight and absent a 2-day layover in DUB, The AS recourse was to rebook me at some crazy amount of miles (170?).

I found a flight on Finnair out of ORD to BRU that worked at the saver level. I got the same error hang up upcoming checking out on the AS website. I thought it was phantom space and walked away from my laptop. Then I was like, hmm, I should at least check expert flyer. Sure enough, 1 J seat was showing up in Expert flyer.

I ring AS and ask them to book. The agent runs into the same problem and says it’s phantom space. HCUA. This time I’m more forceful - I asked for the partner desk, which I finally got. I explained the cancelled flight and the issue, she was quiet for about a minute and said yes, I’m fact the seat is available but our IT won’t let us book it - so it has to be done manually. AS doesn’t allow us to do manual awards on partners anymore, but let me talk to my supervisor since your previous booking was cancelled. Comes back on the line a few minutes later and said that they made an exception for me and she booked the flight. Had a great trip on Finnair. It baffles me why AS won’t allow manual booking if the space is actually available………….