thanks for the reply. I knew I could find the person with the right experience here. In reality I want to go to London and only added madrid as London was coming out as $2350 and with the Madrid stop it was coming out at $1760. I actually don't need to go to Madrid. I can price it at AA.com but it will not come out as B classs fare basis, it will pick the lowest fare basis and the B fare basis is what I am after (1.5 EQM, upgrade with much less miles and no payment). do you know a way to get AA.com to price it out in B class for $1650 as you were suggesting?
lastly, if i have to go via a creative travel agent, if you know of one can you PM me the info. I am happy to pay a fee for this service.
Originally Posted by Viajero
I am no travel agent, much less a guru, but after buying a ton of South America - Europe round trips, on very similar AA fares, I consider myself a minor expert on the matter.
IMO, the basic problem with your itinerary is that by going to LON, and merely connecting in MAD, Sabre is, in efect, pricing it as an EZE-LON fare, not EZE-MAD, and since LON is a higher fare point from EZE the result is a no-no, because that fare is not available to LON.
You have 3 options:
1. Find a creative TA to ticket this for you and pay the fee.
2. Forget MAD and price it on aa.com to LON, where it will cost ~$1650
3. Forget LON and price it on aa.com to MAD, where it will cost $1491
There is a 4th option, calling AA and talking to an agent, but unless your itineray is a plain vanilla EZE-MIA/DFW-Europe it will all end up being an exercise in frustration and a total waste of time. Most AA agents don't have a clue about these fares, and the first thing they say, by reflex, is "you can't do that"; from then on it is like talking to Adrian's Wall.
What you want to do is doable through aa.com, with a little tweaking here and there and some compromises on your part.
Finally, a word about ITA. It is great, but the more creative ITA itineraries just cannot be ticketed by AA, simply because Sabre is not perfect; fact of life, and one I have learned to live with.