Smiley90

They must've hired a bunch of United agents who don't know any better. It's the only explanation I got.

diverg

Finally got in touch with a CS rep, and was able to book Bkk-hnd-lhr, stopover, lhr-fra-ord-Aus. Hnd-lhr is in ANA first class on the new suites, and the FRA-ORD is on Lufthansa F on the 747. I have an 1:40 connection at FRA. Not sure if I have the time or will be allowed to enter Germany to go to the FCT. Total cost was 145,000 points and $418 USD.

Smiley90

That you were able to book this should put away any idea of "MPM" because that's pretty insane of a routing.

diverg

Besides callin AC is there a way to find out the record locator for the the ANA and Lufthansa flights? I assume they would be different then the one I got from AC.

Smiley90

Not necessarily. If they are different, they're usually listed on the my bookings website if you click on it. You can also just try looking them up on the LH/ANA website? A majority of *A partners actually use the same record locators.

ChrisA330

Both NH and LH use Amadeus as well, so they should be the same record locator. OAL record locaters are also usually visible in MY Bookings on AC.com.

NH First in the new suites and LH First? Nice job. Curious how far out this reservation is for?

diverg

Made it Monday night Thailand time. ANA is for this Thursday evening, and the LH flight is on January 19.

yrp

I believe LH uses the same locator as AC now.

diverg

I'm new to AC. What is MPM? Yeah, the routing is kinda of crazy, but for this trip, I will have gotten to fly JAL F, ANA New F and Lufthansa 747-8i F. Just wish I knew if I can even enter Germany to go to the FCT. May be a mute point anyway with only a 1:40 connection.

Smiley90

MPM = maximum permitted mileage.

It used to be that an award can only be a certain amount longer than the most direct routing, e.g. in your case "BKK-AUS" is the routing, so however you fly can only be a certain amount longer than that. But your routing is much, MUCH longer than the most direct routing, so MPM appears to be essentially gone.

PlaneHunt

Wanted to share a bit of a positive booking story from this morning.

Called in around 07:30 ET to book a multisegment itinerary in business class. I waited for an agent for about 45 minutes. Once the agent answered, I explained what I would like to book, and he explained that he was brand new and this was his first booking after training. He started searching for flights, but wasn't exactly coming up with what I had planned; AC segments and limited points available, so I could only take certain flights or risk exceeding available points. After a few moments he put me on hold and grabbed a supervisor. I didn't have high hopes at this point. I then read out all of my desired flight segments one by one. I was placed on another hold for 10-15 minutes, and he came back with 75% of them reserved. I worked with him to find the last couple segments, and everything was booked as requested. The experience was pleasant, and it took about 1.25 hours to book with the agent. It just goes to show that a multisegment itinerary can be booked, even with a brand new agent!

I was able to book the following March trip from Toronto to the Maldives, with a stop in Abu Dhabi along the way:

YYZ-YUL AC J A220
YUL-ZRH Swiss J A330 (Used AC PNR to select seats on Swiss website)
ZRH-AUH Etihad J 789, 3 day stop over (Used AC PNR to select seats on Etihad website)
AUH-BAH Gulf Air J A320 (Gulf Air website does not recognize AC PNR, need to call airline to ask)
BAH-MLE Gulf Air J A321Neo with lie flat, Destination
MLE-BAH Gulf Air J A321Neo
BAH-LHR Gulf Air J 789
LHR-YYZ AC J 789
Total Points: 410000 (2 persons + 5000 each for the stop over)

YOWflyer81

Has anyone had luck adding segments in the South Pacific to bookings? Aeroplan search turns up many phantom searches, i.e. MEL-BNE-SYD-AKL-RAR, but if I just go and search AKL-RAR I get nothing.

Are routings like this bookable through the call centre? I'm looking to do IAD-AUH(stop)-MEL-AKL-RAR(destination) as much in J as possible, but before calling I wanted to see whether anyone knows if these are bookable at all without playing hopscotch. I'm also considering NAN and PPT, and getting similar things. Phantom segments seem to be a NZ phenomenon, while jumping around multiple destinations unnecessarily seems to be with Virgin Australia.

ladymama

Hi anzfreak007,
Just give you an update, after a couple of phone call going nowhere, I decide to cancel the TPE-HAN segment, and the next day call again to meg the same segment on the same date TPE-HAN and it working perfectly well, all segment YVR-TPE-HAN get confirm on the spot. So what I think is the first rep may made an error, instead confirm the segment, she just put that on the waitlist.

Jasper2009

Since that routing exceeds the non-stop distance of IAD-RAR by more than 175%(!), I would be extremely surprised if that routing were valid.

Same issue with all other islands in the South Pacific.

Smiley90

On the other hand, poster above was able to book
BKK-HND-LHR-FRA-ORD-AUS (14555mi)

Where BKK-AUS is 9176mi.

160% of non-stop!