UA Fan

I recently found availability for DTW-IAH on DL and IAH-BOM on AF. This routing would not come up on af.com and so I had to call in. Many agents would refuse to look up awards segment by segment and insist that I provide them the origin and destination. When I said DTW-BOM, this routing would not come up. They seemed quite adamant about that and if I wanted this routing it would be 52.5K. One agent first refused but then agreed to put this itinerary in the system and the system said 40K and so I finally booked it.

This was my first award booking with AF and each time I would begin the conversation by saying " I would like to check availability on certain flights..." as soon as I give them two flights, they would get annoyed and ask for the final destination.

How easy is it to make a segment by segment awards?

orbitmic

Can you be more sepcific about the 'many agents' / 'each time'? ie how many times did you have to call? It sounds like a really bad experience that you had, and I must admit I never had an issue booking complex itineraries, which I have done multiple times. I usually explain the whole picture (e.g. I want to book a DTW-BOM but on specific flights or with a stopover, etc). Glad you ended up getting the normal award cost at the end though.

UA Fan

Called some 5-6 times. I have had such reluctance at other airlines, but the reluctance of these agents seemed unusual. Many would not even type in the flights I wanted and let the system price it out. Just curious if this is common or not.

orbitmic

Not in my experience. That said, assuming you rang from the US, we use different call centres (yours is the Canada-based one) of which some people have complained in the past.

FBI

deleted

orbitmic

Oh! Thanks for the info! Useful as always.

isaifan

Similar experience today. Found the flights I wanted segment by segment. I fed them to the agent. I was expecting the flight to be 80,000 miles, (US to Middle East), but the agent came back with 110,000 miles. He said each segment had to be booked as a single one way. I might have complicated things with a stopover and an open-jaw, but my understanding is that is allowed.

orbitmic

You can't have stopovers on one ways but they should be no problem on returns. With open jaws I do not know if they are allowed or not. In my experience, the system prices flights automatically and usually correctly. Maybe if you want to tell us your itinerary we could tell you if it is indeed something that should price as a single flight or not?

isaifan

Ultimately, I was booking MCI-DTW-CDG-IST(Stop)-MED(Destination) JED-JFK-MCI. The first agent I talked to priced it as MCI-DTW (12500 miles), DTW-IST (25,000 miles), IST-MED (20,000 miles), JED-JFK (40,000 miles), JFK-MCI (12500 miles) for a total of 110,000 miles. This was a "return" ticket with one stopover and an open jaw, so I was expecting it to price at 80,000 in economy. The agent said that MCI-IST wasn't available as an entire segment and this is why he priced it like he did.

I tried my luck the next day, but this time, I told them I wanted 3 one-way tickets, so they priced it as MCI-DTW-CDG-IST (25,000 miles), IST-MED (20,000 miles), JED-JFK-MCI (40,000 miles), for a total of 85,000. Success.

Overall, I found the agents to be very competent. I've heard bad stories about the old Canadian call center, but the new call center in Mexico seems pretty good. The agents were willing to enter the destinations segment by segment, and it actually seemed like they preferred this method. It took a while to price the taxes, but overall a positive experience.

UA Fan

Does AF normally allow one stopover and one open jaw?

irishguy28

Open jaws can be booked on the website - double open jaws are not allowed by the booking tool (the system gives you no option but to return to the point you departed from).

Stopovers cannot be booked online - only by picking up the phone and calling.

So, normally, the answer is "yes". (If it is a promo award, you must book this online so no stopovers are allowed - the best you might be able to manage is long or overnight stop (of less than 24 hours) at AMS or CDG though it will be difficult to force this, particularly when your ultimate destination in Europe is a high-frequency route).

orbitmic

Thanks, very useful!! I may be wrong but I think that the reason why it did not work as an open jaw with stopovers is that to count as an open jaw return (and thus allow the free stopover), I believe it requires both arrival/departures in the open jaw to be within the same zone, which would not have been the case here. By contrast, booking as three one ways was fine. I hope it helps!

Oxymore

I have had a lot of trouble trying to book segment-by-segment awards, and was told once that it wasn't allowed anymore.
However, if you call the website assistance, they can book a RT promo award with a stopover for you. Had no problem doing that.

bodory

What is website assistance? I know of the AF one but not of any FB one.