Phantom Availability for Partner Awards
 

This is somewhat related to another recent post here, so mods, if you want to combine I take no offense.

I know phantom award space is nothing new, but what I'm experiencing with Alaska right now is worse than I've seen...or I don't know the Alaska system well. In short, my wife is trying to use her AS miles to fly us to Fiji on Fiji Air next month but is having issues with the Alaska airlines system showing award space but the representative telling her it can't be booked when she calls.

There are a number of dates that show as available in J cabin on the AS, AA, and BA websites. The AA website will let me go all the way to the payments page, which it never does if the award space is actually unavailable - I'm very familiar with this process with AA and how to triangulate to determine whether award availability is real or phantom, and in this case it passes the tests. I have enough AA miles and would just book it, but my wife insists this one's her treat (it's her turn for our anniversary trip).

We've booked countless flights with AS miles before without this being such an issue, including on many OW carriers. Every time if the availability triangulates with AA and BA then it's gold.

Does anyone know if AS gets separate inventory? If so, it's strange that it shows in all 3 systems. Or (as is sometimes the case with AA), do you need to call a few times until you get the right representative that knows how to book the ticket correctly.

I've generally found that FJ space is the same amongst AA/AS/BA, but have encountered several occasions where AS was unable to book the space for some reasons. Trying multiple times or with different agents didn't help, I'm inclined to blame bad IT on Alaska's part.

Most likely it is the web interface and if there were an agent using native SABRE, the agent would see the space.

Is SABRE a system that the customer service reps should still know about and have access to? Can I respectfully mention this to a rep and possibly have more success?

Yes many of them know but they’ve been instructed not to use in order to save the company money. The in-house legacy app the reps are supposed to use is undergoing a rewrite right now which hopefully will have many improvements but knowing how things go in IT, I don’t actually expect it to be finished and released for years.

I can’t help you with your actual question, but personally I would just book it with my AA miles (assuming cost is reasonable) before the seats disappear and ask my wife for “reimbursement.”

I can definitively say that this is an Alaska IT issue. I have been monitoring this current thread as well as this one regarding FJ award seats for the last few days and have been anxiously trying to confirm recently opened J availability. My booking has a stop over in NAN and then continues on to SYD at a later date. I was confirmed in J from North America to NAN, but only Y was available for the leg to SYD when I booked. With the recent dump of FJ availability, 2 seats were showing up on Alaska's website in J. AA showed this same availability as well, and I was able to click through on AA's website to the payment page, so I reasoned it must exist. I called Alaska over 10 times, and each time the initial agent would say it wasn't real availability. I would ask them if it was possible to check in SABRE, which some would do, and others admittedly didn't know how, still no luck. Sometimes I would be able to get them to transfer me to international or "global" desk, sometimes not. I would HUCA every few hours for the last few days, because I believed that if AS and AA both still showed the availability, it must really exist.

Today, the first agent I talked to put me straight through to the "global partner desk" where the very helpful agent initially hit the same wall as everyone else. Then he tried to "long sell it" in SABRE, and it still wouldn't confirm. He put me on hold for a few seconds, and when he came back, he had it done and confirmed. I asked him what he did to get it to work, and he said he tried to long sell it again and it confirmed. He didn't know why it didn't go through the first time. I have confirmed that it took on FJ's website, and have already selected seats.

In a past life, I worked as an agent at two of the remaining big three and I have been trained in SABRE, SHARES, and DLTERM, albeit many years ago. I can recall scenarios where availability would show as 0, but if you tried to long sell it anyway, all of a sudden it would show up. I have no idea if the availability just wasn't current to the second and somehow requesting it caused the computer to recheck and discover it really was there or what, but I suspect that may be the issue here--that there is some sort of communication discrepancy between what AS shows and what is really there. Hopefully AS can get this issue addressed and fixed, and of course YMMV. In the meantime, I can say with absolute certainty that it can be done if you get the right agent.

TLDR
I saw availability on FJ in J on both AA and AS websites. Every agent told me it was phantom space, but I would HUCA until I got an agent at the global partner desk who was willing to try booking it in SABRE, and it worked!

Edited: Spelling

This is exactly correct but on a long sell agents can incorrectly ticket and cause Alaska to get retrobilled so they’ve been instructed not to bypass image. These used to get manually priced by Alaska but that hasn’t been the case for a long time but you used to be able to book partner F for significantly less miles.

Incredibly helpful - thank you!

I have to admit it's shocking that AS makes it such an ordeal to redeem miles. AS provides a great customer experience onboard with fantastic crew, excellent lounges, a decent loyalty program, great partners (OW and beyond), and some of the most valuable miles, redemption wise. While at the same time, they are intentionally throttling the ability to redeem miles by refusing to allow their frontline agents use the one system that seemingly any major airline has access to that can reliably return decent results.

I'm a longtime AA ExPlat, and while I have waaaaay more gripes about AA's lack of overall strategy and onboard experience, their CSRs are typically nothing short of outstanding, and their tech is quite reliable. Yes they're a legacy carrier and OW founding member, but it's not like AS is a startup or a LCC. That they conduct themselves as such is beyond comprehension.

I feel confident that there is availability when it shows on the AS and AA websites, but do you know what the case is when the AS website doesn't show availability? I recently wanted to book J space on QF which showed open on Expertflyer (U class), but not on the AS or AA websites. I have been told by AS agents that if they can't see it on the AS website, it can't be booked. Is this another situation where a skilled agent hypothetically *could* book it, but AS IT forbids it?

These are the exact circumstances we are talking about. The web interface isn't showing real time with various partners, while an agent who has permission to do so, looking the "old fashioned way" can easily see and book the space. This is "reason one" that I hate that LATAM is now bookable online, because until then, you had to call, and get an agent who saw the space ... well, usually, but some were incompetent in that too, and I had to get the calls transferred.

So, after a few more weeks of monitoring award availability, I have an update which only seems to deepen the mystery as to what the heck is going on with AS' representatives being incapable of booking award travel.

On Sunday, another (single) business class award for our date of travel came up in the AS system (SFO-NAN on Fiji Air; also came up on AA using AAdvantage miles). My wife (the collector of AS miles) calls, hoping to secure the award. She would have tried online, but her miles are tied up with our economy award seats on the outbound and so she needs to up-fare, but didn't want to chance losing the economy awards in the process.

First rep can't see it (despite it showing online), transfers to Global Partner desk. Global Partner desk confirms they can see it as available in the SABRE system, attempts to book, but can't. They said that during that process the award "disappeared," explaining that someone else must have just snatched it up. Bad luck, just missed it, try again but be faster next time. My wife ends the call, disappointed. I had coached my wife to ask about long selling, etc., but she didn't feel too comfortable pressing an issue she doesn't really understand (nor, admittedly, do I).

I immediately go on the American Airlines app, see that the award space still shows one seat available, and secure the seat in literally less than 15 seconds using AAdvantage miles. It now shows confirmed and ticketed. So we at least have secured one seat in biz, hoping another comes up that I can book with AA.com.

But, seriously - what on god's green Earth is going on with AS? Is there anything that could cause a customer service rep to believe the award has "just disappeared" in SABRE unless someone else had taken it? Of course, I know that nobody had taken it since I was able to book it minutes later, no issues.

At this point I almost have to wonder that they've issued an internal memo instructing their reps not to book partner business awards under any circumstances. Probably a completely wrong assumption, but I'm genuinely curious whether anyone has been able to book a biz award by calling AS customer service over the past 2+ months?

I believe this is specifically an issue with FJ right now; it seems like some sort of IT glitch between AS and Fiji and is distinct from other phantom availability issues I've seen in the past. I've been chasing U-class space from NAN-SYD on FJ for the last 2 weeks where it "disappears" when they try to add the segment to the flight but continues to show as available on the website (AA/AS/BA/etc.) and shows up as available again to the agents if I call back in a couple of hours later.

My (limited) understanding is that AS adds a new flight segment to the PNR in SABRE, which more or less causes a message to be sent to FJ asking for the new segment to be confirmed. In this case, the agents told me that the new segment came back as unconfirmed, and there really isn't much they can do in that case, but in their experience typically it means the space is no longer available. This happened even with them manually attempting the changes directly in SABRE instead of via their UI.

That said, it seems persistence paid off. When I called this morning, they successfully changed that segment from Coach to Business. It wasn't clear what (if anything) she did differently this time, but it was a frustrating experience since no one can tell you why it's happening. Realistically I'm sure the phone reps don't know and don't have direct contact with anyone that would be able to find out.

Thanks for sharing - very helpful. It’s a good reminder that my frustration should be directed at AS’ tech as opposed to their reps.

Seeing this now for my November flights. YVR-NAN is already booked in J, trying to get NAN-SYD from Y to J.

Website shows seats available. Tried to change the existing flight, everything is fine until the final payment page, which says seats are no longer available.

Called in. Phoenix agent immediately said she was going to consult the partner desk. I asked if she could put me through, she said she'd ask but normally not something they do.

Came back and said it must be phantom, there is no space there in reality. Said that they confirmed that there was no "upgrade" space on "both" flights, even though I wasn't really looking to "upgrade" and we were only talking about one flight rather than two. Said she would make a note to provide internal feedback on the frustration of this for passengers.

After the call ended, went to the AA site, and it shows 2 seats available and lets me get all the way to the final payment step. I didn't pay, yet the seats have disappeared from both AA and AS. Does AA put some kind of hold on them while you do checkout?