kayexalate

Hi folks:

I'm redeeming my miles from Alaska Airlines (AS) on American Airlines (AA) for travel to Europe.

See my post here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...fo-europe.html

The problem I have is one of the legs (SFO-DFW on 12/24) is not available to connect to my DFW-CDG flight.

I"m open to arriving anywhere (LHR, MAD, BCN) in Europe as long as i depart SFO (or OAK, SJC) by 12/24 or 12/25. (actually we're trying to get to Spain as our destination, but we'll take anywhere in Europe--preferably MAD, BCN, LHR or CDG)

I searched AA's website using the redeem miles option and found some reward flights.

However when I called AS, they said they don't have those awards, because their inventory of "award" flights on AA is different than AA's inventory of award flights (even for the same flight)--"different buckets". She even said just because you don't see something on AA, doesn't mean AS won't have it.

OK fine--but Alaska's website is so rudimentary when searching for reward flights on AA. You can only put in RT travel, not one way, and you can't do open jaws. And if one part of your itinerary is not available, it just gives you an error, and doesn't tell you why/what part.

So this makes it very difficult to search for award inventory. I called the call center and they were of no help--they just said to keep calling (Which I dont want to do--I'd rather search myself).

Any tips/suggestions?

kayexalate

Arg! so frustrating. I actually FOUND something that worked for me on AS's website (SFO-JFK on 12/24 (AA 18), then JFK-LHR on 12/25).

So I call AS's desk to book it and she says, sorry, not available. She says she can see it, but when trying to book it, AA sends back an "unconfirmed"---because of the SFO-JFK flight AA 18. (The JFK-LHR was fine).

She was also able to find a SFO-JFK-MAD on 12/24, but again-same issue, the AA 18 flight is not available, even though it shows it is.


Any reason why AA's availability is not correct on AS's website?

evoG

Make sure to search AA availability on aa.com

use their (American's) award search and locate mile sAAver awards. These super saver "buckets" are the only ones AS has access to on partner awards. You should be able to search a month at a time with American's award calender. if you're feeling lucky you can put in most of your itinerary, involving several connections, but you may have to search individual legs and piece together an itinerary that has seats in the appropriate saver bucket.

sounds like you're close- try some alternate routings for sfo to jfk if that's the only issue... you could also try other bay area airports or searching all of NYC airports.

being able to find a flight through AS.com as a revenue ticket doesn't mean there is saver award space available- hopefully using aa.com's award search will help you find what you're looking for.

3Cforme

Yours may be the first report of this. I am skeptical. AS award inventory should match AA saver award inventory.

kayexalate

Maybe the agents I spoke to were incorrect, but I called back and both said the same thing---AA has award seats they "allot" to AS, and award seats they hold themselves. Even though AA shows award seat availability on THEIR website, it isn't necessarily available to AS (that's what I was told)

evoG, thanks for the suggestion (I had used AA's website to find my tix, but again, was told by AS agents, the flights I wanted were not available). SO then I tried AS's website for availability (because of the reason above). AS allows you to search AWARD tix on AA using their own website, but again, very user unfriendly and can only search one date at a time, must be RT, and doesn't tell you what part of your flight is not available--if any one part isn't available, you get an error.

evoG

if OP is EXP and searching AA through their elite account, they do get "expAAnded award seat AAvAAilAAbility" that AS may not have access to, otherwise AS should be able to book any AA saver seats unless they're operated by another airline

seattletravelmember

I have definitely found differences in the inventory of what Alaska has and what Am Air has for Am Air flights, even at the lowest levels of awards and when the flights are operated by American Air.

I have also found the problem may not be getting to/from Europe, the problem may be getting to / from the gateway city. It is really strange how you could get a flight from Europe to JFK, then on to LA, but Alaska would have zero (0) award seats from LA to Seattle at the lowest level even though they have 15 flights a day.

To vent, it is extremely frustrating that Alaska doesn't have one way award tix, and also doesn't have inventory for return trips, and also doesn't allow people to mix and match airline partners other than AF/KLM. I have called for over 3 weeks since return tix were supposedly available, I've asked about 5 different cities on 3 different dates, and they have never had any award seats that get us all the way back to Seattle. Rarely they have had seats that get us back to the US but then we need to buy the tickets from that city to Seattle.

belfordrocks

Yes, the gateway city is a bit of a problem, but AF/DL/KL fly to enough cities in the US that there's bound to be some availability- just a bit of flexibility is involved. Personally I find the AMS/CDG-XXX flights where XXX is not a Skyteam hub (so ORD or IAD) to have the best availability

seattletravelmember

Unfortunately the Alaska reps are saying if you book a frequent flyer ticket using American miles going out bound, you have to book with American coming back. You can't mix and match, using American one direction and then AF/KLM/DL the other direction. Also Alaska does not have one way flight awards, in contrast to American and United.

The situation in 2012 is quite odd. I never thought Alaska would have zero saver award seats from LAX to Seattle when they have 15 flights a day.

I have written a letter to Alaska and am waiting for a response. Seriously, it is ridiculous that they could get a partner flight back to a gateway city but then not find a flight from that gateway city to the starting point of the trip when the gateway and starting point have 15 flights a day that they operate.

beckoa

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's PWP wonderous device: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9800; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

When are you trying to travel? Is it during a holiday period?

seattletravelmember

It is sort of a holiday period of saturday July 7, returning from Europe. Any of these cities would work: Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Zurich. On July 6, Paris and Brussels would work as well. I called this morning and Alaska said they could do London Heathrow on July 6 to Chicago or Miami, but then I would need to buy a ticket from Chicago or Miami to Seattle. July 8 could possibly work also depending on the return time. We have a flight over from Seattle to Milan on June 14.

3Cforme

That is a long-standing Alaska Mileage Plan rule. All FF's have their oddities.

mikelat

What class are you looking for on the flights? If only First, would you be willing to downgrade to Economy in order to get the connecting domestic flight? Not a great option on the MIA-SEA flights, but it was what I had to do for some friends on a CX award HKG-SFO-SEA. They were only in Y on the SFO-SEA AS flight since no F available on that day (and this was booking 10+ months in advance).

belfordrocks

They will put you on Alaska/Horizon metal to the international gateway if you're flying DL/AF/KL etc.

seattletravelmember

Re "they will book you on AS" - that does not appear to be the case. Reps have said "I can get you to Chicago/LAX/Miami" but then we can't get you any farther. Alaska does not fly to JFK. They offered a flight that would land there and then I said if there are no AA seats from JFK to Seattle, how about Newark. The rep checked there, La Guardia, DC, etc. Nothing.

Re " what class of service" - we are looking for economy. I am not sure if they would allow us to "upgrade." They do seem to have higher miles inventory on some seats. We do not have enough miles for our family of 4 to upgrade for the US part of the flight at an additional 20K x 4.