estnet

But not the $12.50 partner booking fee.
Does anyone know what the mile requirements will be for QR? Can't find it on the AS website.

TravelingZoomer

this info does not exist

eponymous_coward

QR awards are not available yet. Later in 2021, allegedly.

skimthetrees

AS is not fully integrated into the alliance awards yet. Until they are the pool has had differences in the past. There may be an ALLIANCE_POOL of 4 and and AS_POOL of ALLIANCE_POOL-1 so if the alliance pool is 4 the AS pool may be 3 but if you hold two seats from the alliance pool then alliance pool now becomes 2 and the AS pool becomes one. So even though they are drawing from the same pool AS only has access to the shallow end but the alliance has access to the whole pool.

AS is technically a member of the alliance now but they have not fully integrated their partner awards to make alliance awards available so you may still see differences in the availability which is why I suggested booking AS first. It may or may not matter depending on how CX allocates the AS pool. I would try to glean as much information as possible and then decide how best to proceed.

I think AA does not allow a routing through DOH when booking from Asia to the US. You could use AA to book two Qatar awards BKK-DOH and separately DOH-SFO. We do not know what AS will allow yet on Qatar.

kayexalate

I just called AS at 10:30 PM (PDT) to see what dates they had available for CX. the agent could only see as far out as 330 days for CX. AA's website will allow 331 days.
Since I'm taking the advice to book 2 tix with AS first then the other 2 with AA, does anyone know what time of day AS starts having access to the CX flights?
Is it midnight pacific (since AS HQ is in Seattle)?

dayone

Next month, allegedly.

skimthetrees

Not sure. AS calendar advances at midnight Pacific but if it is like other flights they may not see the next day availability until much later in the morning.

jfdes

If I have a choice of two business flights, one leaving NA early morning and arriving HKG early morning, vs leaving NA in the afternoon and arriving HKG in the evening, which is typically the better option?

kayexalate

probably depends on what you want to do when you get there. Many hotels may not let you check in early AM (unless you have paid for the night before). If you're a go getter and ready to hit the ground running you can have a full day there, but you may be tired and just want to go to your hotel and sleep. also depends on how long you plan to be there and for what reasons and whether another 1/2 day will be of benefit to you vs arriving in the evening.

jfdes

Reason for travel is for vacation (hopefully Hong Kong might be a bit more open in May...)

Will likely be there for about 3 days, on a stopover. That's probably enough for us to not need the extra half day I think

TravelingZoomer

I personally love arriving early, dropping my luggage off to the hotel (and eat breakfast if they’re super nice), and force myself to stay up to get acclimated to the time zones when I cross oceans. It helps that we travel in beds in the the sky 😉

YMMV though

jfdes

Any speculation?

Fair enough! That first day might be a bit rough so I think we're leaning to arriving in the evening, but good things to think about for sure

southbeach82

Silly question but I successfully booked CX award with AS but rep told me that they can’t add infant on lap on reward flights anymore and said to contact CX directly. I read a few blogs about CX charging high rates for on lap infants so I was ready to hear something crazy….

I called CX today and asked to add infant on lap and rep took the name and birthday and that was it. I checked the reservation and sees her name and (on lap) under my name. Does this mean she’s added? And she’ll have her own boarding pass? I’m so skeptical...

ukinny2000

usually they would charge 10% of fare, so if they haven't then either rules have changed or you got very, very lucky :-)

jfdes

Has anyone been able to book CX seats right at the end of their availability (330 - 335 days out)? I just called and the agent couldn't find any availability on three routes, from two cities, all at that time period. I tried for 1 seat for one of the routes and couldn't find it. I told him to search at 1 AM and he was able to do it (read out the flight number which I confirmed on aa.com). I also searched for an intra-Asia flight around that time and he couldn't find any seats over 5 days. Searched for both business and economy tickets. All flights have availability for 2 pax on aa.com, for all dates, all flights.

Do I just need to try again later in the day?

Edit: I repeated the search for 4 people on aa.com, and while there were a few flights that were not available, I'm still seeing availability for the majority over multiple days in that time period.
Edit2: British Airways showing similar results to aa.com