HIFlya

Hi guys, I had a question. I was playing around with award bookings from HNL to Tokyo in business class. Of course, JAL is the only airline that flies direct to Tokyo from HNL, and they pretty much have nothing available. However, I found some mixed cabin award availability on AA, by going through LAX from HNL. The awesome thing is that the business class segment is from LAX to HND, with the Coach class being from HNL to LAX. My question is, would I at least be given Coach + or whatever the AA more legroom seats are called? And would I get AA lounge access at HNL, or only at LAX?

mjbulzomi

I would imagine your access to complimentary Main Cabin Extra would be based on your Alaska/OneWorld elite status. Not enough status? No free MCE seats.

frankvb

Unless you have some way to get E+ seats (e.g. AA status) a Y booking will not give you access, even though it might be part of an itinerary that includes business class for another segment.

Lounge access rules are usually based on the maximum any direct connecting flight will give you, so indeed you will get AA lounge access at HNL as well.

WillTravel4Food

JL also fly to Kona. You might look to see if they have something available during your preferred travel period. That would probably require purchasing a staging flight HNL-KOA, but that might be preferable to HNL-LAX-TYO.

tonei

Not sure 5.5 hours in Y + 11.5 hours in J is better than 8 hours in Y, especially since HNL-TYO is a daytime flight…

Zipair has some very reasonable cash J fares on HNL-TYO fwiw

pcoll

This is an example of what drives me crazy when searching Business Class or First Award travel.
Miles required are for highest cabin, there has to be a way to filter mixed cabin out.

SEA / HAM
This itinerary is not entirely in Business Class.

• 
  2047
  SEA
  to
  PDX
  First Class
• 
  664
  PDX
  to
  KEF
  Coach
• 
  510
  KEF
  to
  HAM
  Coach

remyjette

One trick I've found for international business award travel is to use the Award calendar. Because AS is "First Class", not "Business", if the international segment is not available in Business this will not show an itinerary that's only "availabe" as a mixed cabin award with an AS segment in first and the international segment in Coach. It will show me mixed cabin itineraries with an AS flight in Main to get me from SEA to SFO or LAX with the long haul flight in Business, but I'm okay with that as opposed to the alternative. Plus, with that sort of itinerary I can always set an ExpertFlyer alert for E space and call if any shows up.

This of course won't work for searching for true F awards as you'll get those AS itineraries as well as AA itineraries with a domestic segment in First and the long-haul international segment in Coach, but it works great for finding available Business class travel

WillTravel4Food

FWIW, I see this on nearly every AA award. What I end up doing is figuring out where the connection is, then do a multi-city search. I was recently looking for BOG-BNA and consistently getting mixed cabin for 30k while connecting through MIA. Doing a multi-city search BOG-MIA and MIA-BNA produced the magical all Y award for 20k. For SEA-HAM, search for SEA-PDX, then PDX-HAM. It doesn't always work, sometimes there really isn't Y space available. I find it to be successful much more often than not.

philemer

It's a great feature that UA has. Shouldn't be too hard for a competent IT dept. to program this.

remyjette

So what you're saying is I shouldn't expect this feature then? 😉

jsguyrus

I would just be happy if IT could fix the phantom awards problem. As least that would give you a valid starting point.

beachfan

Booked via app a crazy itinerary akl-dfw-aus-(overnight)-lax (last leg at 6am) for 80 K because I thought it was all in j. Not disclosed that it was a mixed cabin itinerary.

I get the email showing what a sh*t-show I booked (trans pac in coach) and the app isn’t even displaying it yet to cancel.

i suppose if I cancel within 24 hours, l get the partner fee back- but why do they allow this? Mixed itineraries are at least disclosed on the web.

I guess arguing that I should be in first is futile?



Doesn’t show Y

pcoll

Yes, if cancelled within 24 hours , you should get partner booking fee back.
AS awards have been frustrating but now seem to be getting worse.

QT31415

1000% Futile. It does say somewhere on a click through screen that it is in mixed class, but it's not obvious unless you click on some asterisk somewhere.

Flying for Fun

Did you miss the Mixed Itinerary banner when you added it to the cart? An AA first class redemption would be 110K miles. AA doesn't have a First cabin on the 789.



While I agree the APP falls short in showing the mixed cabin itinerary before adding it to the cart, there is ample warning before actually purchasing it. Using the website for award searches indicates mixed cabin itineraries in the search results. Unfortunately, some don't heed those either.

James