eponymous_coward

I've added back the Wiki and (hopefully) updated it for 2023. Feel free to add what's missing.

Stingyguy

AS has finally removed phantom spaces? Checked LAX-MNL and it no longer shows J award available.

onetouchpass

Nope, just encountered some a few hours ago

Happy

Folks, a very competent agent tonight told me the stopover in Hong Kong is shortened to only 7 days since last week, from the previous 14 days. He said it was "Regional Restriction" imposed by CX because of the current Covid situation. He said the system would not let it go thru if was more than 7 days. I haven't tried to duplicate this online.

Anyway in the afternoon I found a pair of LAX-HKG on Nov 30th and was able to book it online, thinking I would wait till more dates become bookable then to change HKG to be a stopover when and if some availability showing up. I already missed a pair BOS-HKG Oct 26th that was available last night but gone today. To my surprise, the AS system labored for a very long time but did not error out, just gave me a complete BLANK screen. However when I hovered the mouse over the URL, the URL said Thank you for your payment, your reservation is confirmed. Wow! So I did a Refresh of the screen, and it brought up the reservation with a Print button - I could print the receipt which showed both PNRs with ticket numbers. CX site showed the booking with "confirmed" but NO ticket numbers in the booking...

Then an initial AS email came which only has AS PNR but WITHOUT ANY ITINERARY INFORMATION. 30+ min later another AS Confirmation email came with the booking details. Yet, the "View Reservation" button in the email only brought up a screen that the reservation details cannot be displayed online. Please call AS to get more information.

Later I decided to check the US gateway cities again using QF for the calendar and then using BA to check the dates shown on QF had J seats - this is much quicker than click open QF's details which about 50%of the time were irrelevant, i.e. not CX availability. I started the calendar from August onward. SFO, LAX, JFK are all very sad but BOS shows quite some availability between late August to Mid Sept. These were not there last night. Newly released sometime today. That is much better than the Nov 30th date LAX-HKG I booked online earlier.

Called the 1-800-426-0333 number a poster kindly shared end of Dec that this number had little wait time and had call back option. The wait time was 59 min but it did have call back option so I used that. The call back agent was a general, inexperienced agent who thankfully realized her shortcoming. She promptly suggested to transfer me to the "international desk". The transfer took almost a min before the other end picked up and I was praying the line would not be disconnected. Very lucky to get a very competent agent at the "international desk". I explained to him what I wanted to do - replaced the current booking to a new itinerary, BOS-HKG-AUS, or BOS-HKG-TYO depending on the second leg's availability. That was when he informed me the 7 days stopover restriction put in place since last week.

I gave him 2 Sept dates that both QF and BA showed availability. Then I went to BA to double check but found the first Sept date was no more - it was because he immediately grabbed the seats on the first targeted TPAC date, then checked ALL 3 AU gateways on a period of 5 to 7 days after the HKG arrival. That is the sure sign of a very competent agent, secured the longhaul leg first before checking the rest. Sadly most dates only had Y seats, not even PE, Zero J. Same is true with the second targeted date. Then we changed to check availability HKG-TYO which has a much better showing. So we decided to book BOS-HKG-NRT instead. He also commented that it was a long time to Sept - the stopover restriction may change, availability may improve, there would be chances to improve the itinerary between now and Sept, just kept checking possibilities periodically.

Unlike AA, AS can roll over the previous tickets taxes to the new tickets, only charge the difference. AA on the other hand would refund the previous tickets taxes in full, then charge the new tickets anew.

When I mentioned AS only showed the the very abbreviated info of the reservation in Trips, but would give a message to call AS instead of showing the details of the booking when you pressed the Detail button, he said it might be still in queue, that the CX bookings have some glitches in recent weeks, and the higher levels of "international dept" wanted to go over all new bookings multiple times... It will take some time for the reservation shows up in full on AS website. He then gave me the new ticket numbers. AS Confirmation Email came about 40 min after we finished the call. All information looks in order, new tickets replaced old tickets, additional payment on the taxes, both AS and CX PNRs. But the reservation is still a no show on AS site, just like many others who have active reservations.

I most want to see CX shows ticket numbers. Right now it does not but seats are shown as "Confirmed". Next step is to hunt for return flights!

Happy

I can confirm there are still plenty of phantom availability. However one improvement is, it seems to sync up with QF and BA on the real availability. Up till today, I can see QF and BA show availability but AS does not, hence could not be booked online. Today AS shows what QF and BA show though still show plenty the other 2 do not have, i.e. phantom.

lensovet

How are you finding the res on CX if you don't have any emails from AS?

lensovet

ah yes our agent mentioned this "queue" as well. But in the case of both reservations (original PE and changed J) for us, pulling up the res on CX's website and entering our contact info there was sufficient for the full trip to start showing up on AS's website.

Happy

I asked the agent for both AS and CX PNRs. The reservation was generated just never had confirmed seats. Hence on CX site using the CX PNR could pull up the "phantom" reservation with both segments showing Waitlisted.

Always ask the agent the PNRs AND ticket numbers. In the above case the agent only had PNRs because tickets should not and could not be issued due to phantom seats but the inexperienced agent had no clue. She told me there were tickets and I would receive the email within 24 hours, but she actually confused the PNRs with tickets. LOL.

I believe AS has done a lot of clean up on the glitches - the earlier reservation that agent replaced LAX-HKG with BOS-HKG-NRT, is showing up with details. I booked a NRT-HKG-BOS online myself when I decided to check availability on BA site since one direction saw a lot of new availability, the other direction may follow suit. Sure enough there are availability scattering in the first 2 weeks of Oct with at least 2 days have 4 seats available. NRT-HKG has TONS of availability in both Sept and Oct.

Also what the phone agent said about 7 days stopover restriction at HKG might not be true because late at night I was able to book with 12 days stopover on the return NRT-HKG-BOS online.

The booking was confirmed fairly quickly, quicker than the LAX-HKG I did earlier today. Then A SLEW of emails coming from AS, including the LAX-HKG already cancelled by the agent. One email is truly screwy with the $ charge breakdowns. It showed $5.60 tax and $25 partner booking fee per person, and a total of $61.20 charged to my AMEX - But the AMEX pending charges showed exactly as what the phone agent told me - the $12.50 x 2, the $5.60 x 2, from the previous LAX-HKG, and the balance of the taxes owed at $86 (actually is $42.90x2 = $85.80 but AMEX pending amount seems to round it up). So will need to monitor the actual $ posted to the card.

We really need at least 2 weeks time in Hong Kong to take care some stuff which have been long overdue. Even 14 days are fully available, it might be barely enough because it takes time to get things processed with the government depts. Therefore we would need to stopover at Hong Kong on both directions anyway. The time spent at the "final" destination would provide the needed time to get things processed. Now we have first 7 days in Hong Kong, 7 days in Japan, and 12 days in Hong Kong again. It should be enough time to get things processed. I would still prefer to head to Australia instead of Japan mainly because for an extra 10K miles that is a much better value. Since we have to go to Hong Kong we might as well go further south as well. Though for the time being I am glad to have taken care of TPAC on both directions.

lensovet

Ah all my bookings have been online so no way to get PNRs there unless it shows up.

Happy

If your online booking is successful you will receive the Confirmation Letter with the booking details, from PNR to itinerary to ticket numbers to payment details. The AS PNR actually is on the Letter's subject line. The partner airline's PNR is in the Letter's body, Right Under the Partner flight information.

I just double-checked the successful LAX-HKG online booking - the CX PNR is right underneath the CX flight information.

Are you saying all your bookings made online, assuming they were successful bookings, never got Confirmation Letter? Or you do not realize the info is inside the body of the email?

My failed booking never generates a Confirmation Letter hence I get the PNRs from the agent when I sensed something was very screwy because she said, "I need to charge you additional miles to upgrade you to Premium Business..." That was a Red Flag that something was screwed up.

lensovet

I know where to find them. As I mentioned earlier, it’s how I managed to pull up my reservations on CX at all.

was just wondering how you got them if the trip never showed up on AS for you.

Flying for Fun

For clarity for all readers, there are 4 AU gateways. BNE, SYD, MEL & PER.

PER to East Coast AU with a stopover before AU-NA is a great redemption at 55K in J. Yes, hard to come by. Within AU, A330 lie-flat PER<->SYD is 20K. That in conjunction with a CX PER-HKG-NA is a great value and an opportunity to visit the AU West Coast.

James

Happy

I thought if using CX it should be 60K? At least that was what I paid in the past and what is quoted on AS online currently, even though unbookable.

Correct but I do not want to visit PER (did that in 2019 on an Aeroplan mini round the world, the segments were SIN-PER both ways on SQ, just because we had not been there before while we had been in the other 3 many times). The East Coast of Australia is much more beautiful than the West Coast after we spent quite some time driving along the West Coast incl some inland part. Pretty much a one and done visit.

Talk about value, IIRC the miniRTW cost was 130K total in J for an itinerary of MIA-LIS-VCE, Stopover VCE-IST-SIN-PER with an overnight layover at SIN and a stopover at PER PER-SIN-HKG stopover HKG-TPE-IAH with an overnight layover at IAH, then the Anticlimax of IAH-FLL on UA in coach...

Another great value was TG's SYD-BKK-HKG with UA miles several years ago... The good old days.

My initial goal was to go to BNE to see old friends, then head to SYD. Return to HKG from SYD. Do not mind to fly into MEL though we like SYD much more. Still keep this in mind if there are seats released. 3 days ago I missed an Oct 26 BOS-HKG that could use 11/06 or 11/09 HKG-BNE or SYD. Should have done it the moment I saw it. The next day when I remembered it, TPAC portion was gone.

Flying for Fun

The point is that AU has 4 CX gateways, not 3! I wanted to point that out for all readers. CX awards NA to/from AU are 60K, at least for now. I never said otherwise.

If you don't find PER a good place to visit or transit, should others not too? PER is also a CX gateway, that is the point, nothing more.

James

Happy

Chill out. You said it was 55K for J and a great value. I just point it out that may not be the case. Why you get so upset? What is the big deal? If your only purpose to post about PER is also CX gateway, your post then has far more material to that, incl how good a value in combining 2 awards, in particularly with the CX at 55K…. I thought I have missed some hidden value else why all the price quoted I saw in booking were 60K, hence I asked the question. You seem to feel that I made a slight against your beloved Perth….

Yes I forgot CX serves 4 Australian gateways because I only asked the agent to check the 3 I care. Others who have interest to visit Perth would definitely look it up, without the need to read your fierce comment or my forgetting to mention about it. You can have your opinion to tout the Australia West Coast, just as I have my opinion to say my feeling this is one and done place versus the Australian East Coast. People can decide for themselves whether it is worth to make a special trip.

Oh, it seems the majority of Australians choose to live on the East Coast, as reflected by the population numbers. I would also add, in my opinion of course, Queensland is the best part if Australia to visit. Gold Coast has the fastest population growth in recent years if I remember it correctly. Whitsundays are much much more beautiful and interesting than any part of the Australian West Coast, in my opinion of course.

Now let us get back to the regular programming which is the CX booked with AS miles,