JetAirways77W

Just spent an hour on hold with Customer Care to get 115k missing miles back across two partner (AA) TATL reservations:

Res 1: originally booked as FCO-JFK on 4/1/24 in AA J for 57.5k, then tried to tack on JFK-SFO in J same day (no cost change). The reservation then showed as *only* JFK-SFO (despite indicating FCO-JFK-SFO on the prepurchase confirmation screen), but no miles were refunded and after the confirmation screen I could no longer view the reservation. I cancelled it, but the miles still were not showing up in my account after a week.

Res 2: originally booked as JFK-LHR on 3/23/24 in AA J for 57.5k, then tried to prepend BOS-JFK In J same day (no cost change). The reservation then became *only* BOS-JFK, but still at 57.5k, with similar symptoms as above. I couldn't even cancel this online, and had to call into Reservations, who could cancel the itinerary but not refund the miles.

Note that in both cases, I tried to book FCO-JFK-SFO and BOS-JFK-LHR initially as ExpertFlyer indicated U space available for all segments (and such itineraries were viewable from the award booking UI), but I got a website error saying that the partner space could not be confirmed.

Agent said that the ticketing process for both reservations had failed upon making the change. On their backend they could see FCO-JFK-SFO and BOS-JFK-LHR, but there were no associated tickets for either reservation. I was told that reservations agents do not have the tools to troubleshoot such intermediate states -- the agent had to liaise with the partner desk -- and he described having to manually reissue the miles and would later sort out the ticketing issues without my involvement. He further advised me to only make changes to partner awards by calling Reservations and not online.

Has anyone experienced these sorts of errors recently? Has anyone been successfully able to book an AA domestic segment connecting to an AA TATL segment in J for 57.5k? (A few weeks ago I successfully got BOS-CLT-DUB in Y, SFO-CLT-DUB in Y, and AMS-PHL-LAX-SJC with the TATL in J, PHL-LAX in AA Y, and LAX-SJC in AA Y, but I've been having these sorts of errors in the last two weeks or so).

alfrie

It has been a known issue for years. When I made a change while keeping some segments, the existing flights might not have been displayed in the updated itinerary, but that was before I was asked to confirm the change. In this case, I just call Alaska and let the agent do it for me.

alphaeagle

Calling doesn't always work either. Lost a segment, the important one, and Alaska refused to do anything. Had to scrap the whole trip. Alaska agents seem to just use the same broken website that we do now, subject to the same issues. Changing an award is playing with fire, even with schedule changes.

If possible I'll try booking a new reservation vs changing. Doesn't help when award space is gone though.

jsguyrus

I always dread adding a segment on to an existing business award reservation because a lot can go wrong. The main culprit is a newish Alaska policy that the person that answers the phone MUST try to help you. Used to be you could ask for the partner desk and they would connect you to an experienced agent and it was no sweat. Now it's usually 40 min of effort before they give up and send it to the partner desk, or they get frustrated and say that's against the rules and it can't be done.

I am always very careful and explain to the agent MULTIPLE times that the existing reservation is in business and that segment must be preserved at all cost because if they make a mistake it will disappear from inventory never to return.