mzwhsr

Hi,

I did check the FAQs and searched but couldn't find an answer to this one.

I have a return ticket to NRT on AA. It's booked in Y and I've upgraded the outbound to J using point/miles. Unfortunately the return upgrade is not available, and I'm sitting on the waitlist. I really don't want to take the long flight back in Y so I'm prepared to simply use points for an award booking for a one way flight back from NRT, and as it happens the same return flight has availability for an award in F.

My question is, without canceling the return sector of the initial (paid) ticket, what would happen if I redeemed miles for an award in F on the exact same flight coming back? Will my two reservations be cancelled (one in Y one in F)? Or will something else bad happen? I am willing to phone up AA and cancel the return (paid) flight, but only once I'm in Japan, otherwise presumably they'd want to charge me the one way fare? But I'd be booking the return award separately before I leave for Japan.

Thanks for any advice you can give me!

volleyca

Difficult as you are trying to upgrade the paid and have FF with the other. So I am unable to help. But I have been able to hold two reservations by deleting my AA number from one

mvoight

I would not advise this, especially as getting the award would mean you are violating the terms of the original ticket, which required a roundtrip purchase to get a discount.

mzwhsr

Thanks for the feedback...

To clarify, for various reasons I would be using BA Miles to do the redemption, so the second booking wouldn't have an AAdvantage number or trace in it. Is the same name in the booking enough to trigger cancellation? There must be flights on occasion with two people of the same name flying?

Has anyone experienced such a problem in the past (having a reservation cancelled or being questioned at the airport at check-in because they have the same name as another passenger)?

zman

You may be violting the rules of the purchased fare (RT) , and if you want a refund it may NOT be at 50% of the original purchase but some very high one way fare and a credit, if any.

AA at any time may cancel BOTH reservations, and you will have no recourse, other then BUY a new ticket.

HNL

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OP - I think you wil be ok provided you book with the BA miles and do not in anyway provide any info beyound your name that will link the accounts.

DeltaFlyingProf

Does AA charge a change fee for canceling a booking if you want to change it for a later date but have not decided on the date yet? If not, just call them and tell them that's what you want to do. That avoids the issue. Then you can even rebook it on another trip with a date on which upgrade will be available.

TravelerMSY

You may find one or both reservations cancelled by SAGE, AA's daemon that looks for duplicate bookings. It runs daily.

If AA can't determine you are the same person on both bookings, you will be fine.

mvoight

Aren't birthdates required for international travel?

... not to mention the fact the OP is blocking 2 seats for a flight, which could affect someone else.

EDIT: I also think that booking an free award might make it harder to the upgrade On the other hand, I suspect that if awards are available, there is a good change you will be able to get the upgrade on the paid ticket if you hang on.

Ydris5

I have a very good travel agent who can pull this sort of thing off - he has saved me many times... but I don't think the average FF has the knowledge of how AA checks for dupes. My guess is you are likely to get bounced at some point.

ijgordon

I'm not sure if AA will just let you cancel the return segment without rebooking it (and paying the penalty) prior to departure on the outbound. The discounted coach fare likely doesn't allow open segments, which is what this would end up having.

But one could certainly just pay the penalty and change the return to a random date in the future and not use the segment. Of course the ticket will need to be re-priced from scratch, which may result in a change in the fare. But then you can use the one-way F award on the return no problem. (BA allows one-way awards? Didn't realize that.)

Perhaps the other solution is to use a variant on your name for the alternate booking -- exclude the middle initial, for example. I don't think you have to provide your exact name spelling and birth date as it matches your ID until you check in (I could be wrong), and by that point you can have canceled your return Y segment (unless the upgrade has cleared, in which case maybe just cancel the F award if you can). But don't expect any refund, you'll probably have to tell them you'll rebook but you don't know the date yet. I think they can do this if the ticket is in process.

mzwhsr

Just wanted to say thanks to all for the advice.

I went ahead and bit the bullet, booking the one-way award in F through BA. So the second reservation has a different FF number and I used my middle name too. Hopefully that should be enough to ensure the reservations don't get cancelled out by the automated process.

If the upgrade on the paid ticket clears >24 hours in advance I'll cancel the award flight without penalty and I should be good to go... If the upgrade doesn't clear >24 hours in advance then I'll cancel the paid ticket return.

I'll report back to this thread if something screwy happens - so FT has a thread that's closed off.