funtotravel

I checked my booked flights and noticed once again that an award ticket for 3 months out from now was no longer displaying. I called the EXP desk and they indicated that a one-way segment of the award ticket (which contained a connection) is no longer offered by the carrier on that day of the week (not AA but a Oneworld carrier).

They said my only option is to fly a different Oneworld carrier that is almost 2x the total distance (due to the connection city location) and a little less than 2x the total time and lastly getting in late at night now when I'll then have ~2hrs more to get to the hotel.

There are many, many other available flights that same day with a connection through LGW or LHR on BA that take the approx same amount of time and distance as my original iten. EXP desk will NOT put me on any of these flights (at least 5-6 choices that day) as NO award seats are available on BA. Instead they say that I can either cancel and make my own arrangements, take the one horrible flight (timewise/distance wise/etc) that does have award seats available, or travel on a different day (assuming awards are avail). I can not fly a different day.

Is this really my only option? I would think they would have to accomodate me on (almost) any flight, not just one that still has awards available. They say since this is a oneworld carrier they don't have to. What would have happened if I did not discover this until the day or departure for example? Is AA really not responsible when I had a confirmed ticket?

videomaker

I'd expect AA will do as much as possible to get you there. OTOH, if you're not satisfied with the solution, they can refund your miles. That's pretty much the end of their responsibility, especially since the problem was caused by a change with a partner airline.

funtotravel

So, is the only obligation to "get me there" regardless of timeframe and incovience that day? While I would prefer the BA flights due to the shorter distance / timeframe not to mention the fact that if a flight issue occured I'd have several other flights to try to get to my destination.

However, I did find out that the airline they want to put me on has a much better connection that would get us to our destination a lot earlier. If we could do that, I wouldn't mind the impact of flying almost 2x as far but that is not available.

I did check on flight prices too and they are outrageously high, not really an option either.

The EXP desk said if BA became available with award tickets closer, I could switch, but that is not true from what I understand of award tickets.

videomaker

No, you misunderstood. If the solution is not satisfactory, you can get your miles back.

gemac

What would you have AA do? Force the original carrier to fly the cancelled flight? Force BA to offer award inventory when BA refuses? When changes occur to AA's schedule, they are pretty flexible, but when it is on a partner airline, their list of potential solutions is more limited.

AA has an employee who is their liaison with BA. This individual can contact their BA counterpart, explain the situation, and request that BA make award inventory available to you. Ask for this, and provide a list of satisfactory flights. AA may have already tried this - if so, or if you request it and they try it to no avail, then there is little else they can do with BA.

You seem to expect that AA will purchase a revenue ticket on BA for this part of your trip. Ain't happenin'.

Plato90s

Technically - yes. In the event of a schedule change, your options are to

1) accept AA's proposal
2) suggest an alternative routing, depending on availability
3) take a full refund without penaltyThat depends - does your itinerary contain at least one BA segment already?

Generally, an award ticket requires you use the same carriers but not necessarily in the same proportions. If you have a ticket which has AA and BA segments, they are interchangeable without reissuing the ticket.

In this case, the agent might do it a bit differently by issuing you a full refund (without fee) and then re-issuing a new award which incorporates the BA segment.

funtotravel

Gemac, your response helped a lot. I'll see if I can reach the BA liason. As for wanting the original carrier to fly the cancelled route - um, No, was not expecting that.

I just assumed that AA would be more accommodating with the flight since they are on domestic routing changes/cancellations. In reading these posts I see it is a whole different situation with a oneworld carrier and the same rules do not apply. This is my first time not flying AA/BA so I really did not know what could be done, and while I came off as whining, I really just wanted to know what was status quo. It is a bummer, but I'll see what the BA liason can do!

Thanks guys.

i_fly_AA

The problem is that AA has to pay BA for that award seat. If it's booked under BA award inventory, then AA pays some small nominal amount that corresponds to whatever agreement the two companies have (maybe like $5 or $10 for that seat - or whatever that amount may be). If AA were to re book you under regular BA inventory, then AA will have to pay BA whatever the price of that inventory is, which would correspond to the cost of a paid ticket. Obviously, AA is not going to do this...nor should they. So like someone said, the best chance would be to get BA to open up an award seat on the desired flight.

MarkXS

Not clear if your LGW/LHR flight you want on BA is to or from the USA. If it is, it is 100% impossible to use AA miles for it. (conversely impossible to use BA miles to fly AA USA-UK in either direction).

People use the shorthand that it's "illegal" or "prevented by antitrust". It's basically contractual between the two carriers, but they made that arrangement a decade or so back, to get the US, UK, and EU to allow them to both be in oneworld alliance. It had to do with the dominance of BA and AA combined at LHR. It's what AA/BA offered the regulators to allow the alliance tie-up (which was NOT a full Joint Venture/revenue share).

Someday, with the recent approval of the AA/BA/IB JV, they may change this. But if you want to fly BA from US-UK either way using AA miles, you cannot.

You could use IB as others have noted. Also, you can use AA miles for BA from Canada to the UK. So you can fly TATL on BA with AA miles, you just can't do it directly from the USA.

funtotravel

Hi. No, this is an inter-Europe flight!