Minter66

Background:

Flying wife on a surprise trip to SFO before our regular vacation to Cozumel. Absolutely trying everything to get from SFO to CUN on a MilesAAver award. Found SFO - ORD - CUN on a Business/First (Flight 1522/445)

Only problem: Only 1 Business/First seat is available under MilesAAver. Called AA Rewards and very politely asked an additional seat be opened for my wife and that I would figure out return transportation later down the road.

Denied. I asked for a response code or reason, he couldn't provide me with one.

How soon should I call back and request again? Or is this a type of "the annoying kid who keeps asking gets kicked in the face?"

According to the seat charts (yes yes, I know not a good measure of flight capacity) only 2 seats on 1522 were taken, flight 445 was fully available. Flight leaves at near midnight on a Sunday night...is that a high demand time for business/first travelers?

I've also looked into OAK, SJC, LAX...etc...nothing available.

miamigrad

I'm curious why you think they would "open" a sAAVer award for you? You don't list status in your profile. Are you EXP?

EXP get expanded availability on sAAver awards, but even then, the EXP is not guaranteed success to have additional availability or to have seats opened for their use on awards.

AA will open up the award if their yield management algorithm says that the seat will not likely be sold to a revenue passenger. It's not about asking nicely and having just happen because the AAgent sympathizes with you.

No reason or response code was necessary. There simply isn't availability for the inventory that you're looking for.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Minter66

No worries on the bad news, I appreciate the input, Im not a business traveler with a billion miles under my belt, so I didn't understand how this all worked. Thanks for filling me in.

Best hope for me is that not a lot of people will want to fly at midnight to another city, connect in the early dawn to a flight to Cancun...but I can only wait patiently.

Otherwise I cough up the $800 for the multi-city flight.

brp

As mentioned, the reason is that there isn't inventory. Period.

What I would suggest is a subscription to www.expertflyer.com so that you can monitor award availability and get an alert if/when it happens.

Cheers.

Minter66

Thank you sir

I've been eying that site for a while...went ahead and just signed up for the 5 day promotion, then I will do the $9.99/month till June and cancel. This is our last big vacation till the kid pops out and pretty much sucks the life/money out of me so I am trying to burn all my miles right now.

Thankfully my Continental miles will stay nice and frosty till we can take another trip in many years.

FWAAA

Agree with brp that expertflyer subscription is the ideal way to monitor award availability without calling multiple times a day.

Additionally, although many will disagree, I appreciate the fact that for double miles I always have the option to get last-seat availability for an important award. Not all airlines offer this (expensive) option. It's not the end of the world if the best you can do is get one cheap award and one expensive award. Easier to stomach, of course, if the double miles award would cost thousands of dollars if purchased - usually the case with 3-class First Class seats.

Looking back on the few times I have redeemed double miles, I find that I have no regrets. Sometimes airlines just won't let go of cheap awards.

brp

This is the kind of phrasing that makes me glad that mrs. brp and I never had kids. And I mean the "last big vacation" part

Cheers.

Minter66

Brother I hear you. I promised my wife an ASTON MARTIN! Okay...seriously, I would pay for it the rest of my life but it would be worth it if I didn't have to reproduce the demon spawn that I once was...no luck

Minter66

Yes, right now I have the option of (2) 35k AAnytime rewards, and I will take them if it push comes to shove I guess. Then buy a return flight on whoever will get me back to Dallas cheapest.


Thanks you guys for helping one of "me" out...the guys who dabble in this who really doesn't know what's going on. I truly do appreciate your knowledge and time

ckpeter

I don't see the OP answering whether they are EXP or not. But even if not, I have heard that AA reservation can make a request to revenue management for seats to open up, for someone as low as GLD.

In my experience, the closer it is to the departure date, the more likely your request can be properly reviewed or granted. I have had several denials in the past, and from the hints that the agents gave me, it was requesting too early and RM doesn't know how the yield for the cabin looks yet, so they deny it.

The subscription to EF is a good option. Set an alert for the flight that you want, then if it doesn't fire within one week of departure, call AA to request seats be open up. If all fail, then go with the Anytime award.

pssteve

Minter66, a child need not slow down your travel. Our daughter has traveled with us since she was 18 months to Europe several times, Australia 4x's, Greek Islands, the caribbean,Bermuda, Hawaii at least a dozen trips, and others I can't recall. Heck in 7th grade she traveled with other classmates and a teacher to New Zealand , Bora Bora, and other south sea islands.Open an AA Adv Acc't as soon as the child arrives.

JY1024

Just saw this post in another thread:
The little girl's already been EXP for 5 years...and she's 7!

mikelat

Wonder if its true that she has already flown 2MM miles as opposed to accumulated 2MM miles. That is a lot of travel for a little one.

sica4

Just know that if you do this it will look like two one ways and there has been intermittent reports of some agents forcing you to prove you have a return trip booked before letting your board. If you book with another airline they wont see the return so print out the confirmation and carry it with you on your way down.

lewis_saint

Oooh - this is the first I've seen about revenue management opening up seats for GLDs/PLTs. Can anyone else corroborate?