seekingsun

Hello, I am new to award redemption and AA in particular. I am trying to get my family of 3 from WAS to DUS, which would go up to JFK then JFK-DUS on AirBerlin.

It seems there are only 2 seats available for the days I am looking at, but I would need 3. I dont have status with AA, so I can't just book and cancel for free. Anyway, my question would be, if I put a reservation on hold for 2 people, would AA/AirBerlin immediately release another award seat (if available at all) or would they only do this once the first 2 seats are actually booked.

Or are there better ways to go about this, without splitting my family up?

Hope my ramblings made sense... Thanks!

brp

The question makes complete sense, but there is no definitive answer. It can definitely happen both ways. I've seen enough cases with availability more than 2 to think that if they really have 3 or 4, they'll show that many. In that case, 2 does mean 2, and they may not automatically add another. Of course, it could happen in a day. I'd suggest putting the hold since you have something like 5 days to see if they add another. If that happens, see if you can get that one added to the same record before booking. Otherwise you'll be on separate records, which can be a little inconvenient.

What I would not do if the third opens is to drop the first two and try to get all three together as the dropped ones may not go back into award inventory.

Cheers.

JJeffrey

What are your dates? Have you looked at other options to see if 3 seats are open on other flights?

seekingsun

I hope I am not asking the obvious, but I would have to call for that one? And pay a fee?

@Jeffrey: I already checked a few days that would work with my schedule, but only some crazy routing had 3 seats open (from WAS to LAX and then back east to DUS with >20hrs flight time), which I don't want to do with a toddler.

nux

Does AB have 3 seats available on any dates? I think they may only ever release up to 2 reward seats on any flight. I think RJ does the same.

SeeBuyFly

There is absolutely no reason to expect that they will release more award seats in order to maintain a constant supply of available award seats!

They will release award seats iff they determine that they probably won't be able to sell those seats (and maybe not even then, since many airlines are just ornery). There is no correlation between how many have been booked and how many are made available, since the airline doesn't make money that way.

In many cases (not AA but some partner airlines), 2 is the default allocation of awards---done mechanically at the time booking opens, irrespective of the size of the plane, and never reevaluated later (as suggested in the previous post). I know EY does this on both widebodies and narrowbodies. With more than 2 people, getting FF awards is problematic.