JFK, EWR, LGA co-terminals - No longer able to switch airports on an award ticket?
 

Returning with AA via JFK on an international award in F, availability on to SJU (final destination) is non-existent out of JKF, no problem out of LGA on US but was told that as of 7/18/14 this will require a separate award, US will no longer accept an airport change on same itinerary. Not even able to downgrade.

Suggest call back, escalate, or suck it up?

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What is the full itinerary you are trying to book as a single award? Have you tried booking it at aa.com?

Is this using US miles or AA?

Using AA miles, one-way award, MIlesaver first, 11/9 departure out of Hanoi, 11/11 out of SFO, looking for a 11/12 departure out of JFK Route is:
HAN-KUL-PVG-LAX-SFO-JFK-SJU. No availability in any class out of JFK at this point.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Have you searched for an award seat from LAX to SJU?

Have you tried HUACA a few times? This would be a ridiculous change.

Checking LHR-SJU (seems like a simpler case than HAN) online aa.com Nov12, Milesaver F, one of the options offered is BA to JFK, then US LGA-PHL-SJU. It even notes "Different connection airports".

So the ground transfer and a JFK/LGA connection clearly is still allowed.

I'd HUACA, see if another agent can help, or at least figure out what rule you're actually bumping up against.

I plan to use AA miles for one-way award travel MUC-DCA or NUE-DCA in July 2015. While July 2015 travel cannot yet be booked, last week I checked a few dates in June 2015 to get a sense of possible options without using BA. In each case, flights were available on AB (via TXL or DUS) to JFK, followed by an LGA-DCA flight on US. Since I did not attempt to book these flights, I do not know if a booking would have gone through.

Keep in mind LGA & JFK are not co-terminals for US. That might be what is causing the issue.

Well, it took me three "hang-up and call backs" and about 4 hours on the phone before I finally booked (ticket "on request" anyways) exactly what I wanted. No explanation was given, nor asked for.

^

Sounds about par for the course.

I'll bet this won't be the last time we hear of this issue. AA is forcing tons of domestic F awards onto US junk metal, and with it comes weird routings that don't match up. To/from my base of DCA it is real bad. Trying to get to JFK they force you onto the shuttle to LGA; almost zero AA/Eagle availability for JFK a lot of the time.

I recall a thread a while back regarding airport change in NYC and for US the connection between the 2 airports was suppressed and so not valid

If using US miles, that may well be that case; I don't know. But I know that on the AA side, using AA miles and US (and other partner) metal, which is what the OP states their position to be, changing NY airports is OK. For example I have booked DCA-LGA (US), JFK-HKG (CX) with AA miles.

Nothing to do with whose miles, simply that the MCT was Suppressed , so no valid connection could be made

Found the thread at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...onnection.html

Although -not- applicable to international itins, I do believe we might be seeing another "to better align with US" type change here.

More info incoming.