kevinwangjk

I have been watching this flight for a long time, and finally today I see 1 F seat opened up, showing on both BA and JL websites. Called AA twice, both times were told they could not see any seat. Does AA use different inventory? Or does it take a longer time for them to refresh the database?

Any idea on when should I try again?

bmchris

This has been answered. Search for the CX award thread.

brp

One of several threads on the identical topic

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ilability.html

(Search term {"CX" "award"} from OP's title)

It's really not necessary to start a new thread each time you want to ask a question here that has been asked before. The ToS requires people to look first and often (as in this case) the search terms are obvious and the effort is minimal. Failing to do so, IMO, repeatedly, shows a lack of consideration for the community.

Cheers.

stephem

Hi kevinwangjk
Good luck sorting this out. I found out recently that searching for space on BA seems to temporarily pull inventory, so if you do a search right as you call, it might take around 5 minutes for the space to be visible to an agent. Just had that happen and luckily had an agent who was patient to hit refresh for a few minutes.
For what it's worth, I think there are plenty of people here who don't think asking a question as you have reflects a "lack of consideration for the community." It's a minor inconvenience at best and often makes me wonder why people who are bothered by it feel compelled to even open the "offending" thread.

tt7

Really? The CX thread - which originated in 2009 with a discussion of LAN availability - is a rambling, relatively incoherent thread, that never reaches any particularly definitive conclusion (and which contains a fair amount of mis-information). For the OP, the answer is that, from time to time, there is a discrepancy between the award inventory shown by certain oneworld airlines and what AA says is available. I don't think anybody really knows why this is - there certainly doesn't seem to be any single, definitive answer. There are various theories of airlines displaying 'phantom' award availability, of airlines only making seats available to their own members, of agent incompetence, the effect of 'point of sale' restrictions etc. etc. I don't think anyone really knows why it happens and the cause may vary depending on the circumstances. In my own experience with QF and BA award availability, it was clearly AA agent incompetence, as the awards were there and I finally got them booked at the second or third attempt. It's frustrating, I know, when you can see award availability elsewhere but AA can't see it. All you can do is keep trying (and if it's not a non-stop flight, have them search segment by segment).

..... as does repeatedly telling people to search. Just answer the question or let it go and the thread will die a death. Repeatedly telling people to search is tiresome beyond belief....

pssteve

OP might check out Awardnexus and see what it shows. Free to FT folks.

kevinwangjk

Thanks stephem and tt7 for the answers.

I have done some searches prior to starting this thread (trust me, I am an engineer for a search engine...), but the thread was too long and I could not find a definitive answer, which probably does not exist. I was also too "desperate" to book it because I have been waiting for too long, so I started this thread, knowing I would be told to search for the answer.

Anyways, I called again, without doing another search on BA or JL, and they could not find any award on that particular flight. They did, however, find an earlier LAX->HKG flight on CX, which requires a change to my previous segments. Fortunately it all worked out at the end, all I had to do is leaving a bit earlier .

bhamsan01

I 100% agree. Answer the question or let it be. Who knows, we might learn something new, other than how great some people are with the "search" function. If it truly is duplicative, merge this thread with the other thread like what usually happens, or just send a PM to OP and delete it.

Glad you were able to get your award fixed. I would be stressing too.

kevinwangjk

Awardnexus shows availability through all 3 methods: BA, JL, QF

kevinwangjk

Forgot the mention, the seat this agent found for me, was not shown during my KVS and AwardNexus searches. It is indeed the same date, but departs 12:05am.

combiblock

thanks i learn something new today. btw, how did you 1st see the availability? did you keep searching on BA and JL?

kevinwangjk

I used KVS tool, which is not free. I believe this is the same as keep seraching on BA and JL, just requires a little less work.

And I just learnt that you can use AwardNexus too, which is free for flyertalk members .

brp

I did, providing the search terms to easily find this as well as one of the more and a few resulting threads. Far different from "telling someone to search."

Of course "it just happens sometimes" was instructive as well

Cheers.

Thunderroad

Any updates on strategies for trying to get CX flights when award availability is apparently there (as per CX and BA) but AA agents can't find them? I'm looking specifically at one F flight for LAX-HKG. I've tried several times over the course of a couple of days, but the (generally helpful) CSRs can't see it.

I suppose the best and perhaps only approach is to keep trying and hoping. But if anyone has had success in other ways, I'd welcome the advice. Thanks.

corrad

I am encountering the same problem now. Award seats shown being available using QF and BA, but not with AA.

In the past, some of the CSR have mentioned that they were able to locate CX award seats by clicking on certain areas of the screen, apparently they not always visible right away. However, I am also having no luck after 3 calls.

Perhaps AA is going down the road of starnet blocking similar to UA?