meecal

What an absolutely ridiculous, convoluted process this is!

I just booked an award flight for MNL-HKG-JNB for August 2014 using AA miles on Cathay Pacific metal. The reservation hold was set to expire at noon EST on 17 Oct. The AA agent was telling me I have to call some international number and I was shaking my head thinking there is no way this is true in 2013 for a decent-size airport like Manila. So I come here and find out that's not only true, it's worse than that. Ugh.

So I just called +63 632-524-8625 using Google Voice about 8 times over the past couple hours and every time it rings about 5 times and then goes to a "disconnected" type of tone. The 70k AA miles have been deducted from my AA account but when I enter the record locator on AA's web site it shows the reservation on hold and still states that the reservation will expire at 11:59 Philippines time on 17 Oct. Is the reservation going to expire?

daniellam

If no ticket is issued, the reservation will automatically be cancelled at that time.

I suggest you call AA to change your AA Award to just HKG-JNB and it should ticket automatically.

You might just have to get the MNL-HKG portion as a separate award (leave ample time in HKG [eg. arriving in HKG the day before] to avoid problems if the MNL-HKG flight gets delayed causing you to miss the HKG-JNB flight as you won't get protected when on separate tickets).

meecal

daniellam, thanks for the quick reply. Changing my award to HKG-JNB is unappealing to me. We're traveling enough - I'm not interested in staying a night in HKG. If this ticket gets automatically canceled I'll get my AA miles back, right? Seems absurd to even ask that question but this whole arrangement is absurd. If this ticket is automatically canceled I'm pretty sure we'll just cut this portion of the trip out of our honeymoon.

daniellam

Although the reservation may be cancelled, you will need to call AA to get the miles reinstated. What normally happens is that when you ask to have an award ticketed, the miles are redeemed for a "voucher" which then gets exchanged for the actual ticket. In your situation, a "voucher" is currently sitting in the PNR with no ticket issued against it. So in order for the miles to be reinstated the voucher needs to be turned back into miles.

What segments will you be flying before MNL-HKG-JNB? Perhaps you can add the XXX-MNL part to the award making it "XXX-MNL-HKG-JNB" so that you won't face the ex-MNL ticketing restrictions?

meecal

Thanks again.

I'm flying on JAL using British Airways Avios points from Tokyo to Manila. Since the booking was made through British Airways on JAL metal, there's no way to combine it with this MNL-HKG-JNB itinerary, right?

daniellam

If you have sufficient BA miles, you can get a NRT-MNL-HKG-JNB award (but this would mean the cost would be NRT->MNL + MNL->HKG + HKG->JNB in terms of miles as BA Avios calculates their mileage requirement on a per sector basis).

If you have sufficient AA miles (provided there is still an award seat on the JL flight from NRT-MNL after you cancel your BA award), you may be able to do NRT-MNL-HKG-JNB as one award using AA miles. Note that you will not be able to have stopovers (stay > 24 hours) in MNL or HKG if using one award. Say you want to stopover in MNL, the mileage charged by AA would be NRT->MNL + MNL->HKG->JNB (2 awards combined togheter). You can combine multiple awards in different classes of service when using AA miles and provided the flights are all in the same PNR, they can be issued onto one ticket.

meecal

I just got off the phone with the AA desk. My trip to the Philippines, part of our planned honeymoon, is effectively canceled. AA stated that the reservation will in fact expire tomorrow. They stated that even if the Airesources, Inc (GSA) company in the Philippines answered their phone there is nothing they could do for me since I'm not physically in the Philippines. That is contradictory to what an AA agent told me earlier tonight when I called to ticket. She indicated that a simple phone call to Airesources, Inc (GSA) would complete the process.

To say I'm frustrated would be an understatement. What a moronic policy by the Philippines. They just lost hundreds to thousands of dollars in tourism income. What horrible customer service by American Airlines. They tell me to call a subcontractor to complete the ticketing. That subcontractor doesn't answer the phone. And it turns out that calling them was a waste of time anyway.

FlyMeToTheLooneyBin

I'm sorry to hear that. It is moronic of the Philippines to do this, but they are sometimes more governed by politics than logic. My travels there in the past have made me very paranoid about rules when moving around their system.

My brother once was almost denied boarding in MNL because the local office couldn't find his reservation, even though the carrier had the reservation and he was able to produce a boarding pass.

Good luck on your honeymoon!

meecal

Yea, perhaps this was some sort of divine intervention. The fact that this part of the trip could be rained out as August is rainy season in Philippines was starting to worry me. Guess I don't have to worry about that anymore. Not sure what our new honeymoon itinerary will be though as the Philippines was a nice intermediate stop between Hawaii and South Africa. Now the whole Asia/Africa part of the trip is in jeopardy. Grrr.

meecal

As you've alluded to, BA's award system yields terrible value for long-haul flights. Even if I wanted to do that my fiance and I don't have enough Avios to do so.

The two flights in this scenario would be on different carriers. Could they be combined onto one ticket in a way that prevents the Manila issue being described here? Or would they ultimately be treated as two one-ways since they're on different airlines?

daniellam

Yes, even on two different carriers, the flights can be combined onto the same ticket making it an exNRT ticket and avoid the MNL ticketing issue.

Since you will be stopping in MNL, the miles charged will be:
NRT MNL
+
MNL JNB

meecal

Okay, thank you for clarifying. The reason I didn't do that in the first place is because it was a better redemption option to use Avios for the NRT-MNL leg. I was able to get business class on that JAL flight for 20k Avios whereas it would cost 20k AA miles for economy class. I'll consider canceling the BA NRT-MNL reservation and doing an AA reservation as my last-ditch option for keeping the Philippines trip in the itinerary. Thanks.

meecal

I just added an NRT-MNL leg to the held reservation. AA agent indicated that if I ticket the reservation before it expires (which agents had previously told me would happen at midnight Philippine time today but this agent says midnight Central US time) it will ticket as one ticket and there will be no Manila ticketing issue.

So one other critical question though - Am I going to run into this whole issue again when I try to book an intra-Philippine round-trip flight on PAL or Cebu, etc.? The whole point of our trip to the Philippines is to hop a flight from MNL to Busuanga island to visit Coron and the neighboring islands on boat tours. We would book a simple intra-Philippine round trip (MNL-USU-MNL) while here in the USA but now I'm thinking even that might be unbookable from here in the USA since it's an exMNL flight to start. Is that the case or is it no problem because it's a round-trip and it's domestic? Thanks!!

rxziebel

Based on my experience booking MNL-CEB, from the US with a US credit card, all worked fine. Unless something changed recently, you should be able to book with no problem from the US.

FlyMeToTheLooneyBin

I've never had a problem booking intra-Philippines tickets online. It should work. You may have to present the same credit card used for purchase. Just make sure you have your e-ticket printed out when you get to the airport.