lewis_saint

I am highly curious in the A380 for AUH-JFK as I am travelling this route in Jan 2016. I have seen conflicting information on which of the two flights will be assigned the A380. Some sites/blogs have said the EY100/101 flights (because of the numerical significance), others have said the EY102/103 flights (which is why the 9W one was moved around).

Anyone have anything more definitive? Also, when is it likely that the rotation will be announced?

gameover98

Another datapoint, I booked KUL-AUH in J for me and my wife earlier today. I asked if they could waive the $40 fee and the very nice lady waived our fees because "you can't book these online anyway".

First time on EY in J and I'm very much looking forward to this flight even if it's only on a 332. Too bad F was full.

JonNYC

Yes, that's policy now:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...le-aa-com.html

dannyrado

So I've had the following ticketed for two months now, travelling in summer.

MAN-AUH EY
AUH-SYD EY
SYD-AKL QF (JetC)

Due to the restrictions on connection cities, it's billed as two awards, Europe-Mid East + Mid East to Oceana, but ticketed under 1 PNR.

However, EY have changed the departure of the AUH-SYD leg by 10 minutes.

I have signed into my itinerary today, and this is what they have booked me on:
MAN-AUH
AUH-MAN
SYD-AKL

Of course, anyone with even a basic knowledge of geography will realise that this won't work.

I've just spent 20 minutes of my life with the worst agent I've ever had.... They claim that they can't put me back on the AUH-SYD leg which is still a valid connection, and for which I had a ticket, and for which there is still a guest seat showing on the EY website.... The reason they claim, is that it is no longer available!?!

Did I just get a bad agent?
Is it worth HUACA?
Is there a secret AA ticketing team that I can contact??
(I'm only asking for my original itinerary after all....)

Any help appreciated.

JonNYC

Always in case like this.

And, never stay on that long when it's clear you have an unmotivated agent on the line.

domino007

Following the post and trying to book 3 J seats on LAX-AUH for a family. Can someone confirm the best way to approach this. Reaching AUH together is the key (so ORD-AUH or JFK-AUH can be option as well). Wanted to understand if anyone had any success for similar case.

rogershk

Anyone notice that availability of F awards to the US has dried up starting January 1, 2016? I have a flight in J booked for January 3, 2016 through DFW on AA miles but wanted to upgrade to F. But the "Guest First" availability stops at December 31, 2015 even though it should have opened up by now (I have noticed that F opens up about two weeks after J, but suddenly stopped after 12-31-15). Wondering if Etihad will release the F seats later or not at all for 2016?

SeeBuyFly

Late Dec (between Christmas and New Year) is a slow period for travel, and awards are easy to find. Early January is a huge travel period, with millions of people returning from their holidays----if F awards were released, they were most likely snapped up within minutes in the middle of the night, long before you looked for them.

SFO777

It's not unusual for EY to not release January seats at this time. They will eventually release seats when they discover that they have lots of inventory.
Welcome to FT!

rogershk

I have noticed that Etihad only releases 2 Guest Business seats per flight to the US, so you may have to split up the party and try other US gateways--DFW (only 3X a week though), ORD, JFK, or IAD.

unicon

I have noticed that EY releases all empty F seats for saver rewards exactly 5 days before the flight date. Don't know if the same is true for J.
We are in a somewhat similar situation, with 3 tickets SFO-AUH-BOM. 2 tickets are in F and one in J. I'm quite hopeful that 5 days out they will release more F seats and I'll be able to change the 3rd ticket to F too. You may want to check the availability now for the next 5 days and see if they do the same with J seats too. Though of course, J has a much higher probability of selling out. F is pretty much always not full.

lewis_saint

I have noticed this too. I don't think any F seats have been released on any major routes for 2016 travel yet. Let me know if you find anything!

arlflyer

It doesn't stop after January 1. It's just been throttled back during the peak holiday period of about December 23rd-ish to the start of the first business week after New Year's.

Where are you coming from and going to? Can you move your trip by a couple days? I'll send you a PM (up in the upper-right corner of the window; turns green when you have one).


Yep, this. I'm guessing they weren't snapped up though. The Middle Eastern carriers seem to be pretty savvy to the demand to the region during that period. For example I was tracking QR inventory 350+ days out using BA.com and flights from DOH-DXB go from literally a dozen per day available a week before Christmas to not a single route a couple days before. Same with ALL long-hauls to/from the US on QR. Then they start right back up again a few days into January. No way they were being snapped up en masse by avios users - this indicated to me an intentional block on the period. Etihad is at least being nice and making J available! Get on it!


Not true at all. Look starting around January 5-10. Plenty of stuff - though the holes indicate that plenty has also been snapped up. But there's been 2016 inventory for a long time, just not right over the peak holiday period.


Agree on the former, optimistic on the latter! Currently sitting on some J seats that I wouldn't mind changing into F!

lewis_saint

At what period do we guess Etihad might release their held-back F awards for the Christmas 2015 period? 5 days before? In a couple months?

arlflyer

Probably better just to check frequently, no? Past performance is no indicator of future results, and unless we have an insider at Etihad revenue management lurking, that's all we'd be basing our info off of.