Jan 13, 2015, 1:39 pm
Last edit by: JDiver
Awards: Success stories of award booking on Etihad using AA miles (>= 2015)
This thread is about our members' successful award bookings on Etihad / EY using AAdvantage miles. Please do not post to this thread if you want tips and assistance on booking Etihad awards with AA miles but see this thread: How to use AA miles on Etihad / EY (Consolidated / Master Thread). The wikipost of that thread also contains instructions on how to search for EY availability.
Note: posts prior to 2015 about this topic (with the exception of a few 2014 end of year posts brought forward for continuity) may be found at ARCHIVE: Success stories of award booking on Etihad using AA miles
Success stories booking awards on Etihad using AA miles (Archive - 2015 and earlier)
Jul 17, 2015, 3:33 am
#496
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: LHR
Programs: AAPLAT
Posts: 2
I've got a similar issue. Booked the flights last Sunday 12th (LHR-AUH-SYD September dep rt) and still showing 'On Request' on AA.com (Have record locator fro both legs). However I was able to get the seat assignment thru Etihad, in which website says 'confirmed'.
Since I was quite worried about this delay I called AA and they ensure that Etihad seems to take ages to ticket the flights and I should expect a few more days until then since my departure is not until late September.
Not sure if I shall make further plans until the flights are actually ticketed...
Jul 17, 2015, 4:04 am
#497
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Sydney, Australia
Programs: UA, QF, VS, AA, US, HH, SPG
Posts: 974
Hi Guys,
I've got a similar issue. Booked the flights last Sunday 12th (LHR-AUH-SYD September dep rt) and still showing 'On Request' on AA.com (Have record locator fro both legs). However I was able to get the seat assignment thru Etihad, in which website says 'confirmed'.
Since I was quite worried about this delay I called AA and they ensure that Etihad seems to take ages to ticket the flights and I should expect a few more days until then since my departure is not until late September.
Not sure if I shall make further plans until the flights are actually ticketed...
I've got a similar issue. Booked the flights last Sunday 12th (LHR-AUH-SYD September dep rt) and still showing 'On Request' on AA.com (Have record locator fro both legs). However I was able to get the seat assignment thru Etihad, in which website says 'confirmed'.
Since I was quite worried about this delay I called AA and they ensure that Etihad seems to take ages to ticket the flights and I should expect a few more days until then since my departure is not until late September.
Not sure if I shall make further plans until the flights are actually ticketed...
Jul 17, 2015, 10:52 am
#498
Join Date: May 2006
Location: SAN
Programs: Lots of faux metal
Posts: 6,422
Hi Guys,
I've got a similar issue. Booked the flights last Sunday 12th (LHR-AUH-SYD September dep rt) and still showing 'On Request' on AA.com (Have record locator fro both legs). However I was able to get the seat assignment thru Etihad, in which website says 'confirmed'.
Since I was quite worried about this delay I called AA and they ensure that Etihad seems to take ages to ticket the flights and I should expect a few more days until then since my departure is not until late September.
Not sure if I shall make further plans until the flights are actually ticketed...
I've got a similar issue. Booked the flights last Sunday 12th (LHR-AUH-SYD September dep rt) and still showing 'On Request' on AA.com (Have record locator fro both legs). However I was able to get the seat assignment thru Etihad, in which website says 'confirmed'.
Since I was quite worried about this delay I called AA and they ensure that Etihad seems to take ages to ticket the flights and I should expect a few more days until then since my departure is not until late September.
Not sure if I shall make further plans until the flights are actually ticketed...
Jul 19, 2015, 6:23 am
#499
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 716
AA can't confirm open EY space
Paging JohnNYC or someone with similar AA expertise for this head scratcher...
I've ticketed SYD-AUH-LHR for two passengers, with the first segment in F and second in J. Paid 90k miles per person (60k SYD-AUH, 30k AUH-LHR). After about a month of watching, AUH-LHR opened up for two people in first class, so I called to upgrade.
(1) First agent sees the seats, but when she tries to add them to my reservation she gets an error message saying the flight is unavailable.
(2) Supervisor sees the seats, also can't help, so she sends it to the help desk.
(3) Help desk can't do anything, they see the seats but when they try to add them to the reservation, they get a denial message.
(4) The help desk sends it to their Etihad liaison, apparently someone in Abu Dhabi who reviews ticketing issues with AA. I was instructed to call back in 48 hours. When I did, there was a message from the liaison saying the flight has to be available from A-C, not A-B & B-C so they won't confirm it. (Side note - I've already ticketed the only SYD-AUH award seats EY made available, so there's no way to get A-C without redepositing and hoping that it goes back into inventory.) By this time, there is only 1 AUH-LHR left, so AA says there's nothing they can do.
Fast forward a week and two seats are available again. I called and this time asked the agent if she could start with a fresh reservation to see if AUH-LHR was real. It worked, so I asked her to cancel that and add the flights to my reservation...same problem occurs.
After going up through the help desk again, it becomes clear that EY won't let AA have the seats for a connecting itinerary, even though I'm paying two local award fares (60k + 40k) and would be eligible to book local segment availability if I were doing this in two PNRs. The agent suggested I do this, but I don't want to split the segments in case of IROPS. Interestingly, MEL-AUH is available in F the day I'm departing, and the agent IS able to build and confirm MEL-AUH-LHR using the flight I need.
Has anyone seen this before? If so, have you been able to do anything about it to finally get the seats confirmed?
I've ticketed SYD-AUH-LHR for two passengers, with the first segment in F and second in J. Paid 90k miles per person (60k SYD-AUH, 30k AUH-LHR). After about a month of watching, AUH-LHR opened up for two people in first class, so I called to upgrade.
(1) First agent sees the seats, but when she tries to add them to my reservation she gets an error message saying the flight is unavailable.
(2) Supervisor sees the seats, also can't help, so she sends it to the help desk.
(3) Help desk can't do anything, they see the seats but when they try to add them to the reservation, they get a denial message.
(4) The help desk sends it to their Etihad liaison, apparently someone in Abu Dhabi who reviews ticketing issues with AA. I was instructed to call back in 48 hours. When I did, there was a message from the liaison saying the flight has to be available from A-C, not A-B & B-C so they won't confirm it. (Side note - I've already ticketed the only SYD-AUH award seats EY made available, so there's no way to get A-C without redepositing and hoping that it goes back into inventory.) By this time, there is only 1 AUH-LHR left, so AA says there's nothing they can do.
Fast forward a week and two seats are available again. I called and this time asked the agent if she could start with a fresh reservation to see if AUH-LHR was real. It worked, so I asked her to cancel that and add the flights to my reservation...same problem occurs.
After going up through the help desk again, it becomes clear that EY won't let AA have the seats for a connecting itinerary, even though I'm paying two local award fares (60k + 40k) and would be eligible to book local segment availability if I were doing this in two PNRs. The agent suggested I do this, but I don't want to split the segments in case of IROPS. Interestingly, MEL-AUH is available in F the day I'm departing, and the agent IS able to build and confirm MEL-AUH-LHR using the flight I need.
Has anyone seen this before? If so, have you been able to do anything about it to finally get the seats confirmed?
Jul 19, 2015, 7:30 am
#500
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
Wish I had any more insightful advice, I'd just book it as 2 PNRs at this point. Both on EY, so I think you'd be fine, personal opinion.
Jul 20, 2015, 8:33 pm
#501
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 228
That's right. The locator should show up with a status of "Requested". When it clears, (usually ~48 hours) you should receive an email confirming, and the status should change to "Ticketed".
Yeah, not good. Record locator and "On Request" for a good while? Normal. Ticketed and still no emails? Normal. No record locator and nothing on request? Problem.
Jul 21, 2015, 11:40 am
#502
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 48
My route is:
Outbound: MSQ-AUH in C and AUH-BOM in Y, connecting time 75 minutes.
Inbound: BOM-AUH in F and AUH-MSQ in C, connecting time 80 minutes.
I was charged with 87500 miles.
Is that correct and how was calculated?
Thank you.
Outbound: MSQ-AUH in C and AUH-BOM in Y, connecting time 75 minutes.
Inbound: BOM-AUH in F and AUH-MSQ in C, connecting time 80 minutes.
I was charged with 87500 miles.
Is that correct and how was calculated?
Thank you.
Jul 21, 2015, 12:59 pm
#503
Join Date: Mar 2015
Location: Chicago
Posts: 73
https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/r...tner-chart.jsp
MSQ is Europe region, AUH and BOM are Middle East/Indian Subcontinent region.
If the legs were calculated separately:
Europe to Middle East/India in business is 30k
Middle East/India to Middle East/India in main cabin is 17.5k
Middle East/India to Middle East/India in first is 35k
Middle East/India to Europe in business is 30k
That's 112.5k. Obviously not right. But it doesn't look like they are doing just a single leg Europe to Middle East/India in business outbound and a single leg Middle East/India to Europe in first inbound, because that would be only 65k.
I'm looking forward to seeing the correct answer.
Jul 21, 2015, 1:36 pm
#504
Join Date: May 2006
Location: SAN
Programs: Lots of faux metal
Posts: 6,422
I'm curious too. Why am I unable to calculate this correctly?
https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/r...tner-chart.jsp
MSQ is Europe region, AUH and BOM are Middle East/Indian Subcontinent region.
If the legs were calculated separately:
Europe to Middle East/India in business is 30k
Middle East/India to Middle East/India in main cabin is 17.5k
Middle East/India to Middle East/India in first is 35k
Middle East/India to Europe in business is 30k
That's 112.5k. Obviously not right. But it doesn't look like they are doing just a single leg Europe to Middle East/India in business outbound and a single leg Middle East/India to Europe in first inbound, because that would be only 65k.
I'm looking forward to seeing the correct answer.
https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/r...tner-chart.jsp
MSQ is Europe region, AUH and BOM are Middle East/Indian Subcontinent region.
If the legs were calculated separately:
Europe to Middle East/India in business is 30k
Middle East/India to Middle East/India in main cabin is 17.5k
Middle East/India to Middle East/India in first is 35k
Middle East/India to Europe in business is 30k
That's 112.5k. Obviously not right. But it doesn't look like they are doing just a single leg Europe to Middle East/India in business outbound and a single leg Middle East/India to Europe in first inbound, because that would be only 65k.
I'm looking forward to seeing the correct answer.
Europe to Middle East/India in business is 30k
Middle East/India to Middle East/India in main cabin is 17.5k
Middle East/India to Europe in first is 40k
Jul 21, 2015, 1:37 pm
#505
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: DCA
Posts: 7,769
Yeah, something strange going on here, no? Connections within the region shouldn't count against you...
Jul 21, 2015, 1:38 pm
#506
Join Date: May 2006
Location: SAN
Programs: Lots of faux metal
Posts: 6,422
Jul 21, 2015, 8:16 pm
#507
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 48
Thank you. Does it worse to complain CS regarding this calculation? Which e-mail address is better for quick response?
Jul 22, 2015, 5:38 am
#508
Join Date: May 2011
Location: CGN
Programs: DL PM, HH Gold
Posts: 108
Just wanted to share my recent experience. Was not very painless at all and basically everything I wanted I got without much effort.
- Found availability on Etihad.com for 2 Guest First (O) seats on the A380 LHR-AUH for mid September.
- Wanted O back, but nothing ex-AUH in September from what I found, so I got 2 Business (I) seats AUH-DUS.
- Recorded all the flight numbers and times... called up the AA reservation desk in Germany who then transferred me to the UK desk when I told them I wanted an award flight.
- I laid out the dates and flight numbers of what I wanted including a short BA positioning flight to London the day before (22 hours before the EY flight). The agent found the BA flight no problem but couldn't see the EY ones. She put me on hold and talked to a supervisor and came back apologetic and said they both tried to find the flights in their system but it wasn't showing up.
I repeated that it was EY12 leaving at 9:30am and she remarked "Oh!", I heard some more typing, and then she came back and said she had found the flight. She then told me that the AA reservation system is limited in that you pretty much have to fill in all the criteria in their search site in order for EY availability to pop up. If they search only by flight number it often doesn't find it and will display a message saying there's no seats available.
- Had to do the same for my AUH-DUS flight on the way back, but once the time was entered she found the two I seats no problem as well.
- Total was 140,000 miles and 206 GBP. Fees and taxes were mainly due to flying in and out of London.
- Used @EtihadHelp on Twitter to get seats assigned after the itinerary was ticketed (about 12 hours after I paid) which they did in about 2 minutes. Also was only able to book Chauffeur Service for our return flight through the website for some reason, but they told me that once I got my hotel info for my overnight in London that they'd drive me from there to LHR.
Overall a pretty seamless process. I recommend that anyone who is having trouble with AA seeing EY seat availability that you know is there, make sure you tell them the departure time as well. Also major props to @EtihadHelp -- those guys have so far been incredibly helpful.
Good luck!
- Found availability on Etihad.com for 2 Guest First (O) seats on the A380 LHR-AUH for mid September.
- Wanted O back, but nothing ex-AUH in September from what I found, so I got 2 Business (I) seats AUH-DUS.
- Recorded all the flight numbers and times... called up the AA reservation desk in Germany who then transferred me to the UK desk when I told them I wanted an award flight.
- I laid out the dates and flight numbers of what I wanted including a short BA positioning flight to London the day before (22 hours before the EY flight). The agent found the BA flight no problem but couldn't see the EY ones. She put me on hold and talked to a supervisor and came back apologetic and said they both tried to find the flights in their system but it wasn't showing up.
I repeated that it was EY12 leaving at 9:30am and she remarked "Oh!", I heard some more typing, and then she came back and said she had found the flight. She then told me that the AA reservation system is limited in that you pretty much have to fill in all the criteria in their search site in order for EY availability to pop up. If they search only by flight number it often doesn't find it and will display a message saying there's no seats available.
- Had to do the same for my AUH-DUS flight on the way back, but once the time was entered she found the two I seats no problem as well.
- Total was 140,000 miles and 206 GBP. Fees and taxes were mainly due to flying in and out of London.
- Used @EtihadHelp on Twitter to get seats assigned after the itinerary was ticketed (about 12 hours after I paid) which they did in about 2 minutes. Also was only able to book Chauffeur Service for our return flight through the website for some reason, but they told me that once I got my hotel info for my overnight in London that they'd drive me from there to LHR.
Overall a pretty seamless process. I recommend that anyone who is having trouble with AA seeing EY seat availability that you know is there, make sure you tell them the departure time as well. Also major props to @EtihadHelp -- those guys have so far been incredibly helpful.
Good luck!
Jul 22, 2015, 6:06 am
#509
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Roswell, GA
Programs: AA EXP 2.8m,Lifetime PLT, Hilton Diamond, IHG PlLT, SPG Gold
Posts: 3,191
I was able to find 2 F seats for LHR-AUH on Dec 27th, (wanted the A380, but not available)
and return of AUH-DFW in F on the Jan 3rd.
Not bad since I only had to make 2 calls to AA to get this.
wife is very happy. she is using DL miles to get us to London, because it seems every AA to LHR is only on BA.
and return of AUH-DFW in F on the Jan 3rd.
Not bad since I only had to make 2 calls to AA to get this.
wife is very happy. she is using DL miles to get us to London, because it seems every AA to LHR is only on BA.
Jul 22, 2015, 10:40 am
#510
Join Date: May 2011
Location: CGN
Programs: DL PM, HH Gold
Posts: 108
Well this is strange.. I just was talking with Etihad about my booking above (to see if I could get a Chauffeur for the return trip to the airport from London) and they wanted to remind me that it is "illegal" to leave the airport at Heathrow during my 22 hour connection.
Never heard of this rule before. I told them I was an American and had the allowance to enter the UK and never had a problem leaving the airport before on a layover (damn smoking habit)... this is the first I've heard of it though.
My booking is:
- DUS-LHR on BA arriving at ~12:00pm 10-Sept
- LHR-AUH on EY at 9:30am 11-Sept
I expected to shortcheck my bags to LHR but if they wouldn't allow it in Dusseldorf, our carry-ons would be more than sufficient for an overnight stay in London. The itinerary was also ticketed and EY never said it was an illegal connection-- only reminded me that I am expected to sit in LHR for the length of the connection.
Anyone heard of this before or see what I did wrong??
Never heard of this rule before. I told them I was an American and had the allowance to enter the UK and never had a problem leaving the airport before on a layover (damn smoking habit)... this is the first I've heard of it though.
My booking is:
- DUS-LHR on BA arriving at ~12:00pm 10-Sept
- LHR-AUH on EY at 9:30am 11-Sept
I expected to shortcheck my bags to LHR but if they wouldn't allow it in Dusseldorf, our carry-ons would be more than sufficient for an overnight stay in London. The itinerary was also ticketed and EY never said it was an illegal connection-- only reminded me that I am expected to sit in LHR for the length of the connection.
Anyone heard of this before or see what I did wrong??