Phantom / false AA award availability with AA partners (master thd)
 

Today it seems there is a glitch with award availability on AA.com. When I search for award flights, almost all flights come up as available. When I click to "continue" it says "The flight you selected is no longer available. Please modify your request." I can do that for all the flights and keep getting the same message.

Has that happened to anyone before?

AA agent having phantom LAN award availability?
 

Sorry clarifying title: AA agent having phantom LAN award availability?

Sorry if this is a repost, but I did a search and couldn't find any discussion. I am trying to book an award in early May from Washington, DC to LIM. QF and BA websites don't show any award availability for my dates, and in fact AA doesn't show any MileSAAver in economy or business for the entire month of May (I know AA shows only AA flights). However, the LAN website does shows availability.

I decided to call AA just for the heck of it, and they told me they showed SAAver availability in both economy and business DCA-MIA on AA and MIA-LIM on LAN for multiple dates in May. However, when the agent tried to confirm the flights, the system would not let her confirm the LAN flight. She tried with multiple days. Has anyone experienced this before? It also seems strange that there is so much J availability given that posts here say how J awards are scarce on LAN, and that BA and QF don't show availability.

The LAN web site might very well show availability, but that doesn't necessarily mean LAN is making seats available to OneWorld partners. Are the flights you're looking at being sold at the lowest price level (in LanPass km)?

LA has phantom agents?

Lots of reported problems with booking LA award flights using AA miles. For example:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ue-ticket.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...-bookable.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ervations.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...universal.html

Yea, it does show at least 1 flight with the LanPass 21K km MIA-LIM. This is kind of odd because the award chart says it should be 24K, if I am reading it correctly.


Sorry, what I meant was the AA agent saw award availability on the LAN segment, but her computer was unable to ticket it. She suggested it might be a computer issue (like the numerous issues in the threads above), but I thought it was odd that the BA and QF websites don't show availability.

I guess the crux of the question is do AA agents often see LAN availability not seen on BA/QF? If so, are these seats bookable?

I didn't see any posts on agents having phantom availability not found on BA/QF, but lot of posts on the opposite with agents who couldn't see availability seen on BA/QF or that no seats are available period.

Booking on LAN
 

I have been trying to use AS miles for travel on LAN. I was told by an AS agent the computers aren't allowig this at the moment due to the merger o LAN and TAN. Don't know how true this is, but if so, could be the reason you are having problems with using AA miles on LAN.

Thanks... first the Sabre transition, now the TAM merger... will LAN/TAM ever get its computer systems in order?

no more LAN availability for oneworld?
 

for the past few years i have had great availability for business awards on most days for long haul lan flights using aa miles and using the ba web site...

however, recently, it is almost impossible to find any dates available, ever. this is really frustrating as i am in the middle of a oneworld award ticket and have some lan flights that i need to change the dates of, but NOTHING is coming up, no matter when i check or if i call an operator or try the ba website... what's up? is something broken? or is lan just not allowing oneworld partners any award seats anymore?

i am seeing some seats on short haul domestic lan flights available and a rare business flight available while checking with the ba site, so i am thinking that it's not the ba website that is not broken...

this really is a pain!

This involves issues with Aadvantage, so I'm moving it to the AA board.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator

I've noticed that the BA online search engine has stopped recognizing some LAN cities, like Mendoza MDZ and Buenos Aires AEP. However I've still had luck using AA miles last month reserving LAN flights. Qantas's award engine also doesn't have all the cities listed, at least when put in the departure field.

Reading between the lines, I think you'll have problems using online tools to find LAN availability short of calling in to AA. I've tried using LAN's online site, and whatever they are offering at the lowest km redemption rate I've found the best luck when asking AA on it. However, the inventory shown on LAN.com isn't 1:1 bookable on AA, as I think more seats are available to LANpass members.

I'm also still struggling to figure out best way to check availability online. ExpertFlyer doesn't support LAN, either.

It's a combination of things: BA.com has issues with certain origin/destinations + LA has periodic system connectivity issues with most of its OneWorld partners.

Is there a particular flight/date/cabin you are looking for?

the issue is not that i can't search for the awards online, because when award space is there, i can see them from ba.com or aa reservations (except now ba.com doesn't accept some lan desitnations anymore, which also is a pain)...

the real issue is that lan is no longer making awards available to their partners (or their lanpass members at the lowest award level)...

i have been using aa miles to book international lan awards for the past 4 years and pretty much have been able to find availability most days in U (business) that i have checked by ba.com or by calling aa reservations or checking for the lowest mileage level on lan.com ... it was super easy to get lan awards in business class for international segments until recently...

for instance, scl-ipc and ipc-scl in business class was almost always available. just about every day of the year... but now i can't even find one date open...

all of a sudden, lan has stopped giving out awards space. i think this coincided with lan switching to a new booking system... really nothing to do about it, but it really devalues oneworld miles for anyone looking to travel in south america... :(

By coincidence, I was just trying to get an award to LIM in coach for mid November.

Agent said "MIA-LIM is available".
30 seconds later she said "I can see it is available but it comes back as unconfirmed, I can't confirm the seat".

I have had a similar conversation last week with a different agent. Seat is there, they can't confirm it.

:confused:

what a coincidence, I too have been having issues getting availability with LAN the past few days. I have been trying to look for J-seats between SCL-IPC for Jan2014.

Was not able to find anything either on AA nor BA. Will most probably call to check availability. Good to know that it is most probably nothing to do with availability but connectivity issues.

Cheers!

nldogbert: unfortunatly it appears that it is NOT just connectivity issues and LAN is no longer making award space available either to it's partners or it's own LANPASS customers... :(