Trying to get back home this winter on AA miles
 

I'm booking a flight through another carrier that's SEA>BKK this December for a vacation, and am looking for advice in finding a return flight.

-I would like to book it one-way, using AA miles, returning to either PDX or SEA.

-Ideally, this flight would be returning at some point between Jan 8-12. I need to be ON THE GROUND with wifi during the day of Jan 13th.

-I can fly back from any of the SE asian countries: Vietnam, Bangkok, Burma, Laos, etc. Even he islands would work: Manila, Singapore, etc. The only availability I have been able to find out of any of these places is from BKK on the 12th, and it's too late of a flight for me.

-I would love to have a stopover in NZ, JPN, ...anywhere really. Maximizing countries visited is huge for me. However, as far as I am aware, AA does not allow stopovers on award flights?

TL;DR I'm having an extremely hard time finding any availability out of any SE Asian countries > PDX/SEA, booking through AA. Even without any stopovers I am unable to find anything. I can do business or economy, but would prefer not to blow the miles on first. I even tried using AA to book my vacation's outbound flight instead of return. Same story, no availability. Any help would be greatly appreciated...

EDIT: I suppose this sounds a lot like I want my hand held through the AA booking process. Well, I do. But I was also wondering if there was something I am doing wrong here? or if booking really is that unavailable 7 months out...

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How have you been searching for award seats? The aa.com website is incapable of displaying award-seat availability for CX/JL; you need to call AA or use a third-party website to check availability on those carriers.

If you're willing to use more miles, you could try routing via Europe, which would require two awards.

And no, AA does not permit stopovers on its awards. You are limited to connections not exceeding 24 hours.

I think you're looking far enough in advance for award seats. While 11 months out is better, it's just very difficult to find award seats around the holidays. IME, availability really opens up around mid-January.

To echo guv1976, if you let us know what methods you've been using to find award seats, we can make sure that you haven't missed anything. If you haven't been doing so, focus on flights from major Oneworld gateway cities such as NRT and HKG first, and then consider paid/award tickets (on any airline) to those cities.

Also, I see the phrase "AA does not allow stopovers on its awards" a lot lately, but I'm not sure how to interpret that. I prefer to say, "AA does not allow free stopovers on its awards," because that makes it clear that you can stopover as long as you want, if you're willing to use more miles.

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"Also, I see the phrase "AA does not allow stopovers on its awards" a lot lately, but I'm not sure how to interpret that. I prefer to say, "AA does not allow free stopovers on its awards," because that makes it clear that you can stopover as long as you want, if you're willing to use more miles."

Well, AA does not permit stopovers on any single award, even if one is willing to pay more miles. (I think some FFPs permit you to add a stopover to a roundtrip award for payment of a relatively small number of miles, like 5K or 10K; AA does not.)

One can combine two or more AAdvantage awards to have stopovers, if desired.

Really, still no free stopovers on award redemptions with AA miles - as was explained to you concisely and correctly in this forum.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...l#post22890959

Well, I think it's a reasonable question to revisit, considering they merged entirely with US air, and I'm flying through a completely different region (some carrier allow stopover on partner flight but not their own metal ive heard?). no need to get all snarky and pretentious, it's not like I hang around this forum every day asking the same questions - that was a year ago. my carribbean vacation went well by the way thanks for asking ;).

I've actually heard this and did some searches through the BA site, but to no avail. should I use their site for all of my oneworld award searches?

so...question regarding this. If there is BKK>HKG availability, and HKG>PDX availability: when I do my award search for bkk>pdx, will it automatically show me availability with a routing through hgk? I know it does, but I'm wondering if it can sometimes miss it due to a stopover existing in hkg rather than a layover

No to the above. Your problem here is that there is no direct route from HKG to either PDX or SEA on a one world carrier. You are essentially needing:

BKK-HKG-LAX-SEA route, which is very unlikely to show up if you just type in BKK>SEA.

My suggestion would be to find these routes individually, write down the info, and then call it in.

Example:

1. Search the BA site for BKK to either HKG or NRT. I am seeing a lot of availability between Jan. 8-12 in both economy and business.

2. Search the BA site for HKG or NRT to LAX. Also a lot of economy and business available.

3. Search AA site for LAX to SEA or PDX. Not really seeing much availability for this, however you can buy the route on AA for about $110.00

RECAP:

BKK-HKG-LAX (35,000 miles in economy or 55,000 in business)

LAX-SEA/PDX for $110.00

You will need to call AA reservations to book the award portion and can either nook the LAX-SEA trip afterwards or do it online. Additionally you should be able to link the PNR's so that you can set it up as one continuous trip.

dude, you're the man! I'll try this out later today, thanks ^. If I can get to LAX I can also likely just book a flight home using avios for cheap

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"You are essentially needing:

BKK-HKG-LAX-SEA route"

Nope; the OP potentially has more options than that:

BKK-HKG/TYO-YVR/SFO/DFW/ORD-SEA

I say "potentially" because the allowable routings will depend on the over-water carrier's routing rules.

Use ba.com to search for each CX/JL segment individually; use aa.com to search for the AA/AS flights into SEA. ;)

While you are correct that there are other routings, I said "essentially" because not many people would consider flying from Asia 2 to DFW/ORD just to then to backtrack to get to SEA. LAX is the most efficient hub for the OP in this scenario for both distance and number of available flights.

No problem. Avios would be a solid option if you have them available. Hope it all works out!

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If the OP can find availability back to SEA/PDX via LAX, that's great, even though that's a longer routing than going via SFO or YVR. But if the OP can't get all the way home via LAX or SFO or YVR, then he might prefer to take the longer routing via ORD or DFW to paying cash for the final flight to SEA/PDX.

To each, his own.

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"If I can get to LAX I can also likely just book a flight home using avios"

Assuming you can find an AA or AS Avios redemption flight within 24 hours of your arrival into LAX (so as to have a legal connection), you should be able to get that flight for free as part of the AAdvantage award (subject to routing rules). Avios can only be redeemed for "SAAver" award seats on AA/AS.