UpInTheAir

The award availability for April has existed for at least a month. Over the past month, I have yet to see award availability for May.

flyingeph12

Why would there be different award availability for account holders from different countries, particularly on partners?

pschafer

I have an issue - I am booked in J on AUH-TXL on June 8 but would like to change this to June 6. BA site shows as available but 2 calls to AA have said nothing is available for that date.

It's not really that big an issue for me but I just found out Ramadan starts on June 6 so I thought I would depart a bit earlier as this is just a short stopover en-route SYD-AUH-TXL.

davem4

Called yesterday and the Australia call centre cant see anything for AB on any date ! (i'm looking at june onwards)

Same deal today.

My hold ends tomorrow and i need to add in the last connecting flight! ideas?


BA.com shows 4+ seats on every flight.


They had no problem seeing april availability a few days ago

Ldnn1

Ordinarily I don't know why there should be, but remember that award availability is simply inventory in specific 'buckets' and, like with normal cash fare buckets, the system will search for them from a specific point of sale - which in the case of BAEC is the country where your account is based.

Therefore if for whatever reason the inventory is different in different POS (whether it's just a glitch or something deliberate) then that will be reflected in your award search.

[ETA: A bit OT but for info, there is a specific case in BAEC where the extra 'Gold' economy award availability on BA flights is very often different in different POS - that's because Gold seats come from V bucket which is an ordinary cash bucket and so (like O, N, Q fares etc) can differ a lot between POS. By contrast standard 'X' and 'U' class awards - which are award-only buckets - are generally consistent in all POS.]

centauru

Air Berlin is saying that it's not on their end. "Since our System is able to see and book flight with airberlin partner airlines like AA and BA they on the other hand should be able to do the same. We do not see any reason why they are not seeing the flights. All matters concerning purchases through Partner airlines mileage programs have to be send directly to the airline in question."

AB is showing plenty of availability for their own flights on their website. Past April (July and September, for example), BA is only displaying certain US-Europe routes. None of those are visible on AA.com, but the phone agents were able to see them in their system. Intra-Europe flights, on the other hand, seem completely invisible to both BA and AA.

iahphx

This is all completely insane. Is there still a oneworld rep who can get this all fixed? It's hard for me to believe that there's a vested interest in offering different partner award inventory simply based on your country of residence.

Since I'm looking for an AB flight from the USA East Coast to Germany, it would be cheapest if I could book it on Avios. Has anyone tried changing their country of residence on BA to find AB award availability?

Dieuwer

Yes, I did.
When my BAEC account was US based, there was ZERO AB award availability.
When I switched my account to Holland, there was tons of AB award availability.

centauru

I made a follow-up call to Air Berlin. I gave the agent 2 specific intra-Europe flights that were showing award availability on their website. She was adamant, however, that there was no X fare bucket space on either. Might it be the case that going forward some of their awards are accidentally (programming error) or intentionally (limiting partner redemption) booking into the same fare class as a paid ticket, which would be why other airlines aren't seeing anything?

jesmurillo31

i have also tried switching my BAEC account from US, to germany to holland and i still show no availability.

looking for AB on July 10th, from DUS-SFO...only 1 seat has been booked in entire business section. (looking for 2 bus awards)

: (

carolina13

Using the BA site, I was able to find award availability on OW partner Air Berlin. It is not showing up on the AA site. I know for some partners that show up on the BA site, you have to call AA to use AA miles and they don't charge you a booking fee since it's not available online. However, I've read that Air Berlin awards should be available on AA's site. If I call do you think I should have luck? What is the standard sAAver award rate for Air Berlin in Y? 30k?

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"What is the standard sAAver award rate for Air Berlin in Y? 30k?"

That depends very much on what zone you are starting in, what zone you are ending in, and -- in some cases -- what time of year you are flying.

Mwenenzi

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...-ha-qf-rj.html

carolina13

That doesn't exactly answer my question as that thread presumes the award is available on AA's site. However, conventional wisdom is that if BA is showing it as award available, that should be available to all OW partners. And will be flying from Europe to US (TXL-ORD).

Unterwegs

Looks like AA does not see the same availability as BA. I had a similar situation: HKG-DUS(CX)-STR(AB) was available on the BA site. AA could see the CX flight, but not the AA flight. Tried to call a few times inside two weeks, always the same. Gave up and booked a different routing.