seawolf

Does the expanded availability cover First as well? I couldn't find any Z available for OGG-LAX on EF but the EXP agent was able to confirm 2 Z seats.

ESpen36

Yes, it covers all MileSAAvers, including Z, U, and T. Not guaranteed, but often it's quite helpful.

hotdogs

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D060; Blazer/4.5) 16;320x320)

I understand there is some sort of "expanded availabilty" for a EXP booking award travel.

Is that true only for the EXP traveling using his own miles?

How about a EXP using his account & miles to book a ticket for a family member? Would they get that benefit?

How about a EXP using a different account (family member) to book his ticket would he still get the expanded availability?

brp

How about this thread

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ilability.html

(Search term {expanded})

Cheers.

lili

Sorry, link doesn't work.

Thanks to reading this thread for the first time this morning I called the Exp desk instead of trying to book one way award tickets for myself and my husband.

No MilesAAvvers to be had, no Business/First MilesAAvers, just 25,000 miles for economy or 50,000 miles FirstAAnytime on a 2.5 hour flight. Well, it's still 25,000 miles but Exp desk found two First awards on Alaska Air, so I'm happier. FT and a simple phone call saved me 50,000 miles (not that I would have done that for a 2.5 hour flight.)

Anybody know the procedure to call Alaska to change the seats from 2D and F to something none-bulkhead? They seem to want a PNR and don't accept the one AA gave me.

Anyway, that's to all who reported on this EXP benefit.

brp

That's because the threads have been modified/rearranged by the moderators after I posted. Once the threads got merged, it was self-referential anyway.

Cheers.

SkedGuy

What she was probably doing was sending the request to the appropriate queue in Revenue Management with an explanatory note in the PNR. Revenue Management analysts are broken down by geographic region, which determines the flights they "work." One of their daily tasks is to work the queued requests. While not an official policy (at least it wasn't when I was an analyst there), the unwritten rule is that you work the EP, PL, GL, and AD PNRs in that order. I was always very generous with EP requests -- but only to the extent that it didn't displace higher-yielding demand. It was always a fine line between the revenue / loyalty you already had and the incremental revenue / loyalty you wanted to gain.

brp

So, does this mean that the agents have individual discretion as to when to grant requests, and it's not formula-driven? Or is there some component of both thrown into the mix? Very cool info, by the way ^

Cheers.

SkedGuy

As you can imagine, a large component of the process is indeed formula-driven. However, EXP AAngels do have some discretion -- at least they did in the past -- to either queue a request to Revenue Management or overbook it outright if they had that capability. Even though I was the cube-dwelling analyst processing the requests for my markets, I really didn't have much insight into the criteria used to determine which requests actually landed in my queue. It was always my anecdotal understanding, though, that the various customer-facing groups at AA were supposed to be judicious about the requests that they sent to RM so that the analysts were not inundated with requests. I had relatively few markets versus other folks, yet even my queues would contain several hundred requests per day. I learned to process them quickly, yet carefully, but I also had to take the emotion out of it or else I would have never been able to get through them all. In simple terms, if I felt that granting a request would ultimately displace future booked revenue on the flight or cabin in question, I denied it.

As far as overbooking goes, all such actions were highly scrutinized back then (and I imagine they still are today), so there again folks with that ability had to be extremely judicious when deciding what they did and didn't overbook. Plus, I'm not sure to what extent EXP AAngels have the ability to overbook these days. Is it all AAngels or just a select few? Regardless, that functionality is assigned on an employee basis, and relatively few employees within the overall company have the capability. If I had to guess, the EXP desk probably has some very specific guidelines it has to follow before something is either overbooked or sent to Revenue Management for review, so that's where the individual agent discretion you mention does come into play. Ultimately, though, a formula is still driving both base availablity and the expanded MileSAAver inventory that people are asking about. When an agent declares that they were able to grab expanded MileSAAver inventory, I highly doubt it's an empowered decision in most cases: I would bet my first born child that they are simply grabbing what the automation has already made available to EXPs based on a demand forecast. Maybe someone who currently does this at AA can shed some additional light.

Having said all that, I think it's always reasonable to ask that an inventory request be sent to Revenue Management for review, but given the daily volume of such requests, the AAngels have to drawn a line in the sand somewhere. As we always say here on FT, if you get an AAngel that isn't willing to do it, call back and get one who will.

brp

Most cool insight!!!

I was thinking more along the lines of what you folks reviewing the queues could (and couldn't) do, and the discretion you had. It sounds like you had a lot of requests to deal with and had to make judgments on a case-by-case basis to grant some and deny others based on a pretty large set of factors.

Cheers.

SkedGuy

The analysts have full discretion in these matters. They "own" their flights and markets, and they are ultimately responsible for ensuring that they maximize onboard revenue.

You are 100% correct that there are innumerable factors to consider when deciding who to grant and deny. It's definitely a very complicated balancing act of analytics and customer service.

What I always find amusing are those posters who are outraged that AA (or any airline for that matter) could have denied their wife, partner, signifcant other, etc. a free seat on XXX flight when the poster has already bought a ticket for himself and is trying to get to/from city XYZ on the Friday/Sunday of holiday weekend ABC or sporting event XYZ.

Bottom line, if the flight is getting full or the analyst believes that he or she will be able to accept better revenue from as-yet booked customers, the seat just ain't gonna clear. It's their job to manage the revenue mix, and they are accountable for it.

beerup

Call AA and ask for your Alaska PNR, then use that online.

JY1024

+1

Thanks SkedGuy for shedding some more light into the mysterious dark cave known as RM. Even though some EXPs may find it hard to stomach, RM's logic is exactly as you stated: to maximise short-term and long-term revenue - not to fulfill every last request EXPs with the "DYKWIA" attitude.

SkedGuy

Glad I could help!

lili

Gracias. Why couldn't I think of that? Because last time I tried I had no status at all, and it was impossible. Abd most importantly I wasn't doing it the right way.

Thanks, you guys are great.