77flyer77

I called AA and spoke with a rep to reserve an award flight:
Departure: SAT-LAX (AA) ~ LAX-SYD (AA) ~ SYD-NAN (FA) ~ NAN-TVU (FA)
Return: TVU-NAN (FA) ~ NAN - SYD (Qantas) ~ SYD-LAX (AA) ~ LAX-SAT (AA)
The rep put the itinerary together and I received 2 "Trip Confirmation and Receipt" emails, both with the same Record Locator number.
a) I was charged $444.00 for the RT Fiji domestic fares and $45.20 for the Taxes and Carrier Fees for a total of $489.20
b) I was charged $243.33 for the Taxes and Carrier fees for those other flights.
The final cash paid out for the trip was: $687.33
And, 80,000 miles were deducted from my Advantage account.

This is my first international award redemption with American. I thought Fiji Airways was a partner of AA and I would have been able to use points for those flights. And I was surprised at the cost of the taxes/fees for AA flights.
What did I miss in planning this award redemption???

Dave Noble

What exactly were you booking?

I am confused about domestic fares and taxes

What was the award portion?

Was this an award ticket to NAN together with a paid ticket on to TVU? $243 looks pretty normal for taxes for such a journey

77flyer77

I fed the flight segments to the rep as one award ticket. And, it was placed under one Locator Number.
However, the FA flights NAN<>TVU were domestic flights and were charged separately as a "paid ticket".

I had thought it would all be one ticket and don't know why it was split.

Dave Noble

I don't know why, best thing to do would be to phone and ask. Was there award availability on the domestic flights

that QF doesn't offer fares from SAT to TVU but does to NAN may well have been the reason

jridge

SAT-TVU is a published FJ fare but does not allow routing via SYD, it is either LAX-NAN nonstop or via HNL. It seems to me that your expectation of SAT-LAX-SYD-NAN-TVU in one award was optimistic.

If it needs to be split, the question is how. The most logical would be either SAT-SYD+SYD-TVU or SAT-NAN+NAN-TVU. Normally an agent would split it into two awards rather than one award and one paid. As suggested earlier, the best thing would be to phone and ask why this was done - did you not have enough miles, or was there no award availability?

In any event, it does not seem to me that you've been "overcharged" but more that the type of ticket was paid rather than a second award.

JDiver

You seem to have an award redemption and a revenue ticket.

How many Awards would be charged AFAIK would depend on whether the most significant carrier offers an unconstructed fare on your routing, and I doubt AA offers a fare with routing SAT-LAX-SYD-NAN using AA and FJ (the proper airline code for Fiji Airways is FJ, as FA is Safair South Africa).

The flight to Taveuni is most likely flown by Fiji Link, which though owned by Fiji Airways Group, I don’t think is part on the oneworld Connect or AA partner airline, so flying between Nadi and Taveuni required a paid ticket.

See HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance

and

AA oneworld & Other Airline Partner Award information, rules (master thd)

77flyer77

Thank you for the info....much appreciated. And, I'm sorry for using the wrong airline designation.

Happy

Your itinerary cannot be ticketed as a single award. Since you are "feeding" the agent segment by segment that also incl the portion that only can be flown with PAID ticket, the agent automatically (wrongly) assume you know what you are doing and priced the whole ticket accordingly.

What really surprised me is not the agent's action, but your inaction when being told the "taxes and fees" that are so out of the norm (incl the paid tickets) before agreed to get it ticketed. Agent would NOT ticket the reservation without your agreeing on the payment first. period.

Besides, how would you have such a convoluted itinerary that goes thru SYD to get to TVU? Have you had a stopover anywhere on this itinerary?

Not sure what you can make amend to the situation now because you now have obviously purchased a revenue ticket, that is on the same PNR as the award ticket.

77flyer77

The only award flights available were those going to Sydney and then on to Nadi. We have flown to Fiji before with American (non-award flights) and they went directly to NAN.

I gave her the award segments that I had and she had to adjust them to make them work.
Departing SAT (AA) and there's an 8 hr 15 min layover in LAX,
Upon arrival at SYD (via AA) there's a 5 1/2 hr layover before flight to NAN (FJ LINK)
Overnight in NAN and leave next day at 2:35 pm to TVU on the revenue ticket (FJ LINK)

Return is revenue ticket TVU-NAN (FJ LINK)

On the same day, NAN-SYD (Qantas)
Overnight in SYD, then
Back to LAX & same day to SAT (AA)

I printed off the two separate "Your Trip Confirmation and Receipt" . The PNR for both of them was the same. The rep gave me an additional PNR for Qantas and FJ to make seat selections on their websites for all segments except the inter-island NAN-TVU (DeHaviland DHC-4 Caribou)

Separate payments were made for the AA flights and the NAN-TVU flights as noted above.

It appears that the rep could not make an award flight possible for SAT-TVU-SAT.

I appreciate the info I've received in this thread and in the future, will try to make simpler award reservations.

77flyer77

As referred to in Post 6 above, "The flight to Taveuni is most likely flown by Fiji Link, which though owned by Fiji Airways Group, I don’t think is part on the oneworld Connect or AA partner airline, so flying between Nadi and Taveuni required a paid ticket."
Thanks JDiver (gotta stay wet to stay purdy)!

weibelt