INDFlyer

AA website used to show Cathay Pacfic, I am not seeing any Cathay Pacfic flights anymore on AA website BA shows Cathay Pacfic availability

SeeBuyFly

(a) This is an Etihad thread (b) AA has never showed CX award availability.

roadbird

I don't totally understand why more blogs etc aren't talking about this? Is it because it's happened in the past that we haven't been able to book EY F/J and then it comes back or because it's only going to make the people they make money off of look bad...

JonNYC

Definitely not a factor.

INDFlyer

How can this issue be fixed? Etihad website shows guest availability and expert flyer also shows availability. Australia, New Zealand and the US call centers can not see any openings. Can forum members suggest some ideas to get this issue resolved?

This issue seems to be with Etihad flights to and from US destinations.

Thanks.

Thunderroad

Well, I think many more of us could write to or tweet AA customer relations about this problem. Conceivably that might get some attention.

But really - and pardon me for venturing OT here - in the nearly oligarchic situation prevailing among the major US carriers that fly internationally to a great degree, there is very constrained competition. So, even assuming that AA does not actively welcome this kind of limit on award redemptions, it very possibly can't be bothered to do more than ignore it.

That in turn might mean voting with our feet and wallets to burn the miles we have, and stop accumulating more increasingly hard-to-use AA miles by flying whatever competitors (Alaska and JetBlue are the ones I'm increasingly turning to domestically, with a range of others for international travel) suit our own purposes instead.

In addition, build up points via the Chase, Citi, Amex and Starwood (for the limited time it still exists) programs instead of the FF programs of the major US carriers. It's a bit more complicated to use those points by converting them to airline miles, but at least we're not locked into the oligarchy to the same degree.

Having said all this, I don't totally despair of this problem being fixed. It could be a temporary glitch, along the lines of what a few posts here have noted in the past. Or it could be that it's linked to the upcoming changes/devaluation in the EY program. But I wouldn't count on AA fixing it out of the goodness of its heart, concern for its customers or, most of all, feeling any competitive pressure.

Dave Noble

It may be that there is nothing to fix and that EY is restricting award access to AA and that it is entitled to do so

Thunderroad

Ah, good point. I'll rescind my rant if that turns out to be the case.

INDFlyer

If this is true then why the US call center has never been able to see Etihad availability only Australian and New Zealand call centers was able to see the Etihad availability?

Dave Noble

Availability can be restricted by Point of Sale; with bookings abvailability can be restricted by country - that is a reason why on Expert Flyer , that there are different sales points that can be picked from when checking availability

bladel

That seems to be what the representatives are saying. Whether that is speculation on their part just because they can't see the space or not, who knows.

SeeBuyFly

It may be; but given past experience, it may also be another transient or unintentional EY glitch, and perhaps AA could arouse itself to talk to someone in a position of some authority at EY about the issue.

Of course, e-mails and tweets are unlikely to lead to such an action on AA's part.

For my part, I am waiting to see if anything changes when EY's web pages come back online after Sep. 18. Probably the changes will be for the worse, but one can always hope.

TravelKane

I have the apartment booked AUH>SYD
So I need to get to AUH from the US.

Found a DFW>AUH. US agents can't see it & AUS agents can't see it. Both say only econ available.

I guess I can go through Europe on the third zone exemption. I find many EU > AUH flights avail. The difficulty now is US>EU.

Question on the third zone exemption:
Will that only work from gateway hubs (east coast)? I'm starting from the west coast.
ie, can I do - SFO>JFK>CDG>AUH

Dave Noble

As long as it complies with the routing rules of the governing carrier, it is ok

Looking at AA's published fares ( I assume AA for transatlantic ) , they are mileage based and allow travel on both AA and EY, so would expect that it will be ok

dwatcher

sorry for OT, but has award tickets on QR impacted too? I wish to redeem AA miles on EY but since that is not working I was hoping I could redeem it on QR biz class on route IAD/PHL to AMD.