desi

If you just read posts upthread (oh, say , just one or two months worth), you will notice that this question has been asked multiple times and answered.

EY award seats using AA is one of the last remaining "bargain" and hence people are putting up with this "odd" situation.
(No unethical fuel surcharge, nor ridiculous airport fees just to make connection)

desi

Most likely, your AU call was answered by Brisbane itself without needing to overflow it to Fiji whereas your NZ call got routed to Fiji.

desi

EY is no different from any other airline in this regard. Have you been able to predict when other airlines release additional seats in J (especially when total capacity is as small as 16 seats)?

In fact, if you put on hold and then release them, it is quite possible that even those will never revert back to award inventory.

Award seats with most airlines do not work the way Southwest works or how Pan Am used to work.

desi

I know with certainty that both routes are bookable as single award subject to seat availability.

The first will require booking LHR-SEA on BA which may not make sense due to BA's ridiculous surcharges.
But you can certainly do routing via ORD or PHL or RDU or CLT or DFW or PHX to make it all on AA metal ( subject to availability and your ability to handle layovers)

The second one is of course doable provided you get seats and conections.

However, if your intention is to travel from CMB to SEA, there are many more cheaper (in terms of airport taxes - avoid LHR) and easier to book options available
(Hint: Both AA and EY fly to many european cities other than LHR where this nonsense of having to call Fiji can be avoided)



Also, OT for this thread but have you checked out Srilankan Airways?

NightTripper

When I took the family of four to Thailand last year, the intel on Thai Airways was that if you booked the two J seats available, they would often release two additional. So I booked the two J seats, they released two more nearly instantly, and I booked those J seats also.

So yes sir/madam - I have been able to predict this, based entirely on the help from the FT community familiar with the process. Which is why I posed the same question in this forum.

happy10345

I had called in the past with no luck on the AUH-JFK flight. This time was different as the agent was able to see 100% the same stuff as I could see on EY's website.

DrivingRain

Yep, it was well known on the Cathay forum that they'd release OW inventory on Sunday nights at 10pm Eastern time.

anabolism

Why do you want AA to split the record? Are you and your wife going to be on different flights? At any rate, it shouldn't mess up your EY flights. Couldn't hurt to confirm with the AA agent that the EY flights won't be touched, but shouldn't be necessary either.

Why not? It shouldn't be a problem to add extra flights onto an existing award, without altering the existing flights.

Much easier thing to try is to call AA and ask for the EY PNR, then go to the EY web site and use their online checkin with the EY PNR.

To clarify, you called AA's U.S. number?

Good to read.

Codeshares only apply to revenue flights. Award bookings never use codeshares.

For which flights dates? How far out matters.

Thunderroad

Thanks for your useful series of questions and comments, including in response to my own post. To answer your question: Yes, my wife and I will be starting out from different places (ORD for her, SFO for me) on AA before meeting in JFK for the rest of the trip on EY. So that's why I assume AA will need to split the record. Thanks for the assurance re the EY flights not being touched, though I'll also take the advice of checking this with the AA CSR.

stevento

Here's a new one for me.
AUH-DEL on EY218 in J, available on etihad.com and visible on expertflyer, not visible to AA NZ.
But a different flight on the same day is.

Whatta?

Thunderroad

I'm appreciating all of the diverse data points being offered here, and hope they continue so that we or other FT members can have a better chance of securing these EY premium seats. But I wonder if much (though certainly not all) of this leads us to that standard, solid FT advice: Hang up and call again.

lizakramer

I was just successful at booking 2 seats in J from AUH-JFK for November 24, 2018. Expert Flyer was showing the availability. Called U.S. Platinum number and that agent could NOT see the award availability. Then called the Trinidad AA number and that agent was able to book it right away.

Thanks to Flyertalk, I knew to call the Trinidad number. For anyone interested, that number is 246-428-4170.

ukinny2000

off-topic, but isn't 246 area code Barbados, not T&T?

acinchus

Seeing something similar. Each time I have had to book EY flights (1-2 times each year) the etihad.com guest level availability equals visibility for AA agents (on Australia/NZ call centers that now get routed to Carribean call centers) to book. But now I have a data point that disapproved it .... etihad.com showing AUH to LAX in business on 2/11/2018 with 6 seats available at guest level awards. But the agents in the carribean not able to see it.

Its going to be a bummer if we cannot rely on etihad.com or even paid services like expertflyer to reliably search availability and have to rely on the crapshoot of which AA center we talk to and all factors that influence availability visibility on their end.

BTW, what is the recent observations on the 30 day window? Are more business and first seats being made available within 30 days of travel to AA and also within that window do the US based call centers see the same?

anabolism

Thanks very much for the concise, detailed report ^. I appreciate that you noted the class and the flight date and the results of calling US and Trinidad!

246 is the country code, not the area code (so it's +​​​​​​​246-428-4170).