Booking AA Award travel on Etihad / EY - [2015-17 ARCHIVE]
Feb 28, 2016, 11:33 am
#901
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 44,586
INV-BOM is a constructed fare plus
the valid routes do not include London plus
BA is not a listed carrier
so would not be surprised at all if this was charged as 2 awards
Feb 28, 2016, 12:01 pm
#902
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: YYC, SFO, OAK
Programs: AS MVP 75K, AA Platinum, IHG Platinum, Club Carlson Gold
Posts: 734
Just to confirm that nothing's changed since I last checked... it's still not possible to connect EY-EY via AUH to get from North America to Africa on a single award, right?
Feb 28, 2016, 1:13 pm
#904
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
Only QR for connection in middle east at this time, some of these restrictions **might** start to get reevaluated post-devaluation, have definitely heard murmurs of same.
Feb 28, 2016, 1:20 pm
#905
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: YYC, SFO, OAK
Programs: AS MVP 75K, AA Platinum, IHG Platinum, Club Carlson Gold
Posts: 734
Feb 28, 2016, 3:10 pm
#906
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: USA
Programs: IHG/Spire Amb., Hilton/Diamond, SPG/Gold, Marriott/Gold, AA/Plat, Southwest/CP
Posts: 270
If I cancel my AA award tickets on EY how soon before the award inventory show up again?
Also how often do last minute EY F on the A380 open up? Reading some of the blogs it seems as if they do turn up regularly at T-14 or closer to departure, my own personal experience on KUL-AUH-KUL in EY J does seem to verify it, but just poking around the etihad website shows otherwise. I'm looking at the AUH-LHR return segments potentially in March 2017.
Also how often do last minute EY F on the A380 open up? Reading some of the blogs it seems as if they do turn up regularly at T-14 or closer to departure, my own personal experience on KUL-AUH-KUL in EY J does seem to verify it, but just poking around the etihad website shows otherwise. I'm looking at the AUH-LHR return segments potentially in March 2017.
Last-minute availability seems to fluctuate a lot based on availability and time. I'll note that for the next 2 days, LHR-AUH GuestFirst availability is 0 even though there are 4-5 seats open. However, 3 days out, there are 5-6 seats left (even on A380) with all but 1 available for GuestFirst booking. From my searches lately, it looks like there tends to be good availability toward the last minute IF there are seats open.
That said, the best thing you can do is just be checking back frequently. I've been hopping on 3x/day for the past 2 weeks, and while it's been a pain in the ..., a couple nights ago at 1am I managed to score exactly the 2 seats in Apartment that I was waiting for. (I don't think they released more inventory; I think someone just changed their booking.)
Feb 28, 2016, 4:34 pm
#907
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: MEL KUL
Programs: AA
Posts: 154
That said, the best thing you can do is just be checking back frequently. I've been hopping on 3x/day for the past 2 weeks, and while it's been a pain in the ..., a couple nights ago at 1am I managed to score exactly the 2 seats in Apartment that I was waiting for. (I don't think they released more inventory; I think someone just changed their booking.)
Feb 28, 2016, 4:41 pm
#909
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: YYZ
Posts: 1,666
EY last minute availability is hard to predict and erratic at best.
I flew LHR-AUH and AUH-SYD in Apartments back in December. I nabbed the last open seat on the afternoon LHR-AUH 2 days before departure, whereas other days had 5 or 6 empty seats and no award space opened.
I booked into AUH-SYD with 4 empty seats 4 days before departure, and on this leg I noticed the last minute availability was more consistent. It seemed that as long as there was at least 2 available seats, one would open in the week before departure.
I flew LHR-AUH and AUH-SYD in Apartments back in December. I nabbed the last open seat on the afternoon LHR-AUH 2 days before departure, whereas other days had 5 or 6 empty seats and no award space opened.
I booked into AUH-SYD with 4 empty seats 4 days before departure, and on this leg I noticed the last minute availability was more consistent. It seemed that as long as there was at least 2 available seats, one would open in the week before departure.
Feb 29, 2016, 12:22 am
#910
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: USA
Programs: IHG/Spire Amb., Hilton/Diamond, SPG/Gold, Marriott/Gold, AA/Plat, Southwest/CP
Posts: 270
Very interesting!! How do their Etihad alerts work? I haven't seen anyone else doing this, wonder if it's manual or a scrape of some sort.
Mar 1, 2016, 7:19 am
#911
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: ATL
Posts: 127
I think checking frequently is probably what I'll end up doing. Flying out BOM-AUH-LHR later in the year with the family, I managed to snag 2 F and 3 J. I don't expect to get lucky and have more F seats open up before March 22nd but I do some some dates with 4 (sometime in late October) or even 6 (Feb 29th) F seats open!
Mar 1, 2016, 1:34 pm
#912
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: PDX
Posts: 988
I have an award ticketed LAX-AUH-BOM, where the AUH-BOM leg is in Y, i see that 2 first opened up on the same flight, anyone have any experience with snagging seats in higher class cabin after an award has been ticketed?
Mar 1, 2016, 1:36 pm
#913
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 770
just call them and change it. is your award ticket in J or F? if your ticket is in F then you wouldnt pay anything, they would simply move you to F. if your ticket is in J you can move to F by simply paying the mileage difference (22,500)
Mar 1, 2016, 3:06 pm
#914
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: PDX
Posts: 988
However, given the recent issues with booking/ticketing flights that connect in AUH, i wasn't sure if that still exists.
Thanks, will call AA AUS and try doing this tonight.
Mar 1, 2016, 3:09 pm
#915
Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 770
F award, so shouldn't be any more miles. It was a voluntary downgrade given that there wasn't any F seat available for the one leg.
However, given the recent issues with booking/ticketing flights that connect in AUH, i wasn't sure if that still exists.
Thanks, will call AA AUS and try doing this tonight.
However, given the recent issues with booking/ticketing flights that connect in AUH, i wasn't sure if that still exists.
Thanks, will call AA AUS and try doing this tonight.