danger

That is top shelf service. Very impressed.

omaralt

top shelf service maybe.. but i would rather they can just get their systems to work instead of having us jump through these insane hoops. so no, not impressed. i do not have 2-3 hours to waste to make a simple routing change to my existing reservation. if somebody wants to make $100 and do this for me though..

danger

Yes, I completely agree. I can't believe that AA is still showing phantom QF premium availability after at least four months. It's ridiculous.

omaralt

the issue is that it seems to be getting worse! when i made my original reservation a few months ago i was able to change it a few weeks later when F availability opened up on the JFK - AUH route (was originally on the ORD-AUH route). so i simply called the american AA office and changed from J to F and changed the routing. done in 15 mins. now not only can they not see availability but they also now cant tie together one reward from the US to india.. oh well, at least i already have a reservation..

ggcheckpointline53

Originally reserved with AA UK office (and ticketed with AA US office) pre-March 21 for 90K per pax:

ETIHAD AIRWAYS 279 MLE -AUH Sunday
07:40 PM
11:00 PM Business 320

Overnight: Abu Dhabi

ETIHAD AIRWAYS 101 AUH -JFK Monday
09:30 AM
03:45 PM First 777 (Jet Airways configured aircraft)

AMERICAN AIRLINES Operated by Trans States As American Eagle 4206 LGA New York Monday
07:55 PM YYZ Toronto
09:37 PM Y

Two weeks ago, I received a "schedule change notification" from Etihad. It showed my AUH-JFK flight switched to EY 103 at 3:35am. Of course I've been watching this flight for availability but it had not opened up previously. Our original flight, EY101 had a schedule change to 10:10am from 9:30 am departure.

When I first saw the email regarding the schedule change t, I was sure that something had gone wrong, and even once I noticed what the actual change was, I was afraid that the a380 had been swapped off EY103. I never imagined that it was EY proactively moving me 1) from the Jetihad 777, to 2) the a380 and 3) with a far more favorable connection time all due to a 45 minute schedule change on EY101. As a cherry on top, I now have the added flexibility with respect to AA that comes with "involuntary schedule changes" and AA was more than happy to open up space on an earlier connecting flight to YYZ for us. I did have to call AA to confirm that the ticket was properly reissued onto EY 103, as Etihad had made the reservation change request but left it to AA to ticket.

I wonder whether EY did it because they were afraid of me missing the connecting AA flight or just because they figured I wouldn't mind the shorter connection in AUH. "Only downside is that I won't get to sample the first class product on Jetihad", said no one booked in the Apartments ever!

DaveInLA

Any thoughts on this?

ggcheckpointline53

I've had experiences where AA was able to grab one F award seat at a time (Which forces you to book as two PNRs) but not two at a time. Hold one reservation than hope that space appears on their end for a 2nd. I did not check the EY site at the time to confirm what it was showing.

JonNYC

That's what I'd do.

WrLdTrvLnIndian

Have an existing reservation from PDX-LAX(AS FIRST)-AUH (EY FIRST)-BOM (EY ECONOMY).

Etihad's website shows 2F Guest availability on the same AUH-BOM flight we are currently in economy. Call AA AUS, they see 2 f available for the same flight, but the same availability disappears when the agent tries to change our reservation to upgrade that last leg from Y to F.

Anyone have such issue when trying to make changes to existing Award reservations?

SeeBuyFly

Yes, and they have posted upthread; you could read the thread. Or the wiki:

hamburglar

If I want to change SFO-JFK-AUH to a direct SFO-AUH flight, is it correct that there is a $150 change fee with no miles increase? The agent told me this to be the case since Etihad is not a one-world partner. I had no idea they had this rule. Thanks.

ggcheckpointline53

HUCA. There shouldn't be a fee to do do that (assuming same (or higher) class of service)

JonNYC

While I definitely agree this is decidedly a HUCA situation, I'm not 100% sure I agree there is a defined right to do this w/o a fee. Again, try again for sure, and probably succeed, but I personally wouldn't push too hard with any particular agent if the same answer comes back. I'd keep trying instead.

hamburglar

Thanks! I called the Australia number and they changed it without a fee.

JonNYC

Excellent!