Jan 3, 2018, 5:05 pm
Last edit by: Prospero
AA has increased award availability at the SAAver / MileSAAver level, apparently at the cost of reducing the availability of nonstop and direct routing and increasing availability requiring connections using married segment logic.
This means those originating travel at one hub may well find themselves forced to connect through another hub - whose residents will also be required to connect through another hub. This is suspected to be a way of accommodating SAAver awards without competing with those purchasing more convenient nonstop routing. See post #17 by ashill.
Gary Leff: “Cranky Flier got American to confirm last week that much of the space they’ve opened up is on connecting flights. They’re offering married segment availability — award space that’s highly restrictive...”
See American Significantly Increases Coach Award Space On Connecting Flights, By Cranky Flier on Dec 21, 2017
How to Game American’s New Connecting Flight Award Availability to Get the Ticket You Want, by Gary Leff on December 26, 2017 but see post #75 by Psyclone*Jack; this loophole may now be closed.
"When selling seats for through flights and the desired inventory is not available, you cannot opt to sell the flight point-to-point. If sold point-to-point, the error response MULTIPLE SEGMENTS FOR SAME FLIGHT - SELL AS ONE SEGMENT will be received, indicating this booking is not allowed. Overriding the error check by ending the PNR twice is not acceptable." Link to FT thread; see wikipost info by JonNYC and hillrider.
"Sometimes when you’re searching for award space... you’ll find that some seats will show as available when you search for them from origin to destination, but when you call to book the flights segment-by-segment, those flights show as unavailable."
"Married segment logic is a tool used by airlines that restricts availability based on origin and destination, rather than by segments."(DCTA, on Boarding Area)
Link to Boarding Area: Sunday Reader Question: What are married segments?
Link to Worldspan page with extensive information on MSL and coding.
Older posts have been archived off to https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...nnections.html
This means those originating travel at one hub may well find themselves forced to connect through another hub - whose residents will also be required to connect through another hub. This is suspected to be a way of accommodating SAAver awards without competing with those purchasing more convenient nonstop routing. See post #17 by ashill.
Gary Leff: “Cranky Flier got American to confirm last week that much of the space they’ve opened up is on connecting flights. They’re offering married segment availability — award space that’s highly restrictive...”
See American Significantly Increases Coach Award Space On Connecting Flights, By Cranky Flier on Dec 21, 2017
How to Game American’s New Connecting Flight Award Availability to Get the Ticket You Want, by Gary Leff on December 26, 2017 but see post #75 by Psyclone*Jack; this loophole may now be closed.
Married Segment Logic and Effects on Awards
"When selling seats for through flights and the desired inventory is not available, you cannot opt to sell the flight point-to-point. If sold point-to-point, the error response MULTIPLE SEGMENTS FOR SAME FLIGHT - SELL AS ONE SEGMENT will be received, indicating this booking is not allowed. Overriding the error check by ending the PNR twice is not acceptable." Link to FT thread; see wikipost info by JonNYC and hillrider.
"Sometimes when you’re searching for award space... you’ll find that some seats will show as available when you search for them from origin to destination, but when you call to book the flights segment-by-segment, those flights show as unavailable."
"Married segment logic is a tool used by airlines that restricts availability based on origin and destination, rather than by segments."(DCTA, on Boarding Area)
Married segment logic controls routings based on origin and destination, rather than segment-by-segment availability. Boarding Area
From Amadeus: Married Segment Control Link
Amadeus Married Segment Control is a revenue maximisation tool that ensures that airline revenue management decisions, made at availability time, are applied throughout the booking process. It prevents agents bypassing availability controls, based on origin and destination (O&D) information. It also improves both load factors and revenue forecasting accuracy.
Key benefits
Amadeus Married Segment Control is a revenue maximisation tool that ensures that airline revenue management decisions, made at availability time, are applied throughout the booking process. It prevents agents bypassing availability controls, based on origin and destination (O&D) information. It also improves both load factors and revenue forecasting accuracy.
Key benefits
- Ensures more effective forecasting by preventing O&D misuse and matching revenue forecasts with final revenues.
- Improves consistency of sales processes by controlling travel agent selling behaviour.
- Fully customisable and flexible solution that meets airline unique system requirements.
Older posts have been archived off to https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...nnections.html
More award availability restricted by married segments / connections
May 4, 2018, 1:15 am
#151
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: USA & UK -- AA EXP 3.5MM, Hyatt Diamond, SPG Plat, Avis President's Club
Posts: 6,411
What's with all the hypotheticals? Can we use real airport codes? Are fake codes considered "safer" or "cooler"? I suppose there's always a risk that if I find out your travel plans, I might book the seat directly in front of you and take a double-helping of mixed nuts and then you won't get any. But surely that's a tiny risk. If we all get to vote, I vote that we use real airport codes.
May 17, 2018, 10:57 am
#152
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: CID/ORD
Programs: AA EXP
Posts: 66
But they are real airport codes. There clearly are a lot of FTers flying AA's new nonstop flights from Minnesota. To Cuba, the Maldives, the French Polynesian Islands. Looks like they're making a serious move to replace the ORD hub.
May 18, 2018, 11:42 am
#153
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2005
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What's with all the hypotheticals? Can we use real airport codes? Are fake codes considered "safer" or "cooler"? I suppose there's always a risk that if I find out your travel plans, I might book the seat directly in front of you and take a double-helping of mixed nuts and then you won't get any. But surely that's a tiny risk. If we all get to vote, I vote that we use real airport codes.
May 20, 2018, 7:33 pm
#154
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: DCA/IAD
Programs: AA EXP; 1W Emerald; HHonors Diamond; Marriott Gold; UA dirt
Posts: 7,811
Looking at some crazy routings bringing out my mom from California while I go on vacation this summer. Am seeing a lot of flights e.g., SAN-DFW and DFW-DCA where the first segment is an evening segment (say 5:00 pm departure) and the second segment is 6:00 am the next morning. Odd how AA sees these as valid pairs when they are effectively stop overs.
May 20, 2018, 7:39 pm
#155
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Join Date: Jun 2001
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Posts: 28,190
Looking at some crazy routings bringing out my mom from California while I go on vacation this summer. Am seeing a lot of flights e.g., SAN-DFW and DFW-DCA where the first segment is an evening segment (say 5:00 pm departure) and the second segment is 6:00 am the next morning. Odd how AA sees these as valid pairs when they are effectively stop overs.
May 20, 2018, 7:59 pm
#156
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: DCA/IAD
Programs: AA EXP; 1W Emerald; HHonors Diamond; Marriott Gold; UA dirt
Posts: 7,811
SAN-JFK (arrives JFK at 7:00 am), connects to JFK-DCA which departs at 4:00 pm Nothing like a -9- hour layover.
May 21, 2018, 4:56 am
#157
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Thousand Oaks, Ca., USA
Programs: AA Lifetime Plat; Bonvoy Titanium Lifetime Elite;Hyatt Globalist; HHonors Diamond; United Silver
Posts: 8,302
May 21, 2018, 7:27 am
#158
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: DCA/IAD
Programs: AA EXP; 1W Emerald; HHonors Diamond; Marriott Gold; UA dirt
Posts: 7,811
May 21, 2018, 8:27 am
#159
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: South Park, Metropolis
Programs: AA LT PLT 3MM, Hilton/Marriott/SPG/Club Carlson GLD, IHG PLT
Posts: 4,606
Funny how when you look for a paid bookings, those long layovers do not show up, but when you look for award booking, its a different story. I had the same thing for a trip I'm booking for my wife.
May 21, 2018, 9:14 am
#160
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: LAX
Programs: AA PLT / 2MM
Posts: 2,113
What's with all the hypotheticals? Can we use real airport codes? Are fake codes considered "safer" or "cooler"? I suppose there's always a risk that if I find out your travel plans, I might book the seat directly in front of you and take a double-helping of mixed nuts and then you won't get any. But surely that's a tiny risk. If we all get to vote, I vote that we use real airport codes.
May 21, 2018, 11:58 am
#161
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Discussing AAA-BBB-CCC-DDD is cleaner and easier to read, and avoids confusing the post with extraneous information. Our brains can understand "BBB-CCC wasn't available but AAA-BBB-CCC was available so I called 7 times to drop AAA-BBB." One poster's airport codes are irrelevant to the next poster trying to deal with this "married segment" garbage for his/her own route.
May 21, 2018, 2:53 pm
#162
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 44,548
Discussing AAA-BBB-CCC-DDD is cleaner and easier to read, and avoids confusing the post with extraneous information. Our brains can understand "BBB-CCC wasn't available but AAA-BBB-CCC was available so I called 7 times to drop AAA-BBB." One poster's airport codes are irrelevant to the next poster trying to deal with this "married segment" garbage for his/her own route.
May 31, 2018, 5:26 pm
#163
Join Date: Jul 2010
Programs: UA, AA, SPG, HH
Posts: 672
I'm trying to go CLT-PHL for 7,500 miles. Nothing available direct but if I tack on a connecting segment to BOS I have my pick of the litter for the CLT-PHL segments.
Based on what I've read it sounds like the only way to accomplish this is to put the CLT-PHL-BOS itinerary on hold and then play the HUCA game to try and find an agent that can/will drop the 2nd segment?
Anything else I should do to increase my odds of success?
Based on what I've read it sounds like the only way to accomplish this is to put the CLT-PHL-BOS itinerary on hold and then play the HUCA game to try and find an agent that can/will drop the 2nd segment?
Anything else I should do to increase my odds of success?
May 31, 2018, 5:44 pm
#164
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: LAX
Programs: AA PLT / 2MM
Posts: 2,113
I'm trying to go CLT-PHL for 7,500 miles. Nothing available direct but if I tack on a connecting segment to BOS I have my pick of the litter for the CLT-PHL segments.
Based on what I've read it sounds like the only way to accomplish this is to put the CLT-PHL-BOS itinerary on hold and then play the HUCA game to try and find an agent that can/will drop the 2nd segment?
Anything else I should do to increase my odds of success?
Based on what I've read it sounds like the only way to accomplish this is to put the CLT-PHL-BOS itinerary on hold and then play the HUCA game to try and find an agent that can/will drop the 2nd segment?
Anything else I should do to increase my odds of success?
Jun 1, 2018, 7:37 am
#165
Join Date: Aug 2017
Location: Stilllwater OK (SWO)
Programs: AAdvantage ExecPlat, World of Hyatt Globalist, plain "member" of Marriott, IHG, enterprise, etc.
Posts: 1,844
Interesting thread.
I snagged a sAAver award for my family of three for a flight plan this coming September.
Originally, the flight plan was SWO-DFW-PHX-RNO on the way out, and RNO-SNA-DFW-SWO on the way back (with RNO-SNA flight on Alaskan). I snagged the ticket sometime in November 2017. Sticker price-wise at the time, if I paid cash, this was a more expensive flight plan that the much simpler SWO-DFW-RNO // RNO-DFW-SWO flight plan, but the only one with Saaver availability. This far out, all flights on any flight plan were pretty much empty. Oh well, I went for the saaver award since it is the only way that miles mean anything of good enough value and there was no rush getting there and back (week long trip for fun to chill at Lake Tahoe).
Change 1 occurred in December 2017, when the return flight got adjusted to RNO-PDX-SNA-DFW-SWO, with RNO-PDX-SNA all on alaskan, and where the arrival in SNA was 4 hours AFTER the departure to DFW on AA. I let that sit for a few weeks, wondering if it would fix itself, and it wasn't, so I called and the agent switched me to a much simpler RNO-DFW-SWO on the return flight, all on AA metal.
Change 2 occurred in April 2018, when time adjustments on the SWO-DFW flight bumped the DFW-PHX flight later, and that made the PHX layover from an original 2 hours down to 20 minutes. So I called and the agent got the outbound to a much simpler SWO-DFW-RNO flight.
Seems like I got caught in a required extra connection to do a sAAver award, but wiggled out of it!
I snagged a sAAver award for my family of three for a flight plan this coming September.
Originally, the flight plan was SWO-DFW-PHX-RNO on the way out, and RNO-SNA-DFW-SWO on the way back (with RNO-SNA flight on Alaskan). I snagged the ticket sometime in November 2017. Sticker price-wise at the time, if I paid cash, this was a more expensive flight plan that the much simpler SWO-DFW-RNO // RNO-DFW-SWO flight plan, but the only one with Saaver availability. This far out, all flights on any flight plan were pretty much empty. Oh well, I went for the saaver award since it is the only way that miles mean anything of good enough value and there was no rush getting there and back (week long trip for fun to chill at Lake Tahoe).
Change 1 occurred in December 2017, when the return flight got adjusted to RNO-PDX-SNA-DFW-SWO, with RNO-PDX-SNA all on alaskan, and where the arrival in SNA was 4 hours AFTER the departure to DFW on AA. I let that sit for a few weeks, wondering if it would fix itself, and it wasn't, so I called and the agent switched me to a much simpler RNO-DFW-SWO on the return flight, all on AA metal.
Change 2 occurred in April 2018, when time adjustments on the SWO-DFW flight bumped the DFW-PHX flight later, and that made the PHX layover from an original 2 hours down to 20 minutes. So I called and the agent got the outbound to a much simpler SWO-DFW-RNO flight.
Seems like I got caught in a required extra connection to do a sAAver award, but wiggled out of it!
