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 theyve opened up is on connecting flights. Theyre offering married segment availability award space thats highly restrictive...
See American Significantly Increases Coach Award Space On Connecting Flights, By Cranky Flier on Dec 21, 2017
How to Game Americans 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 youre searching for award space... youll 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Older posts have been archived off to https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/amer...nnections.html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 theyve opened up is on connecting flights. Theyre offering married segment availability award space thats highly restrictive...
See American Significantly Increases Coach Award Space On Connecting Flights, By Cranky Flier on Dec 21, 2017
How to Game Americans 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 youre searching for award space... youll 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
Oct 14, 2022, 5:12 am
#557
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In the OPs example above, I wonder if it might work to put CDG-HEL-DFW on hold and then calling AA to tell them you want to drop the CDG-HEL segment. Ive certainly done something similar in the past when wanting to add an initial segment. Im curious if that works in reverse.
Oct 14, 2022, 5:22 am
#558
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You can complain about married segment logic as much as you like, but then you would also need to convince the universe that people should pay more for the inconvenience of connecting flights versus a non-stop flight.
Oct 14, 2022, 5:31 am
#559
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AY has been using married segment logic for award space for years. Flying to and from Scandinavia often, I've seen it many times where say CPH-JFK-HEL is available but not just HEL-JFK, etc. My personal favorite is when both CPH-HEL and HEL-JFK are available on their own but the combined CPH-HEL-JFK cannot be booked as a single award 
Oct 14, 2022, 6:07 am
#560
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It's 100% logical in the eyes of revenue management. If they were the only game in town to get you from CDG to DFW (direct or with connections), then you wouldn't likely even be finding CDG-HEL-DFW at the reduced redemption rates.
Oct 14, 2022, 6:20 am
#561
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At least in my experience these days, I often find the married segment award available and the non-stop not at all available all (or at just an absolutely outlandish price).
Obviously, flying out of Austin, I'm used to a non-stop flight being priced more expensive than a connecting flight (e.g. AUS-JFK is more expensive than AUS-DFW-JFK) but when paying cash I don't usually find that delta to be like 10X. So I wish (I know, if wishes were ponies) there could at least be some rationality (and actual availability, even at a premium) to the model for awards.
All that said, I fully understand the field of play as it exists and do my best to navigate it accordingly.
Regards
Oct 14, 2022, 7:48 am
#562
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You are of course correct. That said, given that we now supposedly live in a world of dynamic (or "semi-dynamic") award pricing, I wish AA could better figure out how to at least make the non-stop award available, even if at a premium (but a reasonable premium) to the married segment award.
The powers that be are clearly relaxed if you substitute miles for a $100 2-connection ticket but are freaked out at the possibility of somebody using miles instead of paying $500 for the direct flight, so they disincentivize that as much as possible. Not even caring whether that 2-stop passenger is sitting in a seat they might have otherwise sold for more cash or miles as a non-stop.
Oct 14, 2022, 8:08 am
#563
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On a paid ticket, the connecting flight is cheaper because, as you note, other airlines have comparable offerings that AA competes with on price. On award tickets though, competition is minimal. We can lose sight of this here on FT where so many of us have large stashes of convertible points currencies in multiple accounts. But I'd bet most people looking to redeem an award probably have miles only in a single airline account. If they do have credit card miles, they're probably not thinking of creating a FF account in an overseas airline to redeem there. And if you're sitting there with a pile of AA miles and nothing else, then an AA/partner redemption is the only game in town. There's no competition with other airlines for either the nonstop or the connection.
So is there a real business reason a nonstop award should cost more? Or is it just a side-effect of the cash ticket costing more, and dynamic award pricing being based on cash prices?
Oct 14, 2022, 8:19 am
#564
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The going cash price likely factors into the award pricing because they can still sell those nonstop seats for more money and therefore don't want to give them up for minimal points. Jacking up the points to some crazy amount that defies rational spending is a way for them to clear those miles off the books, should someone take the bait, but it's probably more of a discouragement to not redeem and give them $$$.
Oct 14, 2022, 2:43 pm
#565
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The going cash price likely factors into the award pricing because they can still sell those nonstop seats for more money and therefore don't want to give them up for minimal points. Jacking up the points to some crazy amount that defies rational spending is a way for them to clear those miles off the books, should someone take the bait, but it's probably more of a discouragement to not redeem and give them $$$.
Oct 14, 2022, 3:56 pm
#566
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Regards
Dec 29, 2022, 5:46 pm
#567
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Does American sell mixed cabin awards? I'm looking for PHX to Europe, and am assuming there would be more availability if I could fly the domestic leg in economy and the transatlantic in business. Any idea on how to search for these with so many married segments out there?
Dec 29, 2022, 5:50 pm
#568
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Does American sell mixed cabin awards? I'm looking for PHX to Europe, and am assuming there would be more availability if I could fly the domestic leg in economy and the transatlantic in business. Any idea on how to search for these with so many married segments out there?
Dec 29, 2022, 6:09 pm
#569
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If available, these should automatically show up when you search for Business Class awards from origination to final destination. On any award involving multiple segments, you should click on the details for each individual flight segment to see what cabin you have been booked into. You might discover that you are in Business (First) on the domestic segment, and Economy on the long international segment!
Dec 29, 2022, 6:34 pm
#570
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