gq_dq

I have never encountered this bizarre situation before, and apparently neither had the agent helping me.

Was trying to do what I thought was a simple POP-HEL-DEL one-way award: AY 22 connecting to AY 121 the next day using a single 45K AAdvantage award. Simple right? Not quite. While I can find space for each segment individually on both aa.com and ba.com, when I (1) search POP-DEL on aa.com, I get routed POP-HEL-LHR-DEL and (2) When I search on ba.com it would give me both the flights on one record, but when I click through, it would not price.

So I called both AA and BA. The AA agent was able to enter both segments into a single record and price correctly for 45K. But when she ended the record… voilŕ! POP-HEL came back unconfirmed, but HEL-DEL still showed confirmed. So I said let me try to book POP-HEL online and have her add HEL-DEL. So I did, and got a record locator and then she added HEL-DEL and priced it out… so far so good… ended the record… and Boom! This time, HEL-DEL came back unconfirmed. Totally outstanding!

So I said OK, if the website appears to want to force an LHR stop, let’s do it. So let’s try POP-HEL on AY 22 connecting to HEL-LHR on AY 1337. Both showing award space available. Shocker! Can’t do it. POP-HEL is OK but HEL-LHR comes back unconfirmed. OK Let’s try some other European connection. Say CDG. And then CDG-India on like EY or something. Again, no problem building POP-HEL and HEL-CDG both on AY and then picking up EY in CDG. Agent built the record for 45K miles. Ended the record… Kaboom! HEL-CDG came back unconfirmed. WHAT!!!

Of course I was not going to ticket POP-HEL and HEL-DEL each separately. Cuz then if I should be blessed with IRROPs on POP-HEL, then they’ll protect me only to HEL… and dump me in HEL!! (ha, how appropriate :-) ) and I’ll lose everything on HEL-DEL.

So after being on this Sunday morning merry-go-round for about a half hour, both she and I were losing patience… but I really wanted something sensible held without a hole in it… so I told her… let’s try just ONE more routing. This time still take me POP-HEL on AY 22 but then instead of AY 1337 HEL-LHR, let’s do BA 799 HEL-LHR and pick then up EY in LHR. Fingers crossed… nothing ventured nothing gained.

Well… whaddya know, she ended the record and I pulled up the rez online… and there they were! All 4 segments confirmed. Of course not my preferred option since we are now introducing a third airline into the mix and the connection in LHR is shorter. But at least SOMETHING is holding. So essentially what is happening is that AY, in this instance, is not allowing 2 AY segments to be booked connecting to each other. I imagine it is AY 22 (POP-HEL) which is not allowing an onward connection on AY, either to LHR, CDG or DEL or wherever. Did not seem like connection times were what was causing the issue because there are several hours between AY 22 and any of those other AY flights. So why on earth would AY specifically exclude an AY-AY connection when AY-BA is confirming just fine?

I then called BA. The agent could, like me, see both POP-HEL and HEL-DEL segments individually but when she searched for POP-DEL, it wouldn’t come up. She offered to go to her Help Desk but I said that’s OK, if something happens to my AA rez I’ll call you back and just left it at that. I had a sunny Sunday to enjoy, not play speculative games all day.

So bottom line... I’ve NEVER in my ~20 years of searching for award space seen this kind of an “Un-married” segment situation. I’ve certainly seen married segs where you have to book the two together or none at all, but I’ve never seen where if you book the 1st segment on one carrier, it will not let you book the next segment on that same carrier as a connection. You have to use a different carrier if you want it on the same record.

1st time for everything!

oliver2002

Finnair uses Amadeus Altea Revenue Management that has the availability with active valuation. Hence your problems. Someone at AY RM must have activated the option that doesn't allow award bookings by AA from the Caribe beyond Europe.

Altéa Revenue Availability with Active Valuation

Polarbear19

Yep also experienced this little "quirk" yesterday with SIN-HEL and HEL-LHR. I hadn't come up with a work around yet though so I appreciate your post!!

Dave Noble

This isn't a "quirk" , this is simply how married segment logic works

If wanting to book A-C via B , then availability needs to be there for A-C via B

If wanting to book A-B on its own or with a stopover, then it is the A-B availability that matters

henhen

glad you had this figured out somewhat with a complete confirmed itinerary atleast for now.

this i feel like is exactly what im trying to do with one of my award tickets involving Finnair, a pain in a$$.
It's gottento the point where the pnr is under "Finnair liasion/mgmt review" for whatever that means.

Agents aren't able to add and confirm an intra EU AY segment on an already confirmed AY (EU-USA segment).

tfjim

Interesting to read your ability to manufacture the routing to get you to DEL, however circuitous.

I had a similar issue come up with ORD-HEL-CPH on AY. Both legs available on AA and BA and EF, and the original reservation came back with confirmed legs and segment numbers and all. That confirmed reservation was put on hold. When we went back to ticket a day later the ORD-HEL was unconfirmed. No work by the agent was able to free it back up.

I wonder if it's possible to ticket the obscure itinerary involving another partner and then go back and see if changing to the original, desired itinerary would work?

Thankfully the agent was a backup supervisor and able to rebook the entire itinerary in J on mostly AA metal.

Dave Noble

If A-C via B on an airline is not available, having an existing ticket and then trying to change, the flight will still not be available

gq_dq

Thanks oliver, Who would have even thought! That's why laypeople like us flock to Flyertalk to get an education... and maybe snag a redemption or two along the way. Anyways, as I said before, always something new to learn here.

One of the real positives about AAdvantage is that they are able to engage a living breathing human being "liaison" at partner carriers who the AA rep can contact if there is a problem with ticketing, or if the other carrier's inventory is being flaky... or in the cases I've been impacted by... schedule changes, to open up partner space when it does not show availability for a sensible reroute. I have experienced at least one if not several instances when they requested unavailable inventory from the liaison and... voilŕ the space came back confirmed. I know for a fact that Delta does not, so if the partner carrier does a doozie and doesn't offer an alternative... then you're SOL. Although I will say I have been able to get DL to successfully work with AS (back when they were kissing cousins) to get my party better flights than subject them to a sked change which gave them a 30 min connection in SEA... when space was not available. But that took weeks, numerous 3-way calls, and required a whole lotta Immodium... but I would say that's the exception and not the rule with DL. With AA they do all the schmoozing and boozing behind the scenes to get the other carrier open up the space... but even so, only seldom, and only under exceptional circumstances.

Yes tfjim, I did just go ahead and ticket the rez with the HEL-LHR segment on BA and was done with it, picking up EY in LHR. As I can see from my and others' experiences, AY is like an incorrigible brat and nothing anyone does will make two connecting AY segments stick. Silly, but it forces us to get creative. BTW, I could certainly have done BA LHR-India and then avoided EY and yet ANOTHER stop, but I didn't want to pay BA's usurious YQ scamcharge on the Asia segment. BTW it doesn't look like BA charges YQ on some intra-Europe segments (or if so, comparatively little), so adding the HEL-LHR segment only cost me an extra $12 or so.

My thoughts too. Now that it's ticketed, I wonder if I can go back and add it in. I just fear greatly that the change show confirmed and then when they go to reissue the ticket... like Dave Noble said... poof, gone!... and then the original itinerary no longer be available... not worth the aneurysm. At least this way I have something in hand, and if there's a sked change or something AA can reprotect. If nothing else, with what I have right now I get a free extended connection in AUH and can zip over for a couple of hours to the new Louvre which FINALLY opened its louvers to the public last October after years of working out the kinks. Now to see if James Cameron actually manages to get Avatar 2 out in 2020 like he says he will... only 6 years late!... or 10?

gq_dq

Update. Called AAdvantage today and was lucky to get a Supervisor/Trainer who was also taking overflow calls and had him look at the ticketed rez. Explained that all onward connections on AY beyond AY 22 were returning unconfirmed even though the X award inventory continues to be wide open on the onward AY flights. I told him people were beginning to think I sounded like I was off my Prozac when I explained to them this was happening... but being a trainer himself, he had previously seen something similar so was intrigued enough to test swapping out BA 799 for AY 1337 (without cancelling BA 799) in the ticketed itinerary. Sure enough, he got AY 1337 to confirm until... it did a 180. Then he tried to sell it as Revenue... and THAT's when we realized that dat darn bot's got its knickers on tighter than us humans and won't give it up for all the myrrh in Batavia. Cuz when he booked AY 1337 as connecting Rev space, it would STILL not confirm, although obviously revenue is completely open to sell. And as expected, when he tried to sell AY 1337 separately either as Award or Revenue in a standalone record, it was fine.

So basically nothing new to report, but it confirmed to us that 1) No dice even after ticketing... and even more surprisingly 2) even Rev space is verboten on the AY-AY connection.

Observation #2 ) is indeed interesting -- that a carrier would block even its own Revenue constructions for connections in any onward market -- or at least the three markets we checked CDG, LHR and DEL, so I would say MOST markets.

The agent took my phone # and said he would look into this further and call me if he found a workaround (about as likely as espying unicorns frolicking in my backyard) and use the rez as a case study for his next training session.

tfjim

Wow! Good on you for trying. There's a significant stroke of luck in getting a supervisor who is handling overflow calls because they can really dig into the details more than a standard agent might. In my case, since the itinerary was strictly US-EUR they were able to open up some extra award space to complete the two seat itinerary in business that got stuck with this crazy AY stuff.

oliver2002

Again, its not surprising. AY has setup up their revenue system to exclude AA from booking US-India in one fare, award or revenue. They may have their reasons. The first that comes to mind is the ATI the have with BA/AA across the Atlantic. UA/LH for example have their ATI include US-India, Africa and Israel.