enviroian

When booking award travel on the AA site --is it married segment friendly?

Dave Noble

What do you mean?

enviroian

Booking individual segments. On UA this is frowned upon and generally not allowed to be bookable by a UA rep. For example I would find availability to LHR the long way phx-iah, then iah-fra, then fra-lhr and then pick up the phone and have the agent book it. All three segments together would never come up on an award search, but separately they did.

JDiver

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...nt-issues.html

Occasionally, the desired award route may appear to be available individually segment by segment, but ghe airline requires an award to be available from origin through to destination and not by "married segments".

Dave Noble

The agents can search on sector basis quite happily , but if there is married sector availability issues , this would apply

e.g. phx-iah has availability on its own and iah-fra has availability on its own , but phx-fra via iah has no availability, the booking will fail on aa.com when it comes to payment

If it is just the case that you find availability on an early flight of the day for sector 1 and then a late flight for sector 2 but nothing on a later flight for sector 1, aa.com may not be too good at picking it up but an agent will have no issues booking it for you sector by sector

flyingeph12

Yes, I am aware that the booking fee is not generally included in the carrier imposed charges. The bottom line is that I am as confused as you are because DUS-LHR-JFK on BA, when booked as a revenue ticket on AA.com, has carrier charges of $209.80, but the exact same itinerary booked as an AAdvantage award has carrier charges of $249.80. I was only making the observation that the exact $40 differential is exactly the telephone ticketing fee that is supposedly waived for booking online. Just casual observation on my part--I am in no way really suggesting that AA is sneakily including charges in the carrier-imposed charges.

Dave Noble

cats are animals , dogs are animals ... therefore dogs are cats?

For DUS-JFK, the carrier imposed surcharges are $249.80 when booked as an award with AA. When booked directly with BA , it is US$210.50

This can be seen by doing a dummy booking for an award on aa.com and looking at the tax/carrier surcharge breakdown

This is not a booking fee

flyingeph12

I would say this is more like: I know what a cat looks like, I see something that looks like a cat. Is it a cat? Not necessarily, but it could be. Like I said, I am speculating.

And you actually miss my point. I am not comparing BA with AA. I am comparing the same itinerary on 3 Apr booked as a revenue ticket with AA vs booked as an award. The carrier-imposed charges are exactly $40 different.

Attached is a screenshot of the revenue ticket showing $210.50 in carrier charges. I would show the screenshot of the exact same itineray as an award and showing $250.50 in carrier charges, but it's too much work editing out all the personal info and you can look that up for yourself if you don't believe me.

Dave Noble

I did look and I saw the difference - AA is ( iirc ) assessing a separate surcharge for the intra EU flight whilst BA just has a through surcharge when booked as a revenue ticket'

With the current exchange rates the difference isn't exactly $40 but is $39.10 , so doesn't actually match the booking fee cost anymore

flyingeph12

With all due respect, you make absolutely no sense.

So AA is assessing a separate surcharge on AWARD tickets but not REVENUE tickets?

If you would read what I am actually saying, the point I am making is that there is a difference in the carrier charges (the amount almost is irrelevant) if I book the ticket as a revenue ticket on AA.com vs if I book it as an award.

And, I just checked for the third time, and the difference (as of 9:39am US eastern standard time on 3/10/2016) is exactly $40: $250.10 vs $210.50.

seawolf

From what I can see, the difference between YQ between Avios/Revenue vs AAdvantage only appears for DUS-LHR-North America but no difference if itinerary is just LHR-North America by itself.

flyingeph12

True. That does appear to be the case. LHR-JFK has the same carrier charges whether it's revenue or AAdvantage.

Dave Noble

You may not like it , but it makes perfect sense AND is correct

AA's application of carrier surcharges is different on award flights with BA intra EU flights involved

BA no longer charges a surcharge on flights within EU, however AA still applies them in some cases

To show this
for 08/11/16 , try award business booking
MIA-LHR on AA56 - Carrier Surcharges = 0

Then for same day , award business booking
MIA-LHR-AMS on AA56/BA434 - Carrier Surcharges = $40

Then try paid business booking just LHR-AMS as a paid booking
Carrier Surcharges = 0

To prove that this is not a booking fee, do the same in economy class

This time the carrier surcharges for the award MIA-LHR-AMS will be $20 not $40

For DUS-LHR-JFK in economy class on BA/BA

Award ticket : Carrier-Imposed Fees $187.40
Paid ticket : YQ €111.00 ( approx $124.45 ) - approx $60 difference

For DUS-LHR-JFK in economy class on BA/AA

Award ticket: Carrier-Imposed Fees $32.00
Paid ticket : There is an AA surcharge (YR) of €111.00 ( approx $124.45 )

there is no BA surcharge

enviroian

How does BA get away with this bs surcharge? It's borderline criminal. There's nothing remotely close to "reward" when a "free" ticket costs over $1000 in fees.

Look I'm not talking about taxes I get that. I used to fly J saver award on LH phx-den-fra-Lhr for 110K miles and about $300 in taxes. That's doable. This crap isn't.

Are Finnair awards available without this fee? Iberia flights? I guess that exhausts my one world (non AA as they aren't available) to LHR.

Dave Noble

There is nothing close to being criminal in BA surcharging. The customer has the choice whether to book and pay it.

I don't like the surcharges, but nothing close to illegal in it.

For redemptions using AA miles
BA has the largest surcharges
IB has modest ones
other carriers have no surcharges