JDiver

s I understand it: There’s no “secret rule”. You had a new award issued, requiring a redeposit of miles. The award was required to be reissued because you chose a new award with mixed cabins of service (Coach on your preferred flight) rather than use your less convenient Business award. The agent who allowed you to believe you could “voluntarily downgrade” your J award without redepositing the miles and issuing a new award and ticket appears to have been wrong; the second agent was wrong to tell you AA does not reveal rules to passengers.

Had you found Business award seating on the preferred flight segment rather than Coach, that would constitute a permissible award change, not a new award (required since there was no matching business seat award inventory on the new flight). You did not voluntarily downgrade AFAIK, as there was no Business award inventory on your preferred flight.

Alternatively, you might have purchased a mixed cabin Business award and waitlisted for the higher class of service if it had been available at booking. Many FTers have done just that.

You’re actually quite fortunate AA were able to fully reinstate your original award if they actually cancelled it for the new desired one.

The Rules are summarized in the thread we will merge this into, inthe Wikipost. /Moderator

LukeO9

I too am flabberghasted at this rule (deemed 'secret' in the context of information transferred to the OP, and not to be taken literally) where benefit to the airline is charged to the Pax.

I see nobody has yet.

Flamenguista

Is Indian Sub/Middle East treated as 1 region for all purposes? Can I travel from Sri Lanka to Doha to Southeast Asia on a 40,000 business ticket?

Dave Noble

India/Middle east are classed as one for routing purposes. If there is a fare that permts the routing, it should be ok

Flamenguista

Thanks. I'm not seeing any CMB-DOH-DPS fares on google flights, so I assume this isn't possible.

Dave Noble

On Qatar Airways?

QR has no fares for that route, so would say it is unlikely that it would be possible

ashkale

might be possible on Etihad!

Dave Noble

zero chance via Doha on EY

ashkale

DOH... Meant EY routing via AUH as I believe OP wants to maximise his flying. EY publishes fares for several Sea and far east destinations from Indian sub via Auh.

LukeO9

FYI: Currently, DPS is only open when southerly and/or westerly winds blow.

ChiefNWA

So I'm currently booked in J on EY DEL-AUH-CDG in Feb on an award. I saw the QR had some availability and thought I could switch the flights over to QR instead (slightly better schedule/equipment) but both agents I spoke to said that EY awards don't have the same 'change rules' as normal awards. I'm not changing the origin, destination, dates or class of service. Both advised I needed to cancel/redeposit and rebook with QR.

I mean, I'll be fine if this really is the case, just couldn't find anything in print stating this on their website.

Dave Noble

It is correct that there is a fee to pay

ChiefNWA

Just for my own future reference, is that the case with awards on all of the affiliate (non-oneworld) carriers?

JJeffrey

Its not that EY has separate change rules per se, but changing from an all EY award to all QR award changes your award type from all partner (non-oneworld) to oneworld, so AA hits you with the fee.

Had you booked say BA DEL-LHR-CDG and wanted to change to QR, there would be no fee since both are all oneworld.

zhangg

I have a question about this rule:

I am trying to fly SBY (regional airport, only has flight to/from PHL and CLT). No partner websites recognize SBY as an airport, so is there no possible way for me to get SBY-[PHL/CLT]- ... - SGN/HAN as one award unless I take AA metal over the Pacific?