uncle wiggily

I will fly from Paris to NYC using my miles. AA charges anywhere from 110,000 to 250,000 miles for a one-way ticket in Business. Alternatively, their website offers tickets on Iberia (via Madrid), Finnish Airways (via Helsinki), British Air (via London) and Royal Air Maroc (via Casablanca) to JFK. Although most people want to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible, the more time I spend on an airplane, the happier I am. In addition, most of these flights charge 57,000 miles. Win-Win.

BA offers the most choices but also charges $300.00+ for fees. A detriment. For me, the best choice is Royal Air Maroc. I have booked 8 different dates in June and each time, the website says it is not available.

Why does AA offer these flights if they can’t be booked? What am I missing here? Please enlighten me.

GlobalMatt

Are these the flights that give the error message "Pick another itinerary, this ticket is no longer offered" or whatever the message is after you select the flight?

Brooke.E

I just recently booked business class Finnair flights, using AA miles, between US and Europe for June. I did not run into any problems at all. They even ticketed within minutes.

I just chose a random date (June 16) and AA's website is allowing me to select and work through booking process for Royal Air Maroc flights (ORY-CMN, CMN-JFK) and Finnair flights (CDG-HEL, HEL-JFK) for that date. I'm working in the Chrome browser. You may want to try a different browser or call AA because these flights seem bookable.

uncle wiggily

Yes.

uncle wiggily

I had done all of my research in Chrome. Following your advice, I tried to book the RAM flight on both June 5 and June 6 in Firefox. As was the case in Chrome, I got this result:

Choose a different flight or fare (in Red)

We're sorry but at least one of the flights or fares you chose is no longer available.

Brooke.E

I do not see Royal Air Maroc availability for the 5th. For the 6th, I see the Royal Air Maroc flights listed and get the same message you are seeing. The Finnair flights, however, do not give me that message. Did you try booking one of those?

uncle wiggily

M

Thank you for your assistance. I am, however, only interested in flying on RAM. And I keep on getting the same message you got. My question is again, I repeat, why does AA list these RAM flights if, in fact, they are not available.

guv1976

I can't answer your question, but have you checked to see whether the PAR-CMN and CMN-JFK flights are available separately? If they are, I would put each on a free, five-day hold, and then call AA and ask if the itinerary can be repriced as a single award before ticketing.

uncle wiggily

I had not thought of that so thank you.
Neither are available separately or combined. Neither with miles or for purchase.
Again, thanks.

Lux Flyer

You may just need to call AA and feed them the flight #'s you want to book. If it is just a website issue they will be able to do it over the phone. And if they're not, then you'll have your answer that it is indeed unbookable and you'll be able to ask them why they show it on their website if it's not actually possible to book.

uncle wiggily

I just called AA (it's almost 5 a.m. here). 4-hour wait to speak with a live agent. Will call again over the weekend and will keep you posted. Thanks.

FlyerBeek

Not sure I would recommend this method. In my experience, AA cannot combine partner award segments held on different PNRs. What they can do is add a segment to an already held/booked reservation. If OP holds the longer (CMN-JFK) segment, then they could call in to add the shorter ORY-CMN segment. That being said, I've got no idea whether routing via CMN is valid on a PAR-NYC award without pricing out both segments as separate awards, which could be prohibitively expensive. OP could try to ticket the shorter (ORY-CMN) segment as an Avios award if that ends up being comparatively cheaper. As always, YMMV.

-FlyerBeek

Brooke.E

I find it quite rude to put NOT in all CAPS in a subject line and then go on to pretend to thank someone (the NOT clearly indicates you're not thankful).

If you go back and read you original post, perhaps you'll understand why I was actually trying to help you and communicate that the Finnair flights were bookable. You rambled on about all the different options and pros and cons of them. You mentioned that Royal Air Maroc was the best choice for you but you said nothing to indicate it was your only choice. If it was the only option you were interested in then you should have stated that and not even mentioned the other airlines, routings and fees. But you mentioned that you were happy if you could spend more time in the air, that the 57000 mile price tag was a win, and mentioned the high BA fees being a detriment. Given all that, it seemed logical that Finnair would be a good second choice (the air time is actually longer than the Royal Air Maroc flight, the fees are low and it is at the 57000 mile price point). Had you been straight forward then you wouldn't have wasted my time trying to help you and you wouldn't have had your time wasted reading my posts. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you only wanting the Royal Air Maroc flights; I totally respect that but couldn't know that from your original post.

Obviously, I wrongly assumed that your question regarding why AA was showing flights that weren't available was rhetorical and rather just mentioned out of frustration. That is why I didn't address it or even pay it any attention. This issue that you are experiencing is, unfortunately, common. I think many of us on these boards realize that AA has some IT issues that need to be addressed but no matter how long they go on and how much any of us complain they don't seem to be resolved/fixed/improved.

Good luck getting the flights that you want!

guv1976

Yes, you may be right about that. If the OP is able to find availability on both segments separately, I would try holding them on a multi-city award itinerary, so that both flights appear on the same PNR, and then calling to see if they can be repriced as one award. (Of course, there can always be married/divorced segment issues that might prevent the itinerary from pricing as a single award.)

pinniped

Stupid question: is Royal Air Maroc's J product vastly superior to Finnair's? Can you build Morocco stopovers into a ticket on RAM? Is there something else I'm missing?

Trying to understand why OP hasn't already booked Finnair for 57k and been done with it. I mean, I get backtracking to add a connection and save 40k+ miles. I like my miles. I would do that too. But I don't get why, specifically, one would go through a whole bunch of hoops to get RAM specifically when another option is available.