ezefllying

Today, I attempted to book a one-way business ticket, LAX-MIA, using flight credits. I'm trying to combine multiple credits for the booking, and I know that can only be done by phone. So, I attempted to hold the ticket on aa.com until tomorrow and then call in. (I decided to hold online, rather than calling initially, because there was one seat left at $499, and I wanted to grab it; the fares have been volatile over the past few days.)

Halfway through booking the reservation online, something happened and I got an error message. When I went to book again, the fare had jumped: As I suspected, the website had held the ticket for me, which it sometimes does when a booking is abandoned or errors out partway through the process.

So, I called AA reservations to ticket. However, when I went back to my app to pull up the record locator, it showed as canceled. The reservations agent was able to find it the record, but reported that the itinerary had been canceled, the fare wiped clean, and all he could do was ticket it at the now-current price of $749.

I declined.

Now, there's one wrinkle: Several days ago, I used miles to book a redeye (seven hours later) for the same travel date, on the same route, as the LAX-MIA ticket I tried to book today. (That is, I had an award booking for the 10:16 PM LAX-MIA and was, today, trying to book a revenue ticket for the 3:25 PM LAX-MIA for the same date.) I booked that award ticket because fares on my desired 3:25 PM flight were, at that time, way too high for me. I considered canceling the award ticket before attempting to book my revenue LAX-MIA ticket today, but, given my previous struggles with aa.com and using flight credits (hence why I have so many expiring soon), I didn't want to give up that seat until I had my new ticket locked in.

So:

1. Did AA's system likely prematurely cancel my held revenue booking, while I waited to have an agent ticket it, because it considered the booking duplicative of my award ticket? (If I were trying to be a jerk, I'd point out that one could easily land in Miami and take an F22 back to LAX in time to make the redeye, so they're not technically duplicates, but still.)

2. If not, is there anything I can do?

All of this would be a non-issue if it were possible to combine two flight credits on aa.com, as it is over the phone.

unfrequentflyer

I rather have miles and LP instead of flight credits.

estnet

This is how it was a while ago - don't know if it's still the case. I was able to book 2 conflicting flights (award) but in a sweep (usually at night) would cancel one -so it didn't happen instantly as in your example. My guess is that it was either an IT error or someone else booked the ticket you were trying to book before your transaction completed

SamOF

In my experience, a booking error only holds the record for about 15-20 minutes, then it's cancelled if not ticketed. In your situation in the future, I'd wait the 15-20 for the flight to come back into inventory, then hold it for real to call in.

Antarius

Or find the record locator of the "held" error flight and have them book that.