stant

As I know the availability of certain award travel changes over time on the AA website, I figured I'd make a 'help' thread instead of searching through past threads.

I'd like to travel to Bali. One ticket would originate in the US, the other ticket would need to originate from canada and *not* have a stopover in the USA. I'd prefer both meet in the middle somewhere and then continue on the the destination. I dont mind paying in cash for the ticket originating in the US.

It looks like the last leg would be on Qatar. I'd prefer first / business. From what I read business should be visible for Qatar on AA.com but when I search the outbound from Doha I get nothing, nada, zip - for any date.

I know as one example that for some time if you wanted to book award travel on etihad, you had to call a ticket office in australia or something of the sort to book it.

When you want to travel on an award ticket and *any* avaliblity isnt showing up on AA.com what tricks are there to find space? if a partner has award space does that mean I can book it with aadvantage miles? is it posible there would be award space I had to book with the carriers own loyalty currency?

Thanks in advance for any pointers!

JJeffrey

Generally speaking when searching for long haul business class award space it is not unusual to see nothing, as this space is the hardest to come by.

You can always search other sources, for example ba.com is a good resource to cross check oneworld award availability. If you see flight availability at ba.com but not aa.com, you can call AA to see if an agent can book it. Sometimes aa.com doesn't work perfectly when displaying partner award space.

But programs do make space available to their own members, so just because a flight shows as available via another program doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be able to book it through AA.

But at the end of the day if space isn't available then it isn't available, if you've exhausted the options above then there's no magic tricks to make it appear out of thin air.

Also just FYI there are already 2 good help desk threads covering your questions:

AA oneworld & Other Airline Partner Award information, rules (master thd)

HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance

Martellus

Bali is in Asia 2. AA routing rules prevent you from routing via Doha from North American on that route, so you can't actually book this award. (https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-p...ward-chart.jsp)

JJeffrey

Well you can book it but it will just cost 2 awards rather than 1.

Guy Betsy

Why not book with CX?

stant

I get award travel from the us to europe and the uk all the time, so I'm not surprised by *little* availability, but when NOTHING shows up thats what prompted this thread.

Let's pretend there is members only space on qatar. I have millions of bonvoy points. Any fundamental reason why I cant become a new member on qatar's loyalty program, convert bonvoy points, and get the perks on qatar via oneworld and my status as executive platinum on american?

Thanks for the links!


Ah - so thats when I went to search from my ideal origin to destination I got a 'something wrong' error page, and not just no availability? if I book as 2 awards can they join record locators after the fact so that I'll be protected on my later flights if I misconnect due to delays on an earlier flight?

CX?

guv1976

"Something wrong" can mean no availability even in permissible award routings for the date range AA searches when you input a particular date.

You can use AA's multi-city award-booking engine to attempt to book, say, JFK-DOH, and DOH-DPS. You would be protected on such an itinerary in case of IROPS; you also could choose to stop over in DOH since you would be traveling on two separate awards.

CX=Cathay Pacific.