luv2ctheworld

Situation:
I can find a flight on sale with Finnair/AY from KEF-HEL-DUB, and when I try to book as an award ticket via AA.com, it shows as not available. However, when I do a multicity, or separate award booking, it comes up on the website. The connecting flight is the next AM, but the layover itself is less than 9 hours.

Of course, the issue is that it doubles the cost of the ticket from 12.5K to 25K. Party of 4 basically means I'm spending an extra 50K.

Is there something that can be done to price this out as the 12.5K? Can this be done via a call maybe?

Thanks in advance.

JJeffrey

Just call AA and an agent will be able to book everything as a single award. AA.com has never been great about showing any and all partner awards that are available, especially when they involve complex routings or overnight connections like this.

luv2ctheworld

Gave AA a call. Agent quoted 25K. I asked why it would consider it 2 one ways, or multicity, and he put me on hold and checked the reference desk. Came back a few minutes later and said he was told it was pricing correctly. It really makes no sense as the connection time is less than 24 hrs; I wonder if it's related to maximum permitted mileage (MPM).

Not sure if worth trying again as that took about 45 minutes of hold time.

VegasGambler

Call again. Maybe phrase it a little differently. Don't mention HEL or AY until you've given them your origin, destination, and dates, and you are talking about possible routings (then feed them flight numbers)

For many agents, if you start off saying that you want to fly AAA-BBB-CCC they are going to enter exactly that and you will get a multi city booking (ie, 2 awards). So you always start off saying that you want to fly AAA - CCC. BBB (in this case HEL, but I think it's good advice in general) should not be mentioned until the last step when looking at possible routings.

guv1976

Is it possible that Finnair does not publish a through-fare on that route, but is instead quoting a "constructed" fare on its website? Without a published through-fare, AA will require two separate awards on the itinerary.

3544quebec

I don't know the answer but I share the confusion.

I wanted to book VIE-BNE in business class

On aa.com VIE-AUH-SYD was available on Etihad and SYD-BNE was available on QF with a 3hr connection in SYD but aa.com would not offer the 3 segments as a single award.
I called and the agent also could not price it as a single award.
It is not a generic Etihad won't allow connections to QF issue as aa.com would book AUH-SYD-BNE as a single award but maybe Europe-Australia awards have different routing rules to ME-Australia awards?
In the past I would book VIE-AUH-SYD and call in later to add the SYD-BNE leg but that changed I believe in the last year or so requiring you to cancel the booked award and then hope the inventory returns to allow the full itinerary to be rebooked -too risky now.

VegasGambler

Good catch; that actually seems to be the case here.

erik123

That's likely married segments - a different issue.

dvs7310

If you never manage to get anywhere with AA on that one, SYD-BNE is significantly cheaper with Avios than AA miles (12,500 vs. 20,000, similar-ish taxes and fees). Even if you have zero Avios at the moment, an Avios subscription might be worthwhile. The only caveat is the subscription has a 2 or 3 month minimum sub. So if your trip is imminent then you'd have to buy more up front rather than let them trickle in over a few months.... then it might not be worth it if you don't use Avios regularly.

no2chem

this is AY, they use married segment logic on their awards, which i've run into unfortunately... no way around it afaik

14thStreet

This is really interesting and explains some quirks I’ve seen on USA-HEL-N. Europe award options. Has AY used married segment logic for awards for a bit or is this a new thing? For example, will see wide open availability for JFK/ORD-HEL and HEL-TLL but the minute I look for JFK/ORD-TLL, I can’t get it or an EXP agent quotes me the price of 2 award tickets.

guv1976

Persistence pays off -- sometimes. You do have to find a competent AAgent, however.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/35734590-post3928.html

no2chem

edit nm, maybe if you HUCA a bit you might succeed in appending the leg.

luv2ctheworld

This whole rabbit hole/quicksand I've found myself in trying to figure out how to redeem AY on AA has been soul-sucking.

Wanting to get a better idea, I created a AY account to see what was available vs AA and BA.

I found the following:
When it's revenue ticket, the specific flight itinerary KEF-HEL-DUB is available for purchase.
When it's award ticket, the same itinerary shows up as available on ONLY CERTAIN DATES. The date that I want to fly is not available. But looking on the award calendar, AY actually shows a date that itinerary can be booked. However, when booking as individual or multi-city, all dates are available.

I haven't tried to pull up fare rules or anything, but it's just making my head spin the inconsistencies on this.

At this point, I'll just keep my AA miles (as it will cost 100K for 4 pax on a flight that takes 2.5 hrs nonstop). I'll use my UR points and book Icelandair and save myself 30K points.

I'm not sure if I am determined enough to try HUCA and the tactics presented... sometimes, throwing in the towel is a win.

erik123

Some days it's a codeshare so that might be your issue?

In any case - why add 6+ hours to your trip when a simple one way is cheap?