MikeBOS

If you book all of it at once they can combine an award ticket with a revenue ticket in the same record (or at least they could as of a couple of years ago; it's been a while since I've needed them to do it). I'm not sure of the mechanics of it but I've definitely had them do it for me.

NWIFlyer

I suspect what you're seeing here is an overall PNR wrapper, beneath which sits any number of separate PNRs and tickets. Unless AA is attaching some sort of unpublished benefit to this, you still have two or more tickets and therefore no more protection.

orbitmic

Indeed. You can book - quite literally - anything under a single code: several unrelated plane tickets with different airlines, hotel bookings and more. It merely puts them all in one location, and corporate TAs have a tendency to do that all the time as it simplifies their accounting (though not necessarily the organisation of your travelling!)

However, as NWIFlyer says, this does not create any form of unity in the tickets - they each come with their own conditions, charges, luggage allowance, and indeed contract (ie to/from nature without any protection per se). It is indeed possible that AA gives more - though certainly 2 years ago they'd have protected two entirely separate tickets anyway - but that would not merge or link tickets in any way let alone protect them.

MikeBOS

Yes you are probably right. Apologies for the confusion. I believe regardless that with a single PNR on AA at least you can still check bags through across flights/tickets and are protected in the event of a misconnect. So the effect is similar...

NWIFlyer

You could check bags and were under AA's protection policy on oneworld itineraries a couple of years ago anyway, whether in a single PNR wrapper or not. That has now changed by all accounts and is rather more discretionary.

orbitmic

Yes, exactly - AA has had a policy of protecting separate AA/OW itineraries if they are entirely unconnected, and they still very much allow (and indeed encourage) through checking on separate itineraries, so the wrapped itinerary won't have added anything on either front. Sadly, BA (and many other OW airlines) are not as generous with the through checking, and no other will protect separate itineraries.

KARFA

Hi, I was trying to find this yesterday on the AA site but couldn't seem to do so. Do you happen to know where this is stated by AA?

The closest I found was this for bags from February but it seems to suggest the opposite https://www.aasaleslink.com/en-US/do...te_Tickets.pdf

I couldn't find anything on missed connections for separate tickets.

orbitmic

Unfortunately they took it down from publically available pages about 2 years ago (there was a thread about that at the time)! I believe that they still have that policy of protecting separate itineraries in principle but I'm not entirely sure and it's definitely not something one can 'show' any more which is a great shame.

KARFA

Ah ok, thanks. So how do we know that AA will protect across separate tickets and how do we know AA will check through on to separate tickets? You just seemed very sure about both in your post and I would hate for someone to plan on that basis and find out on the day that they can't rely on one or both of these.

FrancisA

I am not sure I follow.

BA have withdrawn interlining from unconnected tickets, which was previously allowed if tickets were on BA or OW airline. BA have never AFAIK offered IRROPS protection for unconnected tickets nor have they ever offered the ability to combine revenue and reward flights on a single PNR.

The restrictive ticketing practices are due to the fact that the GDS BA uses does not allow this. How that is profiteering I do not know. The system has always been like that and this deficiency has been discussed on here for many, many years - its pre-Walsh, never mind pre-Cruz!

camdentown

What I mean is, that even if you couldn't book them all on the same ticket in the past, you could book separate tickets and get the protection and through baggage checking.
The reason why its profiteering is that BA will not on occasion sell you published tickets on a partner/oneworld airline at the advertised fare, but will sell you a fully flexible one for the same journey at the full price (and yes, I checked availability for the lower fares on many occasions and they are available). That , to my mind is profiteering.
You used to be able to book separate tickets and be confident you'd be OK in the event of IRROPS, now they explicitly exclude that.

JAXBA

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrancisA

...nor have they ever offered the ability to combine revenue and reward flights on a single PNR.

...The restrictive ticketing practices are due to the fact that the GDS BA uses does not allow this...

While the option has never been offered as far as I know, nevertheless Amadeus is capable of it, and a well-trained willing employee with appropriate system access could make it happen...

For all intents and purposes though, it's not possible...

orbitmic

I'd recommend people go to the AA forum. On those issues, i still haven't seen any report of AA having changed their policy and to my knowledge, several reports of it still being offered.

much of what we discuss on FT is about informal policies which we know are implemented because they are confirmedly reported without known experiences of it being denied, and sometimes informally and orally acknowledged by agents, but which do not appear as publically and formally established anywhere. For example the 2 weeks grace period for tp year accrual. Another example was ccr access to IAD Concorde dining room and I'm using that example to illustrate that of course those informal policies can change (and obviously the formal ones can too) though usually we then hear about it.

then there are 'urban myths': for many years, here many people believed that it was also ba's policy to protect separate itineraries. That I criticised because I personally had family members who had been denied just that and been made to buy fresh tickets so I knew that whilst ba agents were empowered to use discretion and did so with many high status pax, there was no systematic policy. We later learnt from a ba agent that the policy had in fact been only to informally protect short haul ba flights missed because of a significantly delayed long haul flight (not the other direction).

KARFA

No problem with that, and I won't claim to be an AA expert myself hence my question. However, based on how sure you were in your answer I assumed you knew and/or had seen something official.

AA did change their policy to remove both in recent history (for the baggage see the link I posted earlier). Obviously reintroducing both would be great, but let's be cautious about making such statements unless we know for sure.

hearingdouble

If it's any comfort, you always have to collect and re-check your baggage at the first point of entry to the USA (in your case PHX) even if you have a connecting flight. A single booking wouldn't have helped with this, although would have provided better IRROPS protection. Anecdotally, if you want to book a shorter connection next time, I have heard that AA can be quite accommodating about re-booking you on a later flight if you miss your flight for reasons outside your control (the so-called "flat tyre rule"), although I would be hesitant to assume that you could rely on it.