rssfed23

Was trying to book a reward flight SLC > JFK 4/7/18 and back LGA > SLC on the 6th (outbound Wednesday 4th July return July 6th) all economy and after trying on ba.com and getting errors I googled and discovered that this is a known issue discussed on FT and also a recent article on HFP (https://www.headforpoints.com/2018/0...lines-flights/). As per the advice on HFP I phoned the gold line armed with my flight numbers.

Starting with the outbound flight details when I said reward flight the agent said "you do know you can do this on BA.com right?". I said "I've already tried this but got an error. It didn't say no reward availability but rather 'there was a problem with your request, please try again later'. I'm aware that there's an issue booking these types of reward flights from reading others' experiences on Flyertalk" and he said "no there was a system issue, but it was resolved last week we all got an email about it. I'll have to charge you extra for not booking online if you proceed" to which I accepted and he proceeded to search the flights. No availability came up on the outbound. I asked him to search for Thursday. Again, no availability. After getting no availability on Friday he said "Listen, I'm not going to search the whole month for you there's clearly no availability" in a tone that I was a bit uncomfortable with.

I said I wasn't going to ask for any more in July, but could he please search for any on the 8th March 2019. Again; nothing. I commented that there was plenty of reward availability on the AA website for all of those dates but he said "AA are known to hold back most of the reward seats for their own flyers anyway so you can't use their website to search for seats you should always use our own reward finder".

I have no idea how much truth there is in this but wasn't going to query it further. I politely said "but I believe the reward finder isn't functional for this type of search at the moment. Otherwise it would of told me that there was no availability rather than saying there was a problem with my request like it usually does when there's no availability. Can you please try DFW > SLC on the 4th July please?". Again; "no availability", but this time he added "Sorry Bobby (my name on his screen was Robert), but our policy is to only allow 5 reward flight searches per call as they can so easily be done online. I'm going to make a concession and do one more search for you but if you need any more after that you'll have to call back in" which I thought was odd given we'd only been on the phone 3 minutes at the time and each search was quick (and there was no queue when I got through initially). I have no idea if the 5 search per call is true or not.

But anyways after he said that I said "Okay, it doesn't surprise me that your system is saying no availability. I read on FT that the problem affecting the online reward search tool can also affect the call centre systems as well sometimes, so I won't take up anymore of your time" to which he responded....."You can sit there typing away on Flyertalk all you want but I actually work for British Airways, so who do you think knows more about the company?"

I was completely taken aback at first. His tone was completely derogatory and at first I thought he was being sarcastic - after all; it's well known that this subforum collectively has more knowledge and can be more helpful than most of the BA call centre staff we come into contact with - but after I realised he wasn't being sarcastic and had a second to compose myself (I don't know why but what he said took me off guard and angered me) I said "actually before I go, can you please try LHR > SLC on the 4th of July please". He let out an over-exaggerated sigh and typed away and came back with "Yep; there's a few seats left. I've got 1 option connecting via Philadelphia and 2 options with good availability connecting via Dalla....oh. I see what you've done to me here". I could feel the pain in his "oh".
I wasn't 100% sure if my idea was correct or not given the nature of codeshares and my lack of knowledge of specific fare classes and restrictions but in this instance I guess I was right.

He proceeded to put me on hold for a few minutes and then came back with "I've just spoken with my manager and he's checked something. There is availability on the flight you initially wanted to book but I'm unable to book it due to a systems issue. If you call back next Wednesday the issue should be sorted and we'll be able to book them for you then". I thanked him for his efforts in trying saying I'll call back on Monday but before hanging up I couldn't resist....
"What was that you were asking about Flyertalk earlier on? I think we both have an answer to that question now!"

I just wanted to share this experience as it really was a frustrating one for a couple of different reasons. I don't know if AA do hold back most of their reward seats for AAdvantage members or not but there seemed to be lots of availability for SLC > NYC (my initial search before choosing the JFK specific one).

My main questions for the team here are:
1) Is there any way aside from calling up again to purchase the redemption before next Wednesday (I'm not even holding out much hope I'll be able to do it then)? - I don't have an AAdvantage account and don't mind opening one up if I can easily transfer Avios there without losing their relative value.
2) Is this even a route I can get a reward ticket on? - My initial thinking was that the reason the system gave me an error was because it's SLC > JFK and that BA don't have a codeshare on that flight and thus it won't go through.

I know I can't get a revenue ticket issued by BA for that route (the error about no traffic rights comes up) but my logic was why would the HFP article tell me to use aa.com to find out reward availability for US domestics and call and book if it isn't possible for routes without a codeshare on?

Many thanks in advance,
Bobby.

Anonba

Jagboi

Shades of this classic: "I work at the airport. You're wrong" https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-canada-aeroplan/1733368-i-work-airport-you-re-wrong.html

rssfed23

Is the workaround likely to be known to most call centre agents that have been there a while? - I ask as the guy was fairly certain I was in the wrong until the LHR > SLC "trick" got him to think rationally and double check with someone and I'd of hoped he'd of offered to perform any workaround just to make himself look less incompetent but he didn't. I guess he just wanted me off the phone by that point in time.

corporate-wage-slave

Well, I think one has to be fairly diplomatic in terms of how you project Flyertalk knowledge, which can sometimes be wrong or misunderstood, and I can see it could be frustrating for an agent to have someone telling them how to do their job. It very occasionally happens to me in my job too, and it's not much fun. I guess projection is everything here, and without being on the call myself I can't really judge fully what happened here. And I have to say there is some risk here, if I may be a little candid.

• You can use BA to buy AA sectors for you on revenue tickets, that though is something you need to call up for if you cannot get a codeshare.
• Codeshares only matter on revenue tickets, they are not relevant on redemptions since they always book into prime codes. So that's a red herring.
• There are two potential issues here, firstly the recent bug by which BA.com doesn't show AA redemptions - that's the one that BA.com told us about via onscreen messages, and hopefully will be fixed soon (and possibly has fixed already); and a second one where connections are not well signposted - that's not going away soon, and so you best search by sectors
• There are married segment issues on AA in that some connections will be bookable when buying them separately won't work, which partly contradicts my previous point.
• You can't transfer Avios to AA, completely different scheme, you would need to credit something to AA or take up some AA credit card deal
• Most AA availability is indeed reserved for AA's own members
• However MilesAAver award are available to BAEC members
• Hence the advice to check specifically for MilesAAver availability on AA.com then check BA.com then ring up
• And on top of all of that, there can be short term outages and IT issues looking for availability which pop up from nowhere and then go away. As it happens my AA searches are not working as it was yesterday.
• I've no idea if there is something happening on Wednesday next week, that's a new one on me.

In your shoes I'd try tomorrow, starting with AA.com. As with many things in life, there is sometimes a case for not trying too hard.

rssfed23

Thanks for the very informative post as always - I'll give it a go tomorrow, worth a shot! Yes; these were all MilesAAver rewards.

FWIW; the initial mention was only to try and add context to why I was phoning to begin with rather than doing it online as a suggestion put forward on here. I wasn't aware of anything I said after that to provoke a negative tone aside from asking for a couple more date searches (which I think is reasonable if your first choice isn't available). Having worked in call centres for a couple of years in my youth I always try to be sympathetic and polite to agents. The second time was more to point out that I think there's a wider computer issue outside his control and that that I wouldn't waste any more of his time asking for more dates or routes (despite me needing to book some similar routings). I only went to "poke the bear" with the LHR > SLC idea after he made the comment about FT and his own knowledge about what was going on. But upon reflection yes; I could see how mention of how any source other than a BA employee or webpage could be "treading on toes" so to speak a bit and there were perhaps better ways to phrase it. The conversation here although long when typed was not everything in the call. For example after the first time he called me Bobby I did say "sorry but could you call me Rob please" (as I do have a pet hate against being called Bobby) and it's possible that also annoyed him and why he proceeded to use Bobby 3 more times during the call.

Thanks for all the extra information you posted as well - mostly all new information for myself and as I've only recently started travelling to the US a lot (and this will only increase) the info on AA/BA connections and redemptions is much appreciated.

Anonba

cameramaker

Tafflyer

ElmhurstNick

I just tried for a route I need in August, and was told there was no availability, and that if the system wasn't available on the web then he wasn't going to see it either. When I asked if there was somebody with which to check, I was told no, and that there was no other way to check availability.

I'm too tired to argue tonight, so I will try again in the morning. AA does have it as a non-stop, but it's 25k AA vs. 15k BA, which is enough to irritate me into badgering them.

Has anybody tried bringing this up with the Twitter team? I haven't used my Twitter account in a couple of years, so I wouldn't know how to proceed that way.

rob_88

You could always try booking the shorter AA segment through Iberia? I know they show AA availability online - as long as you're booking a return - and contrary to the average experience in the IB forum, I've actually had pretty good experiences with their UK and US call centres.

saltytheseagull

This is the complete opposite of my experience on Thursday. The agent was wonderful and we chatted for a good 15 minutes while she worked on my AA reservation. Her first question to me was if I looked on AA.com, lol. Maybe she should train your gem of an agent.

orbitmic

eefor jfp

Doing a search on AA.com for those dates only gives connections which, I would think, would be more expensive than using AA miles (though you may still want to use Avios or only have Avios). They have to search segment by segment and with the prime flight numbers (AA or Alaska), or at least they did when they were having problems earlier so you have to give them the routing and the flight numbers (i.e.SLC-DFW AA 2195 connecting to DFW-JFK AA 1149 or whatever). Assuming you did this it just seems like the agent really didn't know what he was doing, since any milesaver flight should be bookable with BA Avios.

Pocalypse

I had the opposite experience a few months ago. I was calling to change a flight. I called the gold line, but was connected to the indian call centre. The agent was very friendly, and when discussing the fare rules and different dates and prices (that I had looked up beforehand), he asked me where I got some of my information from. I mentioned google flights, but then he said 'Have you heard of flyertalk?'. I said yes, and he mentioned he visits almost every day and has learnt a lot from here, and that he loves the site.