Airline booking question
 

Hi all,
Can anyone explain why I can't book certain carriers to certain destinations even though they fly there? Specific example is a one way trip in business class on emirates from Athens greece to Washington is 2k, but I can't book a flight from iad to ath, only the trip back. When I go to emirates website, and put starting airport as iad, Athens is removed from the destinations. So essentially I can't book a RT on emirates from the U.S. even though they fly to the destination...why is that?
Thanks

Do they have a multi city option? Try Athens-DXB-IAD
How far out are you looking? Reservations are only possible 330 ~ 350 days out depending on the reservation system used.
Are you looking for a specifc date? They many not fly every day (but with EK thats unlikely)

I'm looking at leaving IAD on May 1.
I tried multi-city booking and at first it seems to be accepting it, but then says "Sorry, there was a system error while your itinerary was loading. Please try again." I did IAD-DUB on May 1 and DUB-ATH on May 2...any other thoughts?

DUB is Dublin, Ireland. DXB is Dubai

Even with DXB, it's likely an invalid routing. My guess is Emirates doesn't have a Washington to Athens rate. You'd be overflying Athens by over 2000 miles, meaning youre adding 4000 miles to the trip from Washington to Athens -- which is only 5000 miles total.

If you really want to do this, buy two separate tickets. It will price as a WAS-DXB flight and a DXB-ATH flights.

Emirates does not file a fare between IAD and Athens which could be part of the problem.

Thanks everyone.
I think I will use saver *A points to do a one way business class to Athens and pay for the emirates return...I've never seen EK options of 2k for business and 3k for first class...others agree that 3k first class is a steal for EK?

I just went back to the emirates site and had no problem looking for fares from Athens to Washington DC. I was seeing around 3K EUR for Business Roundtrip. First class was double that.

I'm wondering if it an issue with emirates website. Sometimes i get error, sometimes i dont, Sometimes city pair shows and other times it doesnt. Worst case book over the phone.

You would be wise to check this plan carefully before you commit yourself to anything. A one-way Saver *A ticket IAD-ATH using UA miles will cost you half the miles of a RT (plus some fees), but a one-way cash ticket for the return may cost far more than a RT cash ticket. It seems to me improbable that Emirates is able to sell an ATH-DXB-IAD ticket but not an IAD-DXB-ATH ticket.

That's what I thought, but I called today and was told that they can't fare a ticket iad-ath, but can do ath-iad. Doesn't make sense to me either, but the representative says it happens all the time. I got *A from iad for 57,000 business class and return on A380 via dxb first class for $2800. Doubt even if they could do RT it would be cheaper than this, but maybe EK is not what it used to be?

Maybe some new restriction against end on end ticketing in the markets (cant string together 2 separate fares)?

I did notice the one way price is higher than 1/2 the RT price but not by a significant amount. I can tell you over on the Alaska Airlines forum someone was trying to add infant on to one way SFO-DXB-CDG award booking at 10% of the adult cash fare. The Adult cash fare one way in First class was $23,000 USD due to needing to price as 2 separate one way journeys since there was not a through fare filed.